Category Archives: RSC

1st – 7th January. Blue Ridge Beauty & RSC.

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It’s been a lovely week here, weather not too hot and I’m finally up and able to walk around again.  I’ve spent lots of time at the sewing machine and in my sewing room decluttering.

Rainbow Scrap Challenge. The colour for January is green. I had heaps of green 1.5″ strips so I have made little trees. I might make a Christmas wall hanging with these, not sure yet but having fun with this.

Kathryn Kerr 365 Challenge.  This challenge is making a block a day for a year. The final quilt is really beautiful, with lots of very small blocks. I’m using green and Autumn colours for this. It’s a free challenge and her patterns are well written. I have several on them waiting in my ‘make’ list.

American Patchwork & Quiltings UFO Challenge. I’ve listed 12 projects to work on and hopefully complete this year. Blue Ridge Beauty is my project for January and I’m finally up to putting the top together. It’s taking quite a bit of concentration to ensure its correct so it might take me a few days. But I’m excited to see it coming together.

Donations.  I posted these lap quilt tops off to Comfort Quilts Against Cancer. 

 

 

 

Home. The bookcase is progressing nicely, undercoat is done and now the final coat of paint should be done later this week. Can’t wait till it’s finished and I can move on to the next room! We also have a new front verandah being installed later this week which should cut down the heat in living room quite a bit.

 Reading. I want to get back to more reading this year, including the 1001 Books to Read before you Die List which I made no progress on last year at all. This week I’m reading:

Legends & Lattes – Travis Baldree. After decades of adventuring, Viv, the orc barbarian is ready to retire and open up a coffee shop. I’m enjoying this, its a short, easy, cozy read.

The Nightingale – Kristin Hannah. “The story of two sisters in France during World War II and their struggle to survive and resist the German occupation of France. The book was inspired by the story of a Belgian woman, Andrée de Jongh, who helped downed Allied pilots escape Nazi territory.”  I’m listening to this on Audible and its really good, great story and a good narrator.

Linking up with: SoScrappy,  Oh Scrap

RSC – Blue Ridge Beauty

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About 4 years ago I made a start on Blue Ridge Beauty – a beautiful Bonnie Hunter quilt pattern that I really wanted to make. But it has been put away for at least 3 years now and when I saw that aqua/teal was the RSC colour for September I knew it was time to get back to work on this UFO.

After I found, unpacked and counted all my blocks, I had 230 four patches to make and 28 half square triangles. So for the first three weeks of the month thats all I worked on and I’m happy to say I now have all the small blocks made – ready to be trimmed up.

I did make four of the larger blocks and I love the way the pattern is turning out! My plan is to just poke along with it now in between other projects.

September has been a productive month all round here. I’ve started volunteering a couple of hours a week tutoring and am really enjoying it. At home we’ve continued working on cleaning up the garden and are waiting on a quote to get some long overdue retaining walls built. We’ve had several tradespeople in quoting for various jobs inside and also got security cameras installed. I feel that we are settling in to good routines now and retirement is starting to feel like the ‘norm’ rather than a holiday.

We also finalised the sale of our investment property and have paid off the mortgage. After years of working we are now fully debt free. I remember years ago when we had a lot of debt ( my blog was originally a personal finance blog) and the stress associated with that. I used to listen to Dave Ramsay and it seemed so far away to think we could ever be fully debt free, but here we are – living like no-one else after years of living like no-one else. So now our finances are very simple and not something I stress over or spend much time on anymore which is a big change for me.

I’m trying to get back in the habit of more regular blogging again so will do better in October. I’ve always wanted to do Moda Blockheads and this year I finally am! Loving it so far so will post  those blocks shortly.

Linking up with: SoScrappy, and OhScrap

RSC, Owl & Hare Hollow.

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I’ve been plodding along with the embroideries from the Owl & Hare Hollow quilt and this week I finished this one.  I am enjoying doing embroidery again and I want to get these all finished before Christmas.  I had not tried EPP before and didn’t really enjoy it so I am probably going to change some of the blocks to avoid it.

I had heaps of 1.5″ yellow scraps so I’ve made lot of 2 patches. I might use them for a postage stamp quilt or an Irish Chain, not sure yet.

Made a few more of these blocks.

We spent three days this week out in the garden, clearing away overgrown shrubs, pruning trees and taking rubbish to the dump. It looks much better now but still lots more to do in our very overgrown garden this week. The weather has been lovely for working outside, cool in the mornings and 17 -19C by mid-morning.

This week I want to start making the Owl & Hare Hollow blocks, sew my aqua scraps, finish two donation quilts and declutter my pantry.

Linking up with SoScrappy, Oh Scrap & Kathys Quilts