Two little finishes to start my tally in June 2025.
Drawstring bags
Author: balancecj
Stashbusters check-in March 2024
I’m aiming to get a bit of control on my love of buying fabric, so this year I’m tracking my stash, as suggested by Carole of From My Carolina Home, for example in her post for Stashbusters February 2024.
I’m grateful to Jeni from Incolororder for her spreadsheet to track usage, which I got from her post How I track my stash.
I finished one quilt
I had one finish in February: the grey-yellow HSTs that I haven’t blogged about yet. This is a baby quilt, only 36″ by 38″, that I’m calculating at 3 yards altogether.
Three quilt shop visits seemed necessary
I realised I needed wadding to finish Jools’s quilt, and it seemed like too good an opportunity to pick up a few extra bits from Cotton Patch to add to my order of assorted wadding.
Then I needed a specific extra fabric to finish my Klimt star, and called in at Sew Creative – where a few more fat quarters jumped into my basket too.
And then I also needed green thread for Jools’s quilt, so took a detour to go to a shop new to me – New Stitches near Andover. Result: another jelly roll and a few fat quarters.
I find duvet covers hard to resist
We needed a new duvet cover due to the old one getting worn out, and I added one in (allegedly) “gold” for the Klimt star that turned out to be a dark mustard colour that went quite well.
A couple of extra covers jumped into that order from Dunelm, and I was proud of myself for actually deciding that I did not need them and returned them. Sadly, the display of teddy bedding at a very cut price near the checkout undermined my resolve and a double teddy duvet came home with me.
Overall, a lot more came in than went out
I didn’t do a post for January – that was 6.1 IN, nothing OUT.
February Fabric IN = +20.1
February Fabric OUT = –3
February Net Total ( + In, or – Out) = 17.1
Year to Date (net total for the year, + In, or – Out) = 23.2
Reading: Michael Hobbes on obesity
Everything you know about obesity is wrong, by Michael Hobbes.
Michael Hobbes is a journalist who now earns his living as a podcaster. I learned about his work when my friend recommended the podcast Maintenance Phase, which he co-hosts with Aubrey Gordon. They discuss and debunk fads and misinformation about diets and fitness – or they used to, because as I write (February 2024), we haven’t had any episodes in a while. I hope they’ll be back.
It’s worth listening to the old episodes. A personal favourite of mine: The worm wars, where they dissect the idea that de-worming children will radically improve education in deprived countries. But that has less relevance to my actual everyday life than classic episodes such as Is being fat bad for you? or The Body Mass Index.
Not enough time to listen? The short versions are:
- Being fat is not of itself bad for you. Fat people can be healthy, and thin people can be unhealthy.
- The Body Mass Index is highly misleading. It was only ever intended as a way of assessing whole populations, and it’s not even a very good way of doing that.
I’m hoping to see the film about Aubrey Gordon, released recently: Your fat friend.
Meanwhile, I’ve been re-reading a classic Michael Hobbes article: Everything you know about obesity is wrong. US-centric, but resonates for the UK too.
Hello and a finish – grey cushion
I made a thing. It’s in a chunky velvet yarn that I bought when I spotted it in B&M sometime in 2022. You can try searching the craft section on B&M but when I tried it today, they didn’t have any yarn listed at all – I’m glad I snapped up when I saw it.
Roll forward to this year, and I felt like a very undemanding project so started work on a throw using rows of basic stitches worked as three rows of the same. As I got into it, I realised that I hadn’t made a birthday present for my friend so I quickly put together this cushion based on the same idea, like this:
- Create a chain that’s a bit less than the width of the planned cushion
- Go back along the chain working double crochet into it
- Now go back along the chain again, working double crochets into the back loops of the chain. That’s your first round
- Keep working in rounds. I did three rounds of double, then three rounds of treble until the cover was the same height as my cushion pad
- I finished with a round of double, inserted the cushion pad and jiggled it about a bit to sit nicely in the corners, then used a long length of yarn to whipstitch at the top.
It took about two and a half 100g balls of velvet yarn.
My friend was very happy with it. It’s a soft and squishy cushion that was nice to give in January.
Bernat seems to do a similar velvet yarn – Bernat Velvet available at Wool Warehouse – which comes in 300g balls that might be enough for one cushion.
One monthly goal: May 2021
My quilting life started in 2020, then got packed away for Christmas and didn’t get restarted until after Easter. I decided that if I’m ever really going to get my quilting going, I needed to set one monthly goal (idea borrowed from one of the blogs that I follow).
My monthly goal for May 2021 has been to achieve a blog post. Here we are! It was a bit more complicated than it ought to have been, because I had to get over my reluctance to use my new laptop, find my travelling mouse and mouse-mat, and locate the appropriate passwords. Fears conquered, necessary stuff found, done.
Now I’m going to set my One Monthly Goal for June, which is:
Try some free motion quilting
It means conquering another fear: trying the free motion quilting (FMQ) foot on my Janome. And the fear of making a quilt sandwich, which only means cutting a bit of scrap wadding and using a little bit of basting spray. It even looks like the weather will be good enough to use the spray outdoors as I should, so I’ve chosen a good month.
And now, because every blog post deserves an image: my progress on Bonnie Hunter’s Grassy Creek mystery quilt, that started at the end of November 2020. I’m still on Clue 1, which was a bunch of grey and yellow half square triangles in sets of 8. For my half-sized quilt, I think I need 11 or 12 sets and I’ve got 8, pictured, with some short-changed sets where something went wrong. Typing this has helped me to realise that I’m going to have a go at each clue and making some complete blocks, and will then go back to fill in the blanks. I’m not sure I really love Bonnie’s finished quilt but I do think that learning from Bonnie is a good thing to do. The mystery isn’t available any more but you can get the pattern.
Restarting on the balance
Randomly restarting this blog. Catching up:
- 2018 was OK until I landed in hospital with double pneumonia and then had a fall in hospital so emerged walking with a Zimmer frame
- 2019 was about getting back to walking again and a busy time professionally
- 2020 was … well, you know about pandemics
I’m still seeking balance, and part of that has been to start quilting.
Quilting has been an ambition for years
I’ve longed to do piecing of fabric forever, as the combination of fabric and small pieces making patterns is so compelling for my visual mathematical crafty brain. Maths has always been about patterns for me, not numbers. Piecing seems like doing jigsaws but where I get to choose the picture. It seems like counted cross-stitch but on a bigger scale with a quicker finish, and without needing the extra-strong light and magnifier that I need for cross-stich now.
Maybe just maybe I’ll keep updating
Today I planned to talk about quilting the ‘grassy creek’ mystery. Then it seems odd not to have any roundup. So here we are.
Walking again
After my last post in 2015, we descended into a raft of health problems.
2016 and 2017 were about health problems
The OH had a catheter inserted to start peritoneal dialysis because of his polycystic kidney disease (a genetic problem); that took up most of 2016. I had a tricky year professionally.
Then both of us had a tough time in 2017: he had a successful kidney transplant but with some complications that took a lot of time to recover from. I had health problems that landed me in hospital for four months in total and also took a lot of time to recover from.
It’s great to be walking again
I tried my best to keep up my 7000-steps-a-day target but it wasn’t easy. This year, I set myself a target of 50,000 steps a week for 50 weeks of the year.
I’m currently about 70,000 steps behind, due to a couple of weeks that were blighted with a combination of snow and colds. I’m also managing to get to just over the 50,000 steps each week, so I’m gradually eating into the deficit.
I enjoy taking the same picture
I often follow the same route: across the water meadow, along the canal, and into town. At first, I needed several rests to achieve it but now it’s quite easy again.
I take the same photos nearly every time: from three of the fenceposts near the bridge. This one shows the little river and the fishing platform.
Walking a thousand miles
This year, I gave myself a target of walking 1,000 miles.
My theory: if I do my 3 miles a day, that’s 21 in the week. Another target; 10,000 steps four times a week. That should get me to 25 miles a week – and if I do that for most in weeks in the year, I ought to get there.
Well – I feel like I’ve missed that weekly target more often than I hit it. But somehow: I’ve made it to just over 1,000 miles.
Surprising but gratifying.
Three lovely weekends in a row (wrap up September)
The last two weeks have been a whirl.
Threw off the cold, somehow, and headed off for a very busy week in the US. An unexpected bonus was that my only day off, the Saturday, was perfect. Kind friends took me on a sightseeing trip in perfect weather – lunch at a 1950s diner in Anapolis, a drive to a pleasant walk in a nature reserve on the Maryland shore, and then a crab feast at a traditional crab shack. Even my friend taking a nasty fall and badly twisting her ankle didn’t dampen the proceedings too much. (It turned out to be a hairline fracture).
Back home into another unexpectedly lovely Sunday, perfect for a big family-and-friends party to celebrate my aunt’s 80th. Her garden, her pride and joy, was the ideal setting for a marquee decorated with amazing dahlias from my cousin – like her mum, a keen gardener.
Then, amazingly, a third weekend of gorgeous weather – this time in Cornwall. Sitting outside enjoying a coffee. Wandering up and down the hill. Chatting with dear friends.
Overall: walking – not nearly enough, but the hill at the weekend helped the floor count a fair bit
Weight: +2lb after the US trip. Back to +1lb after a week at home.
Another pesky cold
The week started so well, which seems odd to say when it was the anniversary of the death of a dear friend. We went to meet his family at Stowe Landscape Garden, and had a lovely day wandering around gently. We didn’t talk about him but we did think about him; getting together to do simple, family things was just exactly the sort of activity he most enjoyed.
After that: a cold set in. Another one. I’ve had more colds this year than I can ever remember; it seems like no sooner have I got over some minor issue than another one appears.
Luckily, it was just a cold. But no fun, especially as I was away at a conference. Felt too rough on the Wednesday evening to join in with the conference social thing and opted instead for buying a picnic in Marks and Spencers. Somehow, managed to miss my footing and fall full-length, with no damage apart from a badly bruised base of my thumb – another silly thing, painful for the evening.
After that, things started to look up again. The beautiful weather worked its magic, the conference talk went well.
Walking for the week: a bit rubbish.
Eating: not too bad. Still on -2lb.
Getting to balance 