A Little New Year Organization

I passed these up the first time they came on sale but when they came on sale again the week after Christmas I decided--despite really not wanting to spend any more money at that point--they'd solve a lot of other little annoying difficulties I was having, so I bit: the ArtBin cubes for their Super Satchel series. (Still on sale if you're interested!)

I'd had a couple of the ArtBin Super Satchel bins for awhile, but this fall realized they'd work better for embroidery storage than what I'd tried before. (I talk about this in episode 202 In Which I Organize Thread.) Once I had a few more bins--also bought on sale or with coupons from Joanns--I realized I didn't really have a good place to keep them all in a way that would be easy-access when I only wanted one bin at a time. Enter the storage cubes. I put them on a wish list but held out on ordering them until last week, and then got them put together this morning.

They work great. You can adjust the little sliders for the cubes to whatever size you need--as you can see, I've got three different sizes at the moment. The sliders mean that you can pull one bin out at a time--which is much better than stacking them on a shelf as I'd been trying to do before, meaning I'd have to pull three off to get at the fourth one down. Love this solution! And you can see that I even still have room to grow! Empty slots, and the middle-sized bin on the lower shelf is actually empty. Note that ArtBin has several different types of bins--it's specifically the Super Satchel series that fits in these cubes. I have another ArtBin that's too pudgy so it has to live somewhere else.

The cubes are not that hard to put together although the instructions could use some improvement. Still, if you've done this kind of furniture before it's a pretty familiar process. They also come with wooden dowels to put between the two cabinets so you can stack them two-high and it's pretty secure. (They don't recommend doing more than two as it would have a tippy-factor.)

I haven't gotten anything done over my vacation in the way of quilting or embroidery, but I'm spending much of the rest of today getting myself set up to have an embroidery project ready to go for TV time at night and maybe even finishing a sewing project or two. My last day off must have some creative work involved!

OT: My First StitchFix Box!

Don't forget about my 2017 Quilty Resolutions Giveaway!

Did I write about subscribing to StitchFix in a blog post or did I only talk about it on Twitter? Sorry--holiday amnesia, don't recall a thing. In a nutshell recap: As part of my efforts to update my wardrobe and actually have it be a wardrobe rather than a collection of random outfits that don't play nice together...I decided to try out StitchFix. This is a monthly subscription service that I'd read about on a lot of style blogs and decided I'd give it a few months' worth of a trial to see how it went. I got my first box yesterday and I just have to say, they hit it out of the park!

When you subscribe, you fill out an online form about your size, style, the type of clothes you're looking for (casual, work, party, etc.), and a few other things. They also encourage you to set up a Pinterest board where you've collected pictures of clothing/outfits you like. I did that, and it was really educational for me too as I realized I kept pinning variations on basically the same outfit over and over! Apparently I do have what is referred to as a "style formula." A stylist then chooses five items and ships them to you. You have up to three days to make up your mind what (if anything) you want to keep and what (if anything) you want to send back. They give you a return envelope and you just stick it in the mailbox or take it to the post office--easy peasy returns.

There's a monthly fee for the styling service, but that fee is then taking out of the cost of any of the items you choose to buy. The price for each item is listed on the invoice, but if you buy all five items in the box, you get a significant discount. This came into play for me on this box, as I'll describe below.

Since I work from home and I'm not traveling much for work until later this spring, I had them emphasize casual clothes for the time being. I had also made a note on my subscription form that it's very cold in these parts at this time of year. They did an excellent job paying attention! The five items I was sent work together in various ways and are great for layering. I was hosting Second Christmas (my side of the family) on the afternoon I got my box, and I immediately wore two of the items combined with one I already owned for the gathering. Woot!

(Apologies--I'm not great at styling clothing shots, so some of these might look a little weird. But you'll get the idea.)

The first item I tried on were the jeans, not really expecting much. After all, don't we have to try on umpteen pairs of jeans in the store before finding a pair that fits and is comfortable? Holy cow, these fit beautifully! Super comfortable, very flattering. The denim is really soft--I kept running my hands over my legs all evening because I couldn't get over how different they felt from my other jeans. My daughter told me I looked like a "modern Mom" in them, which I decided to take as a compliment. I wore them for my family gathering and got several compliments, especially once people found out they were mail order and fit me perfectly right out of the box!

To be clear, the price tag on these was about twice as much (and then some) as I've ever spent on a pair of jeans in my life. I'd never have bothered even trying these on in a store. But by the time I'd chosen which clothes I wanted and did the math, the discounts brought the item cost down to something much closer to my usual price-point for jeans. And these are such NICE jeans, I think I've learned a little bit of that "you get what you pay for" thing. These were definitely and immediately a keeper.

The next item I put on (with the jeans) was also immediately a keeper. I absolutely love this blouse. My husband also commented how much he liked it on me, which is saying something because the design has a paisley in it and he's always had an inexplicable hatred of paisley. The fabric is very lightweight which makes it perfect for layering now but will have a long seasonal life span. It also makes it great for wearing for entertaining when I'm spending most of the afternoon in the kitchen. I have a navy cardigan I threw on over it and had my Second Christmas outfit in the bag. 

Item number three (to be worn this weekend, and probably almost always) is this extremely soft cardigan. 

It's a little oversized on me (as I'm losing weight I'm between sizes at the moment so it's hard for me to accurately tell Stitchfix what to do), but I don't mind that for a cardigan like this, as I'd be layering it over long-sleeved shirts to ward off the chill in my home office. I hate feeling like I can't move my arms because I've got layers on--I don't think I'd have that problem with this cardigan. And the fiber blend (various synthetics) is super, super soft. Made for curling up on an armchair in front of the fire and reading, actually, which might be on the agenda for this weekend. 

I debated this one only briefly, but as I'd recently gotten rid of a big, comfy, gray cardigan that had developed some sort of itchy around the neck, it seemed destiny to be able to replace it so easily.

Item number four--another amazingly soft thing that you just want to curl up in. If I could turn this infinity scarf into a full-size quilt I would.

As you can tell, this scarf will easily go with all of the above, as well as several other things I've already got in my closet. My only quibble with it is that I'd like it to be a little longer. When I do the double-loop thing, it all sits up fairly close to my chin and I'd like a little more room there. But I've looked up different ways to use an infinity scarf so I think I'll find plenty of uses for it. And did I mention how soft it is? 

I have to say, I didn't think I had much navy blue in my wardrobe. It's not a color I gravitate towards. But when I took a few minutes to compare all four of these items to what I already owned, I found several new outfits I could make just incorporating these four pieces. Apparently my wardrobe is slowly becoming an actual wardrobe!

The final item is the only one I wasn't wowed by.

If it hadn't been for the discount, this one would've definitely gotten sent back. However, it turned out to be far cheaper to buy all five than it would've been to send only one or two back. Interesting math. That being said, I will get a lot of wear out of this sweater--just not likely in public much.

It's also super-super-soft. It's like curling up in the infinity scarf above, actually. Cozy on cozy. So I can see myself wearing it while I'm working at home, or running to the grocery store where I don't particularly care how I look. However, it's not a flattering design or shape on me. The color block makes me look, well, blocky, plus it just hangs straight; no shape whatsoever. It's a little hard to tell the color unless you're standing in certain light but it's a deep purple on top. I do have a fair amount of purple in my closet so I'd be able to mix it up with scarves and blouses underneath. I'll try styling it in a couple of different ways to see if I can make it look better than it does just wearing it straight up. 

For those of us who are style-challenged, they include a nifty little page with ideas for styling the items using other pieces. I got a couple of ideas from here for things I want to try using similar items in my wardrobe (or, at least, the same type of items--i.e., I have a dress that might work with the gray cardigan even though the dress is entirely different from what they pictured here). 

So--month one, thumbs up! If you're interested in trying out StitchFix, you could consider using my referral link here. I believe I'd get a little bit of a discount or something. Otherwise, just search for StitchFix on Pinterest or other social networking sites and check them out. I'm scheduled for my next delivery at the end of January so I'll keep you posted!

2017 Quilty Resolutions Challenge and Giveaway

Happy New Year! 

I know I'm a little late this year but that's because I've actually been spending a lot of time thinking about this!

As those of you who have been around awhile know, I have been in the habit of running a Quilty Resolutions Challenge (with related giveaway) every year. Each year I challenge my listeners/readers to come up with a few quilty-or-fiber-arts related resolutions around a particular theme, and then I draw names at random from the submissions for a giveaway prize. 

The tricky part is the theme. Every year, it's basically come out of whatever my personal challenge is that year. So this year I've been trying to figure out how to relate my biggest focuses in my life to a quilty resolution challenge. And here it is. The theme is...

Balance

• How can your quilty life bring more balance to your life?
• Do you need to address some imbalance in your quilty life?

This year's quilty resolution challenge is focused on a single concept, but there are two ways you can approach it.

On the one hand, many of us say that quilting, or embroidery, or weaving/spinning, or crochet (or, I suppose, even knitting, pshaw), or whatever, can bring us a sense of balance when our life gets busy or stressful. But we keep putting off the quilting/embroidery/fiber work until we get everything else done...which means it rarely has the opportunity to bring us balance.

On the other hand, perhaps we're getting chased by the Productivity Monster and it's our quilty/fiber life that's causing us a sense of unbalance. Quilting becomes an obligation--yet another more baby quilt to make for one more co-worker's sister's niece's college roommate, sigh. Or it becomes keeping up with the Janes-es who seem to be turning out completed projects every day and making us feel like complete slackers. Or it becomes beating ourselves up when we've been practicing FMQ for months and still can barely do a decent swirl and feeling like we may as well just throw in the towel because we'll always stink at this...

Our creative life should bring us a sense of balance. It should offer us the opportunity to grab a little zen, or work through our stresses, sadness, and even joy. It shouldn't become one more stressful task on our already overburdened to-do list nor should it be allowed to languish until that rare occasion we have a few moments free.

And yes, I'm preaching to myself here. But as I always say--I know I'm unique, but I'm not THAT unique. If I'm dealing with these questions, chances are a few of you are too. 

So for 2017, my Quilty Resolution Challenge to you is to look at your creative/fiber life through the lens of balance, and make one single resolution that will allow you--in whatever way you need to--find more balance through or within your quilt/fiber life.

Leave a comment below naming your one single resolution about balance! (Then make sure you enter using the Rafflecopter widget.)

I'll draw three names at random. Each winner will receive a set of four fat quarters--I'll choose which one y'all get! (Again, make sure you enter using the Rafflecopter widget--that's how I'll be drawing names.)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Challenge ends on January 15th, 2017. 

Looking forward to reading your ONE resolution! And may we all find more balance in 2017!

Fight the Funk Friday--In Recovery

This will be a short post because I'm really, seriously, very-much-determined to get as much rest as possible today. Read: I'm allowing myself to be a slug.

Sometimes Fighting the Funk is mostly cutting yourself serious slack and allowing your body time for recovery.

No, I've not been sick. I survived an 8 1/2 hour drive through blinding snow last night and (thank God) lived to tell about it. There were honestly a few times yesterday when I wasn't entirely sure what the end of the story would be.

I spent Wednesday and Thursday in Valley Forge, PA, for staff meetings and our Christmas lunch, plus I had brought my computer down to the computer center for them to do some updates and such that they can't do remotely. December's not usually that bad weather-wise for us--our big snow tends to hit in January. I've gone down every year in December and in 15 years only had to cancel due to snow once.

Driving down was fine, but Thursday was an entirely different matter. I wasn't able to leave the office until just before 3p which, under normal conditions would get me home by about 9p. In dry conditions, it's a 6 hour drive door to door. However, I knew the forecast for my home area--"lake effect snow," which is highly unpredictable and very difficult to actually forecast. The way the forecasts were reading, I'd either have smooth sailing or I'd be in trouble.

It turned out to be the latter. Let's suffice it to say I finally walked in my front door around 11:15p, totally fried. I'd had such a death grip on the steering wheel all the way home that my neck, back, arms, and hands were aching. 

Fortunately, I had a previously-scheduled massage therapy appointment this morning so that helped a whole lot. And now I'm reading magazines and doing embroidery and watching Murder She Wrote (my other "comfort TV") until it's time to start getting ready for my husband's office holiday party tonight. Cocktail dress and heels in my future. Need to rest up for that!

The end result...

Fight the Funk Friday--Back on Track!

My first "Fight the Funk" report is to say that, as you're reading this, I'm on a quilt shop hop with some of my quilty friends! I have some vacation days to burn up before the end of the year so I'm taking the rest of the Fridays in December off. This week I'm doing the "Mom Memorial Shop Hop" with some friends. This is a trip my Mom and I did several Decembers (I often end up taking Fridays off to burn up vacay). We would to Amish country and go to a few different fabric stores and then have a fabulous Amish lunch. Now, when I have a Friday off in December, I try to do this trip with some friends in memory of my mom, hence referring to it as the "Memorial Shop Hop." Unfortunately, the Amish restaurant Mom and I always went to is now closed, so we have a less-fabulous lunch, but I still spend a day with my friends and have fun! Definitely a great way to fight the winter funkiness.

I'm happy to report that my neck has been behaving itself this week. My PT was quite pleased by my progress at this week's appointment. Unfortunately, he's now given me the Epley maneuvers as homework. For those of you not "in the know," these maneuvers are basically designed to cause head spins. They're not fun--but they do eventually work to make the head spins go away. That being said, he worked me up to these. I've been in PT for about 5 or 6 weeks now and we didn't even go near doing these until this week--until I've made enough improvement that the Epley maneuvers don't make me want to wommit. I spin, but I don't seem to get nauseous--a HUGE improvement over past times I've tried these. So, yay.

I also beasted my session with my physical trainer this week (and last week, for that matter). What's an even better sign? I wasn't nearly as sore two days later as I expected to be. My body's starting to get used to this physical stuff! Yippee! My about-to-leave-trainer is going to work with the gym director to connect me with a new trainer who will be a good match based on what she knows I like to do, so hopefully I won't have any disruption in training when she leaves. I mostly want to get on a new trainer's roster before that January rush!

It's starting to get harder to do my hourly walks in the backyard because we've had some really cold winds this week, so my daily step count has slacked somewhat. The ambient temperature hasn't been too bad for December, but the wind makes it pretty biting. I've gotten bundled up a few times to make the trek but that adds time to the walks (it takes awhile to get all those layers on!) so it doesn't happen as often. I have had a couple of days, though, where I noticed in the evening that I was within a couple grand of my step goal for the day so I just paced the house while listening to a podcast through headphones. Antisocial (my husband was watching TV in the other room both times) but productive.

Not great weather for walking outside, but perfect weather for some healthy comfort food! My slow cooker and Instant Pot are getting real workouts these days--often both for the same meal.

Here's a recommendation for you: The Skinnytaste blog has fantastic, easy, healthy recipes. For those doing Weight Watchers she has the Smartpoints listed for each recipe. I bought both of her bookbooks: The Skinnytaste Cookbook and Skinnytaste: Fast and Slow. I've used a lot of recipes out of both of them and haven't had a clunker yet. The picture is her Slow-Cooker Bolognese Sauce from the Fast and Slow cookbook. I'm in serious love. DH doesn't like meat sauce so this is all mine. Woot! The recipe made enough that I've got some in the freezer along with my leftovers in the fridge this week. I had it on pasta the first night as my daughter had left some leftover spaghetti, but I've had it on cauliflower rice (thank you, food processor) and on spaghetti squash (thank you, IP) for lunch a couple of times since. Pasta is still best, but some days we have to make adjustments where we can! The cauliflower rice and spaghetti squash do the purpose, since it's all about the Bolognese anyway. 

Meanwhile, I used my Instant Pot to do a batch of brown rice the other day and then froze what I wasn't eating for dinner in ice cube trays like these (I don't have this brand but these are pretty much the same thing). I got the idea from one of my Craftsy classes last year but this is the first time I've done it. It's a 2" ice cube tray which is the equivalent of a half-cup serving. The rice freezes really well, and then you transfer the frozen cubes into a ziploc freezer bag. You just pull out as many cubes as you need for a particular meal. Since I'm the only one who eats brown rice, this is another great way to have fast, healthy meals on tap for lunch or dinner. (The brown rice was for Mexican Chicken Burrito Bowls, another Skinnytaste slowcooker dinner that I loved!)

It's good to be fully mobile again, I've been loving having meals ready and waiting for me when I get home from the gym at night, and in general, life has been good this week. I like weeks like that.

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Fight the Funk Friday--A Bit of a Setback

So I had a little bit of a set-back this week. 

When I went to the gym on Monday, I did a full arm strength-training set and about 30 mins of cardio. It wasn't much compared to what I've done before, and only one move was new but somewhere, something I did must've been too much for my neck (see previous post about vertigo and PT).

I woke up in the wee hours of the morning on Tuesday feeling like the back of my head was in a vise. Serious pain. Fortunately it didn't set off a major vertigo attack like it could have, just some mild head spins here and there. But my PT had shown me an app with a diagram of all the nerves, muscles, tendons, and ligaments that I've been having problems with and boy, if you'd colored all of that a really bright, angry, pulsing red, you'd have a visual depiction of what I was feeling. I ended up having to take Tuesday off from work because even after it had largely settled down by late morning, just sitting at the computer made it all start spasming again. I spent lots of cozy time with my neck heating pad and popping Excedrin. 

I already had an appointment with my PT set up for Wednesday morning so we talked through what had happened and my neck was clearly still super-reactive, so at his advice I was fairly careful of what I was doing the rest of the week to avoid having a relapse. That being said, in response to needing to avoid upper body stuff, my personal trainer had me do leg stuff--serious leg stuff!--Thursday. I'm going to hurt tomorrow. It's always worse the second day. Epsom salts in my future, I think. 

I used my Tai Chi Temple app on Tuesday. I didn't want to do anything that strained my neck so no gym, but the Tai Chi/Qi Gong moves helped me feel like I wasn't being a slug and gave me a nice stretch. That felt great. I highly recommend this app. You have to work your way through the training but you're still getting the benefits even in the training portion. So yay.

Sad trombone, though: I found out Thursday my much-loved personal trainer is going back to school in January (for physical therapy, so I have to applaud that), which necessitates her moving out of town. I knew when I signed up with a 23-year-old trainer it was likely going to be somewhat short term...I'd just hoped for a longer short-term. A few more appointments with her and then I'll just keep my fingers crossed that I enjoy my next trainer as much!

Oh, and hey--here's another benefit to focusing on being more active and such: my resting heart rate has dropped about 15 BPM since last spring! Woot! I'm now "very good" for women my age. It's nice to compare positively for anything these days! 

Fight the Funk Friday--Cautionary Tale

Let me be your Cautionary Tale. 

Between physical therapy, massage therapy, and working with my trainer, I've learned a lot about my body over the last several weeks.

To whit: My left side is whacked.

My vertigo is particular to my left side. In addressing the vertigo with the physical therapist, I've learned that the muscles and tendons on the left side of my neck are basically cement which is likely causing the vertigo. In addressing the cement-like muscles and tendons on my neck with my massage therapist, I've learned I've got scar tissue built up in my neck and shoulder muscles on the left. In asking my PT about that scar tissue, I've learned that it's probably due to repetitive motion injury from being on the computer for so many years. And in my session with my trainer yesterday at the gym, she had me doing a variety of exercises using one leg at a time or focusing on one side at a time, and I sailed through the right side on most of them and then was stumbling all over myself on the left side (slightly exaggerated, but you get the picture)--indicating my left side is fairly underdeveloped. Which is probably due to me overcompensating for the left-sided vertigo for years. Or the vertigo is because my left side is underdeveloped. Chicken. Egg.

Domino effect. One thing goes, and a whole bunch of stuff tumbles with it. Especially when you become a Woman of a Certain Age.

So let me be your cautionary tale--especially those of you who haven't yet hit middle age. What you do now matters. Don't wait until problems crop up (like laying in bed with your eyes closed taking Dramamine because the room won't stop spinning and it's making you want to wommit, as my sisters and I used to say). If I'd been more careful about moving throughout my day and stretching and giving myself regular breaks when I was in my 30s, I wouldn't be having to spend all this time and money on physical therapy and massage therapy now. 

Well, okay, I'd probably still be paying for massage therapy. But it would be a heck of a lot more relaxing when I did it. Let's just say currently the emphasis is on "therapy" and I'm never in any danger of falling asleep during it. Owie.

Although imitation is a form of flattery--don't flatter me. Be different. Move. Right now. Walk away from your computer or mobile device. Stretch, walk, do some yoga or Tai Chi.

TTYL. I'm taking the doggies out in the backyard for some steps and to play fetch.  

Fight the Funk Friday

There's an app for that.

Yes, that commercial may be years old by now, but I still find myself saying that frequently. Back in the day, whenever I wanted to learn how to do something new, I'd buy a "Dummies" book. Now I look for an app. 

In addition to working with a personal trainer at the Y, I'm trying to build more activity options for myself that are portable--at home, sitting in my office, or in hotel rooms. I don't want to be entirely gym-focused. I'm also taking very seriously the research that has been summed up with the saying, "Sitting is the new smoking." Having one good workout a day (a run, a treadmill session, a gym session)--although good--is not enough to counterbalance the effects of a desk jockey lifestyle. We're supposed to move a lot more during the day. There's also not enough evidence yet to show that standing desks really make a difference either. I looked into that one too. And I don't have room in my office for a treadmill desk. So there you go.

Interested in learning more about why sitting ain't so hot? Check out this really informative episode of The Living Experiment, "Sitting." This is a new podcast series I'm trying out and so far, I've liked it.

As I mentioned once in a podcast episode last spring, I have my FitBit Charge HR alarms set to go off every hour that I'm at my desk, and at least half the time (I'm rarely 100%) I get up and take the dogs outside when my wrist vibrates. I've calculated how many steps I get in a single circuit around my backyard--and how many laps I would have to do to get 10k steps if I didn't do anything else--so I can set mini-goals for each session. The dogs love it, it gets more steps for me, and it also clears my head. I often put a work-question in my head to mull over while walking and by the time I'm back at my desk, I've got the solution and move on. I've been so much more productive! When the weather is truly inclement I've paced out various routes in my house so I can still do the five minute thing, but I love having the fresh air of the outdoors. We'll see what happens once snow starts falling.

But I also want to stretch and do some strength training. So here are some recommendations if you want to do the same. I don't use all of them every day, of course--I do have to get SOME work done. But I rotate through whatever I feel like or need in any given day.

Stretchclock is my fave! I've mentioned this one before--it's still top on my list. It's a website that you can set up to go off on a schedule of your choice--when it gets to the end of its countdown, it shows you a video of a stretch to do for one minute. There's a free version, but if you subscribe (which I've done) you get more options and you can set up favorites. I use the downloadable desktop gadget on Windows. Love it. I feel so much better at the end of the workday when I've been stretching throughout it.

FitBreak is a Weight-Watchers app--but you don't need to be subscribed to Weight Watchers to use it. If you are on WW, though, it syncs with your WW app and gives you the FitPoints automatically. These are one-minute exercises done social-networking style--people upload videos and you can scroll through to choose which ones you want to do. They're a mix of large muscle, small muscle, and stretching exercises. There's a short video to demonstrate the exercise and then a counter so you can see when a minute is up. You can filter your search and mark favorites, but I wish there was a way to set up a playlist--office moves, outdoor moves, etc. I use this often, especially when I don't think I'm going to make it to the gym later. (Available in iOS and Android.) 

Hot5 is another Weight-Watchers related app but, again, like FitBreak, you don't need to be subscribed. (If you are on WW, you get access to the premium account without paying more.) I haven't used this much yet--I mostly think of this as a for-travel app. It's a bunch of short workouts that you can combine together into longer ones, depending on how much time you have. (Available in iOS and Android.)

7 Minute Chi is a short series of exercises based on Tai Chi and Qi Gong. Since Tai Chi is suggested as a way to help retrain the vertigo-brain for balance (depending on what causes your vertigo, of course), I thought this would be a good app for me to have. There's one 7 Minute Chi exercise that comes with the free app--a basic relaxation one that I've found excellent for stretching out those office-induced tight muscles--but you can purchase an "awake" version and a "sleep" version for $1.99 each within the app. I've used the "awake" one a couple of times shortly after I get out of bed and it definitely helps me get stretched out and moving for the day. Very easy to follow--nice interface. (Available in iOS--not sure about Android.)  

Virtual Trainer Apps--there are several of these. QuickStart Fitness ($3.99 on iTunes; didn't check Android) will be great when I'm traveling. I've played with it but haven't used it for realsies yet. You tell it what equipment you have (or just bodyweight), how long you want to exercise and how hard you want it to be. It then sets up an exercise program for you, but you can swap out exercises easily. It shows you a brief video of each exercise and counts down the time allotted for that exercise. I really like this one, although it bugs me that there's no audio for it. You have to be watching your device to know when the countdown is over. (That's a common failure of a lot of these workout apps.) The other Virtual Trainer apps are based on specific equipment, so since I have resistance bands, I downloaded the one for resistance bands and have used it a few times. Again, no sound with the countdown, but otherwise a really good app.

That's it for this post. I may talk about other apps I use later but I'm mostly going to be helping myself stay accountable by trying to post the Fight the Funk every week, even if nothing else goes on my blog!

A sad bit of news...

For those of you who have been following along with Charlotte's Scrapitude mystery quilts these last couple of years, I wanted to let you know that Charlotte's husband, Ray, passed away suddenly on Thursday, November 3. Please keep her and her family in your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time.

For those of you who had asked me over the last few weeks about whether she was doing a mystery quilt again this year, she was working on one. Her website hadn't been updated yet but she has a little information posted in her Facebook group with some initial cutting instructions. You'll need to scroll down on the wall in the group to find it. I haven't been to guild in a few months so I can't clarify anything for you--sorry.

Return of Fight the Funk Friday

Yes, Virginia, there is still a Sandyquiltz.

It's not so much that it's been a busy fall. I'm still in school, of course, but I've had a lot less travel this semester and the class is set up in such a way that it's been easier to work around my other responsibilities. That being said, I've not been online much at all--even social networking--and I've been working on quilting or embroidery not at all. Other than going on a fall retreat in mid-September with some of my quilty buddies, during which I did spend the whole weekend embroidering, I've not touched anything since. 

I decided this summer that this year (program year, August to August) is the Year of Physical Health. It's all part of my focus on balance. I did a number on myself last year and wasn't in a particularly good place by last May. So I'm slowly peeling away the layers, focusing on one additional thing at a time, so that by next summer I'm in a very, very different place. If I'm not physically healthy, no amount of other kinds of self-care are going to be particularly useful. So this blog post will simply be a brief update as to what's been up with me other than school and work.

1. In mid-August, I went back to Weight Watchers. I've decided their new points system (that ticked me off when it was introduced last January) is really smart and works really, really well. I've lost weight nearly every week even when on vacation and traveling for work, and haven't felt like I've been deprived or anything. I'm just being more conscious about what I do and getting lots of activity in. So yay for that. I'm already down a size! Woo!

Battle Ropes--Tough Chick style!

2. In mid-September, I started working with a personal trainer again. I'd done it before with a different trainer who I'd worked with on and off over a period of years, but then I took a long break, preferring to do my own thing at the gym. I found, however, that boredom was setting in and I wasn't feeling like I was making effective choices. I'm now with a new trainer--"new" being the operative word as the shine of school hasn't worn off her yet--and she's been great. She's 23, full of energy, and reminds me of all my nieces and daughter, so we have fun together. We're doing "functional strength training" which focuses more on large muscle groups and the kinds of movements that mimic day-to-day life. I'm having a great time. I never know what she's going to have me do and there's times I feel like a downright Tough Chick by the time I'm done. Battle Ropes are da bomb. 

3. This week, I had my first appointment with a physical therapist about my vertigo. I'd planned on doing this back when I was going to PT for my knee a couple of years ago but we didn't get to it. A few weeks ago, I got fed up with the constrictions having vertigo was putting on me so I made myself an appointment. Sure enough, the PT was able to pinpoint what we're pretty sure is going on, so now I have a set of exercises to do three times a day. It's a mix of retraining my eyes to communicate better with my inner ear and loosening some neck muscles while strengthening others. If anyone's curious, email me and I'll see if I can explain it better. After only a couple of days of exercises, though, I'm already noticing a difference! I'll be starting to have more frequent appointments with my massage therapist to address the neck as well. I'm on a full court press to get Un-Dizzied! This, however, is why I've not done any embroidery. My neck has not been right in awhile so I've decided that when I'm actively in school doing so much reading, I shouldn't exacerbate matters with doing embroidery at the same time. And I'm making friends with a cuddly wrap-around heating pad on my neck and shoulders while watching TV at night.

Love the Habiter brand--extremely comfy and stay in place, but show over the edges of my flats. Dang.

4. Y'all already know about my style efforts. Boy, is that paying off. What's far more important to me than the comments I've gotten is feeling confident when I'm in front of people that I'm conveying the me I want to convey--professional but comfortable/approachable at the same time. And it only takes me about five minutes to figure out what to wear now, as opposed to the agonizing four- or five-outfit rummages I used to have in my closet. Now I'm working on figuring out the right-sized sock liners that will allow me to keep wearing my flats as our weather gets colder--I love my flats and don't want to give them up yet! I ordered four different brands/styles to see what would work in different pairs of shoes--still testing. Having a sock liner show over the edge of my flat is like having your slip show. Yuck.

Smart Instant Pot--woo!

5. I just added an Instant Pot, an electric pressure cooker, to my kitchen appliance collection. I use my slow cooker a lot at this time of year, but the Instant Pot has been all the rage on the Weight Watchers social networking platform so after doing some research, I used a gift card I'd been given and bought the Smart Instant Pot: It has an app for my cell phone so I can check on progress without being right in the kitchen. This girl can't resist throwing a little technology into the mix. I just got the Instant Pot and a couple of cookbooks earlier this week so I'll keep you posted. My first foray into rice went well, anyway!

6. I also took advantage of the Craftsy sale and bought "Make the Most of Your Pressure Cooker" and "Make the Most of Your Food Processor." I have a high quality food processor that in recent months has become a very nice Parmesan grater. I've used it in the past for making dough, too, but I really should be using it more than that. I thought watching the class may give me enough tips to start using it more than I do, and maybe speed up the cooking process even more. Last year we ate a lot of sandwiches when I was deep in the midst of studying so I'm hoping to do better this year.

7. I succumbed to a Facebook ad and bought the DragonTree Rituals for Living Dreambook and Planner. My trusty app (LifeTopix) is great for tracking personal tasks and schedules and the like (I use Outlook for work), but I'd ended up with four other types of journals--one (electronic) for meal planning, one (electronic) for life goal planning, one (print) for habit-tracking, and one (print) gratitude journal. And none of them had a full month view (and even full weeks were hard to come by). I like being able to see the overview at a glance and then zero in. So although I'm still using LifeTopix as my portable task list, I'm now using the Dreambook for meal planning and other personal goals. The beginning walks you through a process to develop concrete projects and goals around whatever areas you need, and then has full month and weekly planners. You can break down projects into tasks and track the tasks in the week (which then get put into my LifeTopix). It starts each day with an intention and ends each day with a gratitude, so I can do everything in one place. I use it for meal planning, making notes about people I want to touch base with or personal care-type things I need to set up, and so forth. I've avoided paper planners for years because I don't like the visual clutter--I hate having to cross something out and rewrite it somewhere else. But I'm pushing myself in an entirely different direction with this one--I'm using colored pens, little happy face stickers for days I stick to my food plan, star stickers for days I get intentional exercise, I'm doodling and writing random notes in the middle of the day--it's fun. And plenty of stuff gets crossed out and rewritten, and it doesn't bother me! I've also released myself from tyranny of journaling where I wrote lots and eventually just got bored of listening to myself. Now everything is just sentence fragments, words, brain dumps, and random thoughts. It's been working really well for me. There are lots of this kind of journal out there: I may do a different one next year, but so far, I really like this one! It felt a bit pricey when I first made the purchase but it's very good quality and I'm using it multiple times a day, so price-per-use is excellent.

So that's all the news from Western NY. Really--not much going on over here except Sandy is finally starting to take care of herself. As always, the main reason I'm telling y'all this is in case someone out there is feeling as cruddy as I did last spring. Maybe I can be an inspiration. Or maybe you'll just want to get a really comfy pair of socks for flats. Whatever works for you.

(Next week--some new exercise-related apps I'm trying out...)

(By the way, those two links to Craftsy classes are affiliate links and they're new ones so they should work. I think. Still haven't taken the time to look it over yet as I was gone a lot of October. But thanks for supporting this blog!)

IMPORTANT: Craftsy website and my affiliate links

Dear readers,

You may have noticed that Craftsy updated its website this weekend. Since I am a Craftsy affiliate, what this means for this blog is this:

1. Any of my Craftsy links that have been clicked on in 2016 will automatically be redirected and will retain that redirection for three months.

2. Any of my Craftsy links that have not been clicked on in 2016 will no longer work after October 1st.

Which means that I'm supposed to go into my blog and update ALL of my links to the new website within three months of October 1st. 

Y'all know my schedule. Y'all have experienced that I'm not able to be a particularly regular blogger at the moment, let alone have the time to go in and update a bazillion links (and I probably do have something approximating a bazillion Craftsy links). 

If you'd like to do me a favor and at least buy me three months, go click as many of my Craftsy links as you can, LOL. Otherwise, I'll have to just accept the change and get to it when I get to it. Hopefully my faithful readers will be patient with the fact that a lot of links will no longer work for awhile and, frankly, may never work again as I don't see myself having the hours to spend to go through and update every last one of them. Sorry about that!

Meanwhile, do go check out the new Craftsy website if you haven't already!

Closet Matters (Update on Style Project)

I won't only be talking about clothes and closets from here on out...no worries! (I've actually been doing some embroidery lately!)

Just thought I'd do an update on a couple of other changes that my whole "trying to get a fashion sense" has generated. 'Cause if I was finding certain stoppers in my closet, my guess is some of you may be finding the same.

It really is a snowball thing. Once you start examining one thing, you realize you have to take care of this other thing, and oh yeah, this other thing. When assessing why I wasn't wearing/using certain items in my closet, I came to the conclusion that in many cases it had nothing to do with the item itself--it had to do with how easy it was for me to access or use it.

As I was sorting through everything, I realized that my closet storage methods for several categories just wasn't working for me. When it's hard to see things, or when stuff falls on your head when you pull something off a shelf, you're far less likely to actually use what's there. My so-called "purse shelf" was ridiculous. I'd kept stuffing my ethnic bags, special-use-bags, and seasonal bags onto one shelf until it was virtually impossible to access any of it. Pull one, you'd get five on your head. Once I'd sorted and culled to get down to what I wanted to use, I decided I needed a different storage solution. Do some googling. Head to Amazon. Buy the purse hanger.

I don't have too many purses so one hanger should be fine. I had to knot my cross-body bag handles a bit so they wouldn't drag on the floor, but overall this new hanger is working swimmingly. I still have a clear plastic, lidded tote on the shelf with my less-used specialty bags, but now I don't have to worry about putting my eye out when I decide I want to change purses.

And scarves. Yikes. First off--true confessions--I have like 40 of the things. That's after the cull. And I could easily buy more. I've got a thing for scarves and wraps and pashminas and such. They're so dang pretty. So scarf-storage is a big deal in my closet. I thought I'd found the perfect solution a few years ago when I bought a few similar to this wooden one.

Well let me tell you, boy, these things have driven me nuts. First of all, thicker/bigger wraps barely fit through the holes. Secondly, when I pull one through, I often get caught up with the opposite end of a second trying to sneak through the same hole and then getting all twisted up. Thirdly, sometimes threads can snag on the wood. Fourthly (?), you can't fold the scarf to make it shorter and still fit it through the whole, so all of my scarves were dragging all over the floor. My late cat used to use my scarves as a cat bed. It got so I was less frequently trying to use scarves because they were such a pain to get on and off the hangers.

Enter google, enter Amazon, enter a new scarf hanger. 

I think I'm loving it. I only bought one to start to see how it would go, and the test went well: I just ordered the second one. 

First, each hanger holds more scarves than the former ones did so I can get away with two hangers rather than the four I used to have. Second, I can more easily slide them on and off; thirdly, nothing snags; fourthly, I can fold longer scarves in half so nothing's dragging on the floor anymore. These two hangers mean my 40 scarves take up half the space they used to in my closet, too. Bonus!

The other big issue I needed to deal with was pants. I've been using skirt hangers for my pants for most of my adult life. I started it back when we first got married and I had a closet the size of a change purse. I had tiered hangers for everything! I don't think I quite knew at the time that there were tiered hangers for pants that didn't involve clips and then I stopped thinking about it. I've always folded my pants in half at the knees and clipped them on. Well yes, you guessed it, whenever I pulled my dress pants out of the closet I'd have to iron them to get those stupid little clip creases out. It got so I avoided wearing certain pairs of pants that weren't as wrinkle resistant just because I didn't want to go to the bother of ironing them every time.

So, in order to actually wear the pants I have in my closet, I found a different pants hanger solution.

These are working beautifully. Yes, my pants take up more space in my closet now but I've got a bigger closet these days and it's not a problem. You know what else? I've actually hung my jeans up now too! I used to scoff at the idea of hanging jeans. Jeans weren't hanger-worthy. But once again I got tired of trying to pull one pair of jeans out of the middle of the folded stack on my shelf and having everything else come a-tumblin' down. Now I can easily see which pair of jeans I want and just get those in my hands without having a wrestling match with the rest of them. 

Finally, I also like to hang my sweaters up so I can see what I've got more easily. You guessed it--bumps on the arms. Those bumps are fairly easy to get rid of just by dampening them down but once again, having to take that extra step often meant I wouldn't bother wearing the sweater (or I'd be walking around looking like I had growths on my shoulders). 

I did a lot of research on this one, though, because I've never owned a padded hanger. The ones I bought (in the picture) are canvas covered, not the frou-frou-satin kind, because I didn't want stuff sliding all over the place. The canvas holds the sweaters in place really well.

Yep, I've spent some bucks on hangers in the last couple of weeks. But I look at that as an investment in having a closet that makes it a whole lot easier to use what's in it.

So, as you look at your own closet--what do you see? Is it easy to use? Can you see and access everything? Are there clothes you don't wear often just because you have to fight to get to them? Because you may end up with a concussion trying to get things out of a stack or a stuff shelf? What are your stoppers? Maybe it's as simple as using a different hanger!

(By the way, nothing here is sponsored by anyone and I don't get any benefit from using the links. Just hoping I can help y'all out!)

OT: Trying to get a fashion sense...

Since I've gotten squat done in terms of quilting or embroidery for the last few weeks, I've had squat to talk about. I finally decided that maybe some of you (ahem--all we women "of a certain age") may appreciate some of the things I have been spending time on recently. This one's kind of long, but I'm letting you into a whole thought process and then making some recommendations...

You see, every so often I decide I should grow up and get a clue. 

Getting advice from the #twilters about pants length (the verdict was, they're a keeper). Crocs Lina Flat--how do I love them? Let me count the ways...

I've been thinking that dressing at 50 feels different from dressing at 40. Each decade has brought its own styling challenges (and, to complicate matters, its own range of sizes I'm wearing at the time). I still remember so clearly the year I turned 40, walking through a department store and having no idea whatsoever what department I was supposed to be shopping in. I quite literally stopped dead in the middle of an intersection and looked around me in bewilderment. I had to leave and come back again in a few months after I'd gotten over myself. 

Now 50 is the new 30, thanks to the aging Baby Boomers shifting demographic assumptions once again. I don't actually like thinking about clothes, but I have decided I've reached a point in my life and my career where I need to start thinking about these things. I need to figure out how to dress in a way that's ME while still dressing professionally in a way others will accept. (No, it's not right that people judge us by externals. But it's reality.) I need to pay attention to...well, shoes. I am so NOT a shoe person. But I really have to be. Mostly, I have to stop making shoe mistakes. I admire other women's shoes but rarely figure out how to have the right ones for my own outfits. And purses. I've always subscribed to the "one bag for everything" theory but rarely does that actually work.

My biggest issue is that I buy nice pieces, but I don't do well when it comes to putting things together into outfits. Stacey of What Not to Wear was often speaking directly to me. So I'm taking steps towards building a wardrobe that works better. That way I don't have to think about clothes again--I can theoretically just reach into my closet, grab a couple of things, and be on my way. Really, I'm taking what I've learned about creating a really good fabric stash for quilting and applying it to my closet. It only took me 15 years of quilting to realize I could do that. Go figure.

So, first step: I've been subscribing to style blogs, selectively. I've found a few that I've enjoyed for various reasons. I may not like all (or even most) of a particular blogger's outfits but maybe I enjoy her relatable writing style. Or another I may like because of her choice of accessories. Or another because she's a larger person and I appreciate that fashion isn't dependent on the size of one's waist. There's actually only one of these bloggers who 90% of the time wears outfits I could see myself wearing, and I get ideas from seeing the way she puts things together. But I'm not going to tell you which is which--you can guess for yourself. And sorry, my younger followers, all of these blogs are at least for post-40, most are post-50. Younger folks have a lot more blogs to choose from!

notdeadyetstyle.com 

Gorgeousingrey.com 

50isnotold.com 

fashionfairydust.com 

styleatacertainage.com 

wardrobeoxygen.com (this one is geared at all ages but is realistic fashion, not Fashion Week fashion)

awellstyledlife.com 

flattering50.com (she hasn't posted in awhile but still good info on past posts)

over50feeling40 

fiftynotfrumpy --although she no longer blogs here because she turned 60, so she's working on a new website named susanafter60.com. As of this writing, that one isn't available yet so I'm still going through the posts on her fiftynotfrumpy site. However, note--she's still active on Polyvore (below) as fiftynotfrumpy.

Many of these bloggers have Pinterest boards as well.

Second step: I've also started playing around with the website and app Polyvore. It's both an inspiration-curating and shopping app with a social networking twist to boot. I haven't shopped from it as it tends towards the pricey options, but it's good for getting ideas and then going to look for something similar somewhere else. You can follow folks on Polyvore so there are a couple of "over 50s" I've added to my feed: http://stylish-at-50ish.polyvore.com/ and http://fiftynotfrumpy.polyvore.com/ (see her blog above). Polyvore also has home dec stuff and "beauty" (products) as well.

Third step: I'm taking a good, hard look at my wardrobe and assessing it the way I did my stash a few years ago. The major helper in this is another app named Stylebook. I'm switching out my spring/summer clothes for my fall/winter clothes this week (despite it being 85 degrees out there--I live in hope!). As I'm doing so, I'm taking the time to photograph items to enter into my Stylebook "closet" so I can start figuring out how things actually go together into outfits. This process forces me to pick up every single piece of clothing and decide--do I actually wear this, or do I just like it in theory? And if I do wear it, do I like the way it makes me feel when I wear it, or am I tugging, pulling, and constantly feeling uncomfortable?  In other words, do I like this item of clothing well enough to go through the bother of taking a picture of it and entering it in Stylebook? 

There are two bags of clothes that didn't make the cut waiting to be dropped off at Goodwill. I'm working on getting the rest photographed. I also went through all the bad-idea-shoes and the purses and handbags that had gotten stashed on a shelf over the years to decide what deserves to see the light of day versus what can be donated. I several "ethnic" bags from various social entrepreneur/women's empowerment sites that I've never figured out how to use and I'd really like to, so they're now photographed. And I've already ordered a couple of new bags to fill in some situational-gaps. See? I'm already learning! (And no, I'm not waiting until I get the time to make myself more purses--I need something now, not five years from now. That day will come....)

I've already started messing around with the really fun part of the app where, once you have pictures of your wardrobe, you can start putting it together into outfits. Since I only have pants and a couple of tshirts and three or four bags entered yet, I can't get super-creative with the outfits at this point. (But see? That's one of those women's empowerment bags in that pic--I love it with that tshirt and I'd never thought of that before!) But you know what? I'm wearing an outfit to a family shindig tonight that has had the components in my closet for some time but I never thought to put them together before taking pics for the app. Don't I just feel all that and a bag of chips?

However--what I'm mostly looking forward to here is how helpful it'll be when I have to pack for vacation or work trips. It has a section where you create your packing list from your "closet" entries. I'll be able to plan my outfits for each day I'm gone all within the app and then create my packing list from there. SO helpful! My work trip this past summer had so many different types of events that I had to keep track of a couple of outfits for every day. Obviously, as I try to pack light, I'm using a lot of items multiple times, which creates more possibilities for confusion. Having a picture of every outfit will be so useful!

Plus, now I will be able to see what I have too many of in my closet (the herd of white camisoles needs to be culled), what I have just enough of (no need to shop for jeans or black work pants for awhile), and what I really need to get to make these individual pieces work together better. I have several nice blazers and sweaters that I haven't worn for a long time because I don't have anything that works layered underneath them. Now I can make a list and shop with smarts. 

So--this is what's been occupying my time as I've been taking breaks from studying and laying in bed for a couple of days with vertigo. I know--very shallow kind of stuff. But it's a nice break from the Deep Thoughts I'm engaged in most days. And I always love a new app to play with. I hope some small piece of this, at least, has been useful to you.

I'm going on a quilt retreat this weekend (woot!)--no worries about what I'm wearing there as it'll be yoga pants and tshirts all the way--and although I'll have to spend time on school work I should also have something involving fabric and thread to report on next week. So stay tuned...

Lake at the site of our quilt retreat...it's gorgeous!

Finally--Jacob's Ladder Revealed

It's finished AND delivered to my brother-in-law and sister-in-law--a wedding gift that's not quite a year late. (There's still a month to go before their one-year anniversary--woot! I made it in the window of "yes, it's okay to give a wedding gift up to one year after the actual wedding.")

This started out, way back last February (2015, that is), as an EQ7 design. Jacob's Ladder and "Road to California" are pretty much the same block, if you're looking for it in EQ.

I knew I wanted to use up as much stash fabric as possible, and I did blue and cream/beige because I thought it was a nice color scheme for something that involves male and female recipients.

Besides, I've always liked that color combination. So there's that.

It took over a year not because it was a hard quilt to make but because there were large chunks of time in there I didn't get to it at all. I took a good run at it right before the wedding, then I took another good run at it right before Christmas...and then I took another run at it after Christmas and got the top pieced so I could drop it off at my LQS for long-arm quilting before I hit a long spate of travel...

And finally, several months after picking it up from the LQS, I finally got it to the couple last night. So I can finally, completely and totally, call it done.

Whole quilt. Can you see the slight "woven" feel to the design? I love Jacob's Ladder because it's a seriously versatile block!

Block detail--to show you the quilting design, not my piecing--although this block's not too bad, considering. 

Border quilting detail. Plus, I am so pleased with that border fabric--it was the perfect find!

Corner--you can see the inner and outer border quilting designs here.

She used a variation of the interior block quilting design in the parts of the block that end up looking more like sashing. Very effective.

And to continue my "dogs with quilts" series...

Why are you keeping us out here, Mom?

Because THAT'S what happens when I don't!

Some embroidery, then a general health and well-being report

After all, we need to be healthy enough to quilt, right? (Not much time for the quilting at the moment, but doing well on the being healthy!)

First--a  couple of quick embroidery-related updates.

In cleaning my sewing area today (it had gotten stacked during my travels), I took my new lightbox out of its packaging and realized the one I bought is bigger than the one I'd borrowed from BFF/BQF Kate. Apparently she had the 8x12" or whatever it was; I have the 11x17". You don't think about how big that is until you see it laying on your cutting table. I'm going to have to figure out a safe place to store this thing and I'm also thinking "padded lightbox holder" might be something I have to add to my "things to make when I find time" list. Still, it's nice to have the bigger one as I can envision myself doing some larger embroidery projects.

I did also get a little embroidery done last night, and hope to get more done today. I'm very much behind on this embroidery BOM (I got August's block in the mail yesterday and I'm still working on May's!) but I'm not worried. They go fast so if I can just get myself back in the habit of regular embroidery in the evenings, I should be able to catch up before the end.

Okay, now for health and wellness. My goals this week were:

1. Get my calendar organized around current assignments. Done as much as possible. Still waiting on that syllabus.

2. Set myself up a good habit of consistent journal-writing around my thesis topic. Pretty good--I've done some journaling most days. Still need to work out a better study schedule.

3. Prep my groceries to make it easier to eat healthy this week. That really is helpful. I've been eating a lot more fruit and vegetables because they're so much easier to grab-n-go. 

4. Get back into the habits of my gratitude journal and habit journal. I finally started getting back into this midweek. I also started playing around with a vision board app to keep my goals in front of me. I'm not sure how helpful it'll be or how much I'll use it long term but it's provided some entertainment for now, anyway.

5. Get back into habits of moving. 

I've begun using WW's FitBreak app (see below for more about Weight Watchers), although my personal jury is still out on it. It gives you short little one-minute exercises you can do throughout the day, ranging from stretches to office-chair-calisthenics to weight-lifting (using household objects). For the most part, I like the way it's done. However, it has no notification system to reach out and grab me saying, "Hey--time for a FitBreak!" That seems a big miss. I've tried to link it to other reminders but still, I have a goal for a certain number of FitBreaks during the day and I keep missing it because, frankly, I forget about it for hours at a time. (By the way, you don't need to be a member of WW to use the app and it's available on several platforms.)

Meanwhile, I've also been in the pool doing aqua aerobics and aqua yoga again. Ahhh. Plus I've been getting back into my "moving 5 minutes every hour"--I'm probably at about 60% with that but 60% is better-n-nuttin! Unfortunately, taking time for the FitBreaks and pool exercise means my steps are lower, so I'm dropping down the FitBit friends leaderboard. Don't have time for everything!

6. Make a decision about re-joining Weight Watchers and going to meetings. 

I have, indeed, rejoined Weight Watchers. That means I'm back to tracking and planning meals. Now that I've had the new points system explained to me, I'm feeling friendlier towards it than I did when I first ran into it last winter. It does make logical sense--and that's all I require of a system: It needs to appeal to my logic. 

7. Get some personal and household appointment-type-reminders into LifeTopix. Much better at this. I finally dealt with some houseplant issues (!) and got the dogs set up with the groomer--both things I've been wanting to do for weeks but until I got it written down in LifeTopix it didn't happen.

I've also been working on paying attention to time in the evening and getting off electronics around 9p so I can get to bed between 10 and 10:30 so I can be up and perky earlier in the morning than is my habit. I'm back to reading magazines or doing embroidery in the evenings. Much more renewing than hours of mindless iPad games...

Goals for next week:

• Continue to build up the "favorite meals" and "recipes" database in my WW app so it's as easily as possible to track and plan.
• Get more regular with walking/FitBreaks through the day.
• Be more consistent on bedtimes.
• Do embroidery most evenings.

By the way--it's birthday week. I'll be turning 51 on the 26th. My daughter and MIL cooked up a girls-night-out party for me on Wednesday and we're doing one of those painting-and-wine things. Should be a hoot. Next weekend my husband and I are heading to Buffalo for the weekend as a small getaway and a chance to see my son for a bit. That's my favorite kind of birthday--just hanging out with family and friends. Yay!

Needle recommendation

You may recall that I've recently discovered Tulip embroidery needles from Japan. They really are my favorite needles now. It's hard to describe, but you really can feel the difference in how they slide through the fabric. Love love love them.

I was reminded of them when I was following links and found the YouTube video below. I've only seen these needles in one LQS but got some at a vendor at the AQS Syracuse show and you can buy them online. 

I'm not commissioned by Tulip to do this--I just love these needles and wanted to recommend them to my hand-quilter and embroidery buddies. (I may not be doing much needlework myself lately but I can live vicariously through enabling the rest of you!)

OT: The rest of my life and goals for the week

(Apropos of nothing, but it made me giggle.)

And so, now that I'm back into the swing of juggling work and school and such, I was thinking about the fact that I'd rarely have quilty or embroidery stuff to write about and whether I should just put the blog and podcast on hiatus for awhile until I can be interesting again. 

But I'd miss y'all.

So here's what I think I'll do instead. Since we ALL have lots of stuff to juggle, even if our deets are different, and since we probably therefore all have issues around stress and anxiety and keeping ourselves healthy in the midst of chaos, maybe it'll be just as important for me to hold myself accountable to all of you--and hopefully inspire you to do the same--around staying balanced. That means I'm going to set myself a goal of blogging on every weekend about my mental and physical health goals for the week ahead--and if I can sneak some fabric and funky threads in there as well, all the better.

I'm home for a few weeks running. Yay. So my goals for this week are:

1. Get my calendar organized around current assignments. I can only do so much of this as we've gotten our fall reading list but not our fall syllabus so I can't get too organized for that until I know what's due when. I do have follow ups due from my August intensive, though, so I can at least wrangle all that into submission. LifeTopix is my favorite tool for this. 

2. Set myself up a good habit of consistent journal-writing around my thesis topic. I'm in a "synthesis mode" at the moment, in which I've done a lot of the reading I need to do but I need to allow my brain space to play with it all, making connections, and such. So although I still have plenty of reading ahead of me, I think it's just as important--if not more so, at this point--to slow down the reading for a bit and start the brewing.

3. Prep my groceries to make it easier to eat healthy this week. Okay, so I'm cheating on listing this as I already got it done this afternoon. If I don't slice-n-dice all those fresh fruits and veggies, they tend to sit in my fridge untouched until I have to toss them out. Everything is now ready for immediate use. I'll report in next weekend on how well I did actually eating it all.

4. Get back into the habits of my gratitude journal and habit journal. I was doing really well on these until I had my work and school trips so close together. Back at it. They do help me stay focused...and stay focused on the positive. 

5. Get back into habits of moving. I had a "gimme" week last week with all the walking involved in getting back and forth between housing and class in Boston. This week I'm back to having to make an effort. But it's an effort well worth it. Planning some aqua yoga this afternoon to work the rest of the kinks out left over from my long drive home Friday, and back to real exercise tomorrow.

6. Make a decision about re-joining Weight Watchers and going to meetings. MyFitnessPal ain't hacking it for me--nothing wrong with the app, but everything to do with weekly accountability of showing up at a meeting in person. I know I'm happier in general when I feel like I'm taking steps towards making myself healthier, so rather than thinking of the negatives around the whole issue of weight loss I'm working on framing it more positively in my head. And rather than my habitual all-or-nothing approach, I'm reminding myself to take it one day at a time.

7. Get some personal and household appointment-type-reminders into LifeTopix. I've slacked on setting up my reminders for things like "make groomer appointment for dogs" and "renew prescriptions" and such. I'm much happier and more relaxed when I'm not trying to remember things. (David Allen's Getting Things Done is a great resource for helping you learn more about how your brain works when it comes to unfinished tasks!)

That seems like a long list but it's all quite doable as most of those things are integrally related to one another anyway. 

What do you need to take care of so that you can feel a little less stress this week?

P.S. Never fear--I do still intend to talk about quilty and embroidery-y stuff when it comes up, which I still plan on having happen on a regular basis. Meanwhile, all this other stuff clears my schedule and head for actually having the fiber stuff happen. So it's all connected!

A brief quilty adventure: AQS Syracuse

So I haven't been blogging/podcasting because there wasn't a whole lot quilty goin' on up in these parts. I was out of town for work and because I was on my feet pretty much all day every day and doing a whole lotta extraverting during that entire 10 days, I was a slug for a day and a half when I got home. Then I had errands to run. Then I had schoolwork to catch up on. So really, the only crafty stuff that's been done since the beginning of July was a girls-day-out at the AQS show in Syracuse yesterday (Saturday).

My BFF/BQFs Katie and Lori and I were joined by one of Katie's guild friends, Niki, for a really entertaining road trip to Syracuse. I was still pretty beat from my trip but the nice thing about four people in the car is that I didn't have to do much to hold up my end of the conversation. I could just enjoy. And enjoy I did! Good friends, good times.

The show had some very nice quilts but I didn't do much in the way of picture-taking. I wanted to just relax and see pretty things. I did, however, treat myself to a few stops at the vendors.

And lookie what finally came home with me...

Woot! I got me a lightbox! This is the one I've been dreaming of since Katie bought it at last year's AQS Syracuse show. She'd loaned it to me earlier this summer and I fell in love with it even more. I'd done my research and knew how much I'd get it for online (and even in a recent Massdrop offer), so when the vendor at the show quoted me a price, I knew it was a great deal--around $50 cheaper than I'd seen it online--and no shipping!

No more taping patterns and fabric to windows for me!

I made sure I bought that first--glad they were willing to hang onto it in the vendor's booth until the end of the day--so that I'd keep my other expenditures limited. Therefore, other than the lightbox, I only picked up the following:

Another bag pattern. I need another bag pattern like a hole in the head but I sometimes can't stop myself. This one is a great design with a zipper top underneath the flap, a couple of zippered pockets (one outside, one inside), and a few pockets inside that are quite big enough to hold my behemoth iPhone 6 Plus. I ogled another bag pattern for awhile at a different booth but this one grabbed me more.

I asked the pattern designer (running her own booth) to rate the difficulty scale on a 1-10 spectrum. She said it was a 6. We'll see if I've made it to a 6 skill level yet.

And then some luscious hand-dyed ribbons from my favorite Akonye Kena vendor. Not only is it "fair trade" (hand-dyed from South Africa, proceeds shared with the artisans), but he's a trip--gets me laughing every time. I dropped a big bundle in his booth last year but was far more restrained this year, due to the lightbox and the fact that I still have a lot left from what I bought from him last year. 

By the way, there's a calendar on their website of what shows they'll be vending at in the future. Check it out to see if he'll be near you and keep an eye out for him. He wears a kilt. And he's a trip, as I said. I don't think you can miss him.

And because embroidery thread is like potato chips (can't get just one), I fell for this gorgeous variegated Valdani silk floss in one vendor's booth...

...and this collection of Sue Spargo's Razzle in another. Plus a couple of spools of more neutral colors that always come in handy. It was a good price on that collection--$10 for the five of them. Had to hold myself back from buying several more collections. "Lightbox," I kept reminding myself.

I picked up these little dainties at the Tsukiniko inks booth--not even letting myself look at the inks as I've got some in the basement I haven't touched in way too long. But these are fun to imagine painted/dyed and used in my crazy quilt blocks.

And finally, we all know how I feel about pudgy birds. And I'm a big fan of cardinals, too. How could this guy NOT come home with me?

I'm not a huge fan of this kind of project but it would be nice to have him around as a winter decoration...sitting next to my other pudgy birds on my bookshelves.

So--not a huge haul in quantity but I'm so glad to finally have that lightbox. Woot!

I'd originally thought I might get some sewing time in today but ended up spending the whole day working on electronic stuff--getting my laptop, mobile devices, and PC all set up for getting back into school, and setting up one of the components of my dissertation software better (and actually reading the user manual!).  I'd never taken the time to do some stuff I really should've done months ago so now my laptop is much more functional, I should be able to more easily move between devices for certain things, and I hope I can more fully utilize all the cool stuff my software is supposed to allow me to do. Still working my way through some of that, but I feel better about my technological situation now.

So--no podcast again for awhile. I leave town next Sunday for my summer intensive class and I'll either be home Saturday or Sunday--not sure yet. I'm also not sure what my assignment schedule or fall class schedule will be yet to know what life will be like after I get back. We've gotten remarkably little information yet other than reading lists (and only a partial one for fall at that). So that means when they do drop the info for us we'll be hitting the ground running--no wind-up time allowed. I'm sorry to be breaking the Podcaster Contract but I also don't want to post scattered, boring episodes that have little to do with quilting or embroidery since that's not figuring greatly in my life these days. So I'm hoping you'll forgive me for another break in posting for awhile!

Weekend Goals and Craftsy Sale

Once again, I have the pleasure of a largely unscheduled weekend in front of me. I'm treasuring these because they are about to end. Next weekend I'm home, but I leave the following Monday for my summer board meetings and national conferences (work). I get home the 27th, have a week at home, then head to Boston for my August classes. And we all know what happens after that--back to assignments, papers, reading, work travel, and no more free weekends for awhile. 

So my goal is to get the Annie Unrein Ultimate Travel Bag done this weekend--or at least enough done that I can do the finishing touches in the evenings next week. I'd really like to be able to take this with me on my work trip.

I've got the class for this one so fingers crossed.

Join me? Craftsy is having a 50% off sale on some of their top classes this weekend! 

And yes, I'm still plugging away at that binding. Still feel like I have miles to go. We're running out of episodes of Stargate: Atlantis...

(Using Craftsy links in this post helps support my podcast and blog. Thank you!)

Annie Unrein's Catch-All Caddy--Done!

As I said in a previous post, I got this puppy done over Fourth of July weekend: The Catch-All Caddy by Annie Unrein. I'd started it the weekend before but I tend to go pretty slowly on Annie projects, double-checking everything before I do it (especially cutting). And I decided to get a little unusually persnickety for me and ripped out a few seams to redo them better. I'm not using the term "perfectionist" there because it's still far from perfect. But it did get a little better the second (and, ahem, third) time around.

Other end--open pocket

This is one of the two projects in Annie's Craftsy Class, "Sew Sturdy: Home Organizers." I didn't buy that class since the other project doesn't interest me. I decided I'd done two projects with her at my side in the Sew Sturdy: Travel Organizers class so maybe I was ready to go it alone. I bought the pattern and the finishing kit from her website and used fabric from my stash that I was thrilled to finally be able to use. (These three fabrics have been around awhile. The blue one is particularly aged as I inherited that one from my Mom's stash, and God only knows how long she'd had it.)

Caddy back (not to be confused with "Caddyshack")--the back panel has three pockets on it, whereas the front panel has two.

Turns out, perhaps, just maybe, I should've bought the class. Most of it went swimmingly, but I discovered (with #Twilter and fellow podcaster Pam's help) at the very end that I'd misunderstood Annie's description of an early step. So my inner dividers have raw edges at the bottom rather than nicely finished ones. By the time I discovered it I'd have had to dismantle most of it just to redo those bottom edges that no one would ever see. So I hit them with a ton of Fray Check and moved on. (It didn't help that every time I read "divider" my brain was thinking "pocket" so I kept expecting the bottoms to be sewn down to the side panels in some future step...a step that never came because they're bottomless DIVIDERS. How many times can I read that word before it sinks in??)

Interior--with a foam board inserted into a sleeve at the bottom to make it sturdy. Very nice touch.

Other than that one misstep, everything went really well until the binding. It's always the binding. It went somewhat better this time because I tried a couple of new tricks with it. A friend in my guild (Jan of Quilting Revolution) is taking a monthly class at an LQS that's all Annie projects. One of the teachers, when questioned about her beautiful, perfect bindings, said, "I use glue. Lots of glue." She said she glued the first side down, sewed it, then glued the second side down before sewing that. So I decided to try it. 

Alien creature just landed from outer space, or sewing project? You be the judge.

I've decided I'm not keen on the glue trick. Or I need a different glue. Or I need to only use glue on one side but not both. The glue I used (Aleene's Fabric Fusion) gummed up my needle something wicked--I went through three needles on this project, two of them on the binding alone. It came out all gloppy, it was all over my fingers, it stuck to the clips...yuck. I had also used a slightly wider binding this time (2 1/2" as opposed to the usual 2 1/4"--which she does suggest you can try). I'm thinking the wider binding on its own probably would've been fine, no glue necessary. Either way, this binding did go better than my past Annie projects, but I still have a ways to go before it's really presentable. 

Put to good use. And yes, there's a reason why the school book and "Coloring for Tranquility" are side by side.

All in all, though, I'm very pleased with this project. Ain't perfect, but I'm very okay with that. It's serving exactly the purpose it needs to serve and, to be honest, I am pondering the possibility of making myself a second one for my office. (I have more than one school book and packs of post-its and highlighters, after all.)

A couple of tips if you do an Annie project:

• Read through all the instructions a couple of times before starting anything. Make notes to yourself as you do so. For this one, I studied her cutting diagrams and numbered for myself the order in which I'd make the cuts just to make sure I had enough fabric.
• Buy Clover Clips. I have the smaller size in red and the larger size in green. I  use the red ones all the time. For this project, the green ones came in handy a few times. There's another brand that has clips in other sizes too but I can't speak to how sturdy they are. I've accidentally snapped these puppies across the room a couple of times and they're still going strong. 
• If you don't know much about purse hardware and other accoutrements, take advantage of Annie's "Finishing Kits." She has one for most projects on her website, I think. The finishing kits don't include fabric--just hardware, webbing, mesh, sometimes interfacing, and so forth. Read the information to make sure you know what you're getting. It saves a lot of time (and grief if you accidentally buy the wrong size of something).
• Check out all the tutorial videos on her website. Very helpful stuff. (Or go to YouTube and search her name--then you can watch the videos full screen, which you can't on her website.)
• If you're a newbie to this kind of sewing like I am, take one of her Craftsy classes for the first time out. It really does help a lot.

What am I up to next? You guessed it...another Annie.

(Using Craftsy links in this post helps support my podcast and blog. Thanks so much!)