Saturday, July 3, 2021

Retirement, Quilting and Canning

 I've been retired for a month now. I Love It! I was worried I'd be bored, but I almost feel like I'm working harder now than I was when I was actually working. The only difference now is I can stop what I'm doing and sit in my chair to rest up. Ha!

I've been canning quite a bit, I'm enjoying making jellies and jams again. I didn't realize how much I'd missed doing that.  


I haven't been quilting near as much as I thought I would either. I've finished the top of my BH Mystery Quilt 'Grassy Creek', it's still not my favorite, but I feel like it's okay now. I put a very light gray outer border on instead of the string pieced border she called for, to me it made the quilt 'muddy' looking. I think once it's quilted I'll like it. 



I've also finished my Civil War Reproduction Quilt of 6" Ohio Stars. It's a favorite that I'm pretty sure I'll keep for myself.


I've begun quilting on a Mary Engelbreit quilt for my sister. She loves all things ME. I've been collecting ME fabric for at least 5 years. It's gotten very hard to find, I'm sure she hasn't designed any fabric for years. Then I couldn't decide what pattern I wanted to use. I finally decided on just set-in circles and an extra wide black ric-rac in the border and a little something to personalize it for my sister. There were plenty of ME 'sayings' to pick from. But this one was my favorite. 


I should have it completed by the end of this week. I only have two more rows of circles to quilt and it will be finished. And that's all the quilt related things I've been working on lately. I've only done a little on my Temperature Quilt, and I'm a month behind. I should catch up pretty fast if I spend a day working on it.

I've decided the next quilt I'm loading will be my 'Lollipop' 1930's reproduction quilt. I'm anxious to see it quilted.

Well,  I hope you all have a very Happy 4th of July! God Bless America!
Happy Quilting,
Kris