2016: Another attempt

Happy New Year!

New Year's Day: a new year and a blank page to write on. Gone are the half finished saved blogs of last year, gone are the downer days, gone are the not so charitable thoughts, and not so gone are the UFOs of quilting and other 2 Busy Hands endeavors. Today brings all anew and it will only be what I make of it. So here I am, a blank page staring me in the face asking to be written on and I am only being positive.

Now remember, positivity is my word this year. So 2015, in a positive vein, what hapened in the world of Shirley's 2 Busy Hands?

As always, travel is a big part of our life and we did a great amount of it, both large and small. Why even a day trip can be exciting and give one a major experience. And in this context, my 2 Busy Hands often took a back seat and yet, always with a project near at hand.

The positive that came out of devastation, a fire in the storage unit where I keep my stashes, allows me now to downsize and update. What more could one ask for? Oh I lost some favourites but I will soon have more favourites and new challenges.

Like last year, I will once again join in the Stashbusters' UFO Challenge, even though I have only those projects that just happened to be in the RV at the time. I had cleaned a lot of them out so the number is low. Along with the UFO Challenge, I will also limitedly partake of the Numbers Game. And guess what, the low number is a number that I happen to have! I will always have a low number as they are between 1 and 10 but the higher ones I will find myself working on the last one for sure. For January, this month, the numbers are

3(small) and 51(large). 

My list contains:

	Description	Date started
1	OUR Quilt - Sampler queen	2014
2	Row by Row x 2	2014
3	Mom's Quilt	2014
4	Halloween/T-Day table topper	2015
5	NYB	2015
6	DS#1 Quilt	2015
7	DS#2 Quilt	2015
8	DIL #2 Quilt	2015
9	DGDog #1 Quilt Toby	2015
10	DGDog #2 Quilt Buddy	2015
11	Dash Cover	2015
12	Row x Row x 2	2015
13	DGD 2nd pillowcase	2015

Some of these from 2015 are very recent additions. [snicker, snicker] Of course, the fun begins as I try to do something about this list. Photos? Can I be persistent in posting them? We shall see. It is one of my "want to do's for this year.

And then, to make things even more exciting and jumbled up, I joined or at least committed to being a part of a 365 [day] Challenge out of Australia.

 This is a small part of this quilt. It is supposed to be 90" square when done but I am thinking mine will no dobt be smaller.

I am already a little late in that I just downloaded the information and decided on the colours. But the early blocks are simple ones and I will be able to get them done real fast to catch up. Of course, me thinks I will always be playing "catch up", starting this next week. We are heading out on our first jaunt of the year - a trip to New York City with our granddaughter Brooke.

As well as quilting I have UFOs under the headings of knitting, needlework and cross stitch. I will never ever want for a project, that is for sure. Some are large and others are small and portable. These go along with me when we travel. I did manage to finish up a 2015 knitting UFO - a toque and even putting a pom pom on it. Now I have to wait for more yarn to make a scarf and a pair of mitts. This will go to my mother for her charity senior's knot group that give to underprivileged children in her city. The children live in a very cold area during the winter and often go to school without any covering and warmth at all. This helps out a bit. Now to finish up a cold weather coat shawl and a brightly coloured spring/fall sweater (finally got more yarn right before Christmas).

I had numerous needlework UFOs but am unsure how many I actually have left here in the RV. I do know that the Christmas Crackers are here so they will be done before anything else. That will get a nice little pile out from beside my Laz-e-boy.

And last but not least, I will keep track of expenditures and busting. 

Can I do it? I will certainly give it a good try......

Stashbusters Numbers Game

Every year I rejoin the Stashbusters UFO Challenge as it invigorates me to finish some of the projects that I have on the go. 2015 is no different. What is different is the addition of a Numbers Game this year. In this challenge 2 numbers are drawn at the beginning of each month and those are then the corresponding UFO projects as listed that you work on for that month. You don't have to necessarily complete them, but you do have to work some on them. What a great incentive for people like me.

January's numbers were give a few days early because of the holidays. These numbers then were #8 and #35. For me this was my Spicy Spiral UFO for #8. This was a revisiting of a UFO that was color coordinated for our previous RV. So I added a coordinating color from the newer RV and renamed it Old Meets New.

As I didn't have a #35 listed, the last number listed takes it place and for me that was #25, the microwave bowls for DGD which she should have had for Christmas. Great way to push me to get her bowls done and sent off to here. They were completed and off within a week of our return from the cruise (with her).

And then came February's numbers, #2 and #64. Again as my UFO list doesn't go as high as this, I was designated to work on the last listed one which is OUR Quilt - a sampler quilt  made out of a red/silver/grey/black medley.

 So far I have made 6 blocks out of a total of 16 blocks. Just a few more to go here. This will be a holiday quilt for our bed and as such will be a slightly oversized queen size. Luckily for me it doesn't have to be completed until the end of November.  

#2 on the other hand happened to be a quilt,  Christmas Toys that would be found in the storage unit, not the RV. Lucky for me I knew exactly where it was in the unit and we were already scheduled for a couple of days of cleaning and revamping in it. So I was able to get it out and bring it. Horrors on horrors, I found that it is simply too small to be anything but a baby cuddle quit. I sure didn't realize that was how small it was when I was piecing it in Panama in 2010. Up it went onto my makeshift design wall (hanging from the valence in the main area of the RV) for reviewing, mulling and planning.  And to add insult to injury, not only did I find the flimsy, but I also found 2 more panels each different presentations of the same venue along with the coordinating fabrics. 

 Guess I will simply cut up the coordinating fabrics and make kits out of them and hence they will become UFOs for next year if I don't get them done this year! They will stay here in the RV with me at least until I either start to work on them or they begin to irritate me. Then they will be returned for awhile to the storage unit.

And now, here we are in March and 2 more numbers have presented themselves; #7 and 17. Well, #7 was completed in December (DGS#1s quilt, a Christmas present) and I never took it of my list. So once again I am going to be replacing it, but this time with continuing to work on February's numbers My #17 is my Rainbow Jane, a very longterm project as the blocks are small and often using techniques that I am not overly thrilled with. This is something that I can work a little on but here again, I only have one of the 24 BOM kits that make up this quilt here with me and no trip to the storage unit in the foreseeable future. I think that I have completed maybe 5 or 6 of the 225 in total. Yes, when I looked it up, it was 5 completed blocks, 4 blocks and 1 triangle.  

 This doesn't show the finished triangle so I have to now update the Rainbow Jane blog as well as find the photo of the green "spanish moss" triangle and put it into the template. I will be able to work on the ones that I have here with me and that will work for this part of the challenge. Both surely won't help me finish up a UFO however. 

Interspersed between working on the Numbers Game, I also worked on other UFO's and projects. The Main one for me was to finish up Danny's Request[ed] quilt. He wanted one that wouldn't get too dirty, or at least show that it was dirty when he came in from bicycling and sat on the beige la-z-boy. This one, per request, had to cover the whole chair as well as the foot rest so that he could rest his "sweaty sunscreeny legs" on it. It became a 60x90" Jelly Roll Race, quilt-as-I went, interpretation. As I found the colure rather dull and dreary, I added splashes of brilliant strips in his favorite colors of lime green and pinks. 

 Oddly enough, however, these colors go great in our bedroom. This is good as I still have 2 jelly rolls of the same colors left and will now plan an everyday quilt for the bed.

After having completed DHs quilt,  my main focus in the UFO Challenge turned to DGS#2s quilt. Today I got it to the flimsy stage and will get it off to the longarmer in the morning, as it is way too big for me to tackle on my Miss Betsy easily. It is 52x88" as DGS#2 is now 6'4" and still growing at 16y/o. (Way too long for me to hold up and show the true length of it - me at 5'6").  The original pattern was called Bohemian Quilt by Joanie Holton & Melanie Greseth of Tailormade by Design (found in Quiltersworld, Winter 2014). I am unsure yet as to what I will call it, but it has to be something that suits both the style of the quilt and my DGS#2.

As I go along, working on the not identified numbers but listed UFOs, I find other quilts in some state of having been worked on in the past and keep adding them to the list. And so it goes, working towards the end result in the Numbers Game and UFO Challenge and that is to reduce the numbers of UFOs and subsequently the stash. 

As a no-buy rule does not apply in this household, I am sure that I will accumulate more stash before the year is out, even though I try to pick a project that is stash oriented first. Think that I will have to start keeping tract of the "in vs out" and see if I am reducing any at all. 

Celebration of February

February is a great month for Danny and me: both have birthdays, Valentine's Day, and anniversary. To celebrate this year we took a quick car trip to Port Aransas on the Texas Coast. We also decided that this would be a great place to bring the grands for Spring Break.

 The weather was cold and rainy most of the time but it sure was refreshing. The skies were grey, overcast and often times rainy.

The car tripping allowed for more knitting on the second cowl. It is slowly getting to the right length of 54+" but I did have a visit from Mr. Rippit. Had moved the ribbing by one stitch and boy what a look that gave. LOL  Am inching slowly forward as we move the RV however, and now only have about 10inches left to do. Being a "car/RV trip only" project, and no further tripping after this one in the foreseeable future, it might take a bit to get it done. Our RV moving will only be around one area within a radius of about 25 miles.

Hoteling it when the evening weather outside is cold and blustery allows for more work to be done on the Christmas cracker as well.

I got all the beads on and finished to the point where I have to gather or ruffle some flair. As I have never done this, it will be an interesting learning experience. There are no instructions on how to do it so will be doing some trial and error I am sure.

My main focus for this month will be trying to complete a UFO Monkeys Jumping on the Bed and doing another mug-rug for the month of February with Love being the moniker. For the quilt, I am doing some playing with Superior Threads Glitter and the different embroidery motifs on the machine.

I had gotten to the last square and Miss Betsy started to squeak on me. I called a service centre and got "Oh Oh, you better bring it in" which I ended up doing once we got to the Corpus Christi area. In the meantime I inched my way along trying to finish up the basic square and inner border on the quilt so that I could do the outer border on Mr. Brother. Also had Miss Betsy serviced and yet, horrors upon horrors, had it back within 36 hours. Can't beat that - didn't even have time to get out Mr. Brother in her stead. So now Mr. Brother is now in being serviced. The only thing left on the quilt is the outside border, the binding, and the label. Can I do it?

The mug-rug will use up some of the fabric FQs that I got at the Waco "Winter Wonderland Quilt Show" - Stonehenge's Sweetheart grouping.

 This is what I have to work with.

I have an idea but am not sure how it will work out. Here too time will tell.

 basted, ready to work with. I was going to put hands being held on it but I didn't ave any flesh colored stash and as I want it all to be stash, .....

As we are planning on being in one place for greater lengths of time this month and next, I got out Rainbow Jane and restarted her. I have updated the website found on the right of the blog. I actually finished the second block

and printed off instructions for 2 more blocks, one square and one triangle, but not the templates. The templates come from the software and I think that is still in the storage unit. Drats! Maybe I can copy them from the book. When I reviewed the blocks found in the first series I found that I am probably going to get over my aversion to curves in quilting piecing - there is lots of it. But for now, more traditional piecing. Man, the pieces are tiny, fiddly and hard to match up even with paper piecing. I can see why people take forever to make one of these. I even managed to get the template onto Photoshop where I can add the finished blocks to it.

Now that we are settled in for 10 days, I will hopefully finish both the quilt and the mug rug and start a couple more of the Rainbow Janes.

Happy New Year ...

Happy New Year to all my friends out there. May your 2014 be filled with health, happiness and prosperity within whatever life may bring you. This will be a good year and attitude has a lot to do with how it is perceived. For me it is going to be a great year!

I look forward to getting back to the US in a few days where I will be able to once again get at my various endeavors. I have joined the Stashbuster's UFO Challenge again this year and due to timing will probably have to pay a forfeit right away. I am #11 on the list and with all those who state they are close to finishing, it probably won't be many days hence 'til I am crowned queen.  That is the fun of this group.

I also read an inspirational quote a few days back and felt the call. "Today is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one." by Brad Paisley. Life is what you make of it and only you can make the deciding factors, so I decided to rite on the blank page, each of the 365 pages. Although this literal meanng is far from what he meant, I am choosing to see it that way as I have already decided to make the best of every ebb and flow that comes my way. Not a "NYE resolution" but rather a goal; to record my progress through my 64th year on this earth, as I choose to live it, along with my thoughts and observations.

My journey will be documented on my blog:     http://travelinduo.net/2014/Index.html

Enjoy and have a great one!