To Do Tuesday - 2nd week of January & 15 Minutes Report

To Do Tuesday, 15 Minutes to Stitch Report, and other linkies

Last week's goals:

1. make one block a day this week.  ✔

Here are the ones I have not posted yet.  They are my January round robin blocks.  I made these  for three other ladies in exchange for the wonky house blocks they will be making for me.

Many of the quilters in this group are beginners.  That is ok, I like mentoring them because I was a beginner once upon a time. I generally try to pick a block pattern that is difficult to "mess up" and can be trimmed down to a size of my choosing without cutting any points off.  While I enjoyed making the pink spiky one, I worry a little how the beginners will fare with it.  I would have never chosen it.

The grey and white block concerns me some.  She had us make the Missouri Star Quilt Company method.  I LOVE the Missouri Star Quilt Company and their videos; however, the way they have you use layer cakes to make half square triangles is a mess.  That method's result is all bias outside edges of those hst units which makes setting together a nice, straight quilt rather difficult ESPECIALLY when it comes time to add borders.  Even though this method is simple and fun, I do not endorse it.

2. Do some hand work on my bag.  ✔

Hand applique' is complete.  Some embroidery is left - bottom row.

3.  "Move" every day.  What I mean by that is to get a little exercise in whatever form I can fit in. ✔

This week I cleaned and vacuumed the church which involved a lot of walking, swam laps, and spent two nights loading a trailer (one load each night) with broken and cut tree logs/bark.  I also went walking for 30 minutes in the dark because that was the only time of day I could get out to do it.

4. Get some outside time. ✔

5 hours and 51 minutes to be exact - woah!  That is a lot for me in January after work.  Much of it was in the dark.

5. Sew 15 min a day ✔

6.  Text a picture to my family in the photo challenge.  This week it was "something scary".  Here is what I came up with. ✔

We had to fall a tree at our shop.  It was a huge cottonwood tree that was leaning heavily in the direction of the road.  The only branch was quite long and on the "road" side.  Mr. Hubby cut on it for quite some time with his chain saw, and before we knew it, it was dark outside.  We had two of our trucks tied off to the tree to help it fall away from the road where cars were driving by.  On the final fall, hubby backed his truck up to pull the tree over while I was supposed to back up in my truck to pull it away from the fence.  I did my job, honest, but it wasn't enough.

Moral of the story is this...Man verses tree:  man wins (finally)

Tree verses fence:  tree wins.

My sweetheart and I did a great job!  It missed the road, but that limb didn't quite clear the fence.

This second photo shows the tree/fence situation a little better.

My daughter's "scary" photo entry was of the "head stone stamped results" of a board game they were playing as a family called "Oregon Trail".  I cannot show the photo because the dry erase board had headstones with their names and birthdates/game death dates.  That was her "scary" picture.  The parents (my daughter and son-in-law both died of dysentery along the trail).  Below is the funny photo to represent that.

My little grand sons died along the trail as well, one of rattle snake bite and the other drowned in a river. 

The only Oregon Trail survivor was my grand daughter who broke her arm and barely made it.  My daughter hopes she was adopted out to a nice family.

All joking aside, I do feel horrible for the difficulties our pioneers suffered settling the rugged "West".  I think that while fun for the family, this game was also educational for the kids to learn about the hardships that really happened along the trail.  My littles grandson was super sad that he died.  My granddaughter who survived was very protective of her "clean water" card and would not let go of this precious resource.

7. Daily journaling ✔

This week's goals:

1. Finish a Celestial Star block

2. Cut out the pieces for my bag

3.  "Move" every day.  What I mean by that is to get a little exercise in whatever form I can fit in.

4. Get some outside time.

5. Sew 15 min a day

6.  Cut a few Chevron Braid Round Robin blocks into rectangles

7. Piece Nutmeg $ Building Block BOM

8. Daily Journaling

9. Photo Challenge

15 Minutes to Stitch Report

I only sew 6 days a week; hence, 6 days shows 100% for me.

This year I, for myself am listing a bit of what I worked on daily.

For some reason, I like to see how many projects  I work on in a given month.  Generally I focus on one monthly goal, but adding variety keeps me more interested.  The yellow shows what I worked on this month.  This is a complete list of all projects I have started and includes two in red I intend to start.  It would be ideal to finish the scrub stitchin' bag BEFORE starting my Aussie/NZ memory quilt to keep the balance of starts and finishes.

More units in my Celestial Star Block.  I hope to finish the other half this week.

I am also linking up with Patchwork and Quilts.