Elaine's bear quilt

I've been busy with lots of different things.  Mainly, I have been reading some self help books, one of them in particular was Atomic Habits by James Clear.  It is interesting to read about making and breaking habits and how they are formed in the first place.  The science behind them and some good tips on how to establish new ones.  It would be a good read for anyone who made any new year's resolutions...lol....may help you keep them...lol.  

Me, I don't usually make any....I don't want to be disappointed when I don't keep up with them.  Instead, I prefer to try things out, see how they go, maybe alter them or try something else entirely.  Everyone is different and we have our own things going on.

I also picked up a magazine Real Simple (special addition), back in November.  The topic is Simplify Your Life.  I am finally finding the time to read it.  Also a good read.  I am taking bits and pieces from here and there.  I have for the longest time wanted to simplify my life, my surroundings, pretty much everything.  I've been working on it for a long time now, but got side tracked when we went through all the renos, the move, and renos again.  Now though things are starting to settle around here, so before I get too settled, I want to establish some good habits that will help me in this next phase of my life.

Overall I am feeling content and feel that now is a good time to get back to my health.  First, is loss the weight I slowly put on in the last few years, as I wasn't able to pay full attentions to my eating habits. It is too easy, to eat all the wrong stuff, when you have too much on the go.  Secondly, is getting into better shape.  I've been taking the dog for walks more often, but that is just not enough for my body and the amount of food I eat, so will have to pick up with more exercising. Thirdly, and just as important as the first two, is to slow down.  That would be the part about simplifying my life and would also include learning to meditate.  Lots to incorporate into my daily routine.

These last couple of weeks in particular, I took the time to catch up on things while I was on holidays.  Also, prepping myself physically and mentally to move forward with my plans.  I am just letting you know all this stuff, so that you will understand why I may not be posting daily.

I am still doing quilty things, but mainly I am forgetting to take pictures.  Today, I prepared four quilts for Quilts for Survivors and packaged them ready to be shipped to the recipients.  I also started designing another quilt to make....lol.  Like I need another quilt to make at the moment....lol.  I need someone to save me from myself....lol.  I'll talk more about that in my next post.

In the meantime, let me take you back to Nov 6/2021:  

This is Elaine's bear quilt.  It would have been a panel.  The type that is usually either 1/2 a meter or 1 meter and you get different pictures.  I really like what she did with her pictures.  She gathered the four large bears together in a four patch style with sashing between them and surrounding them.  She made some bear paw blocks to add to the top and bottom, as a border in a row.  

Elaine took a bear scene picture, bordered it with sashing and filled in the length with flying geese, to match the width of the centre piece.  After that, she made some smaller fussy cut blocks for the side borders as squares or as square-in-a-square blocks and also filled in the length with flying geese.  Lastly,  she added a final border the same colour as the background.  I quilted it with an edge-to-edge design, called Navajo Slider from Urban Elementz.  It turned out really nice.

Interesting facts: At this same time back in Nov/2021, in the renos, I am still working on doing up the basement at the old house and I am finishing off the drywall throughout.  December I started plastering and continued right into the Christmas holidays, while trying to keep caught up on quilting for customers, which I had to go to my mom's place 35 minutes away to do...lol.  Life was busy at that time.

Take care everyone and don't forget to take some time for yourself!