Fitness Friday

Central Queensland, where I live, has been experiencing a heatwave. We have had a week where the maximums have been 40+ (that's Celsius. ) and minimums in the 20s. We have been walking in the mornings early but even so if we are out past 7.30AM we have come home dripping perspiration. Today is positively balmy in comparison... maximum of 36. Tomorrow the maximum will drop to the high 20s and I can't wait. Its been pretty stinking hot.

Our air conditioner has been running all day but today we haven't put it on. It really is hot enough to need it but the difference from yesterday makes it seem not so bad. There is a storm brewing though and rain is expected for the next 4 days. It will be welcome as it will drop the temperature and refresh the lawns and gardens which are becoming very dry and crunchy!

To add to our heat woes my fitbit has stopped syncing. My iphone thinks the battery is flat but it isn't. I will need to go on the website and see what they recommend but I keep forgetting ... so flat strap it slips my mind. I have remembered now but I am writing this blog. By the time I finish it will have slipped my mind again.

I work out my main walks and input that on the app so getting credit still although it doesn't seem to be connecting with the challenge I am currently involved with. Usually I come 2nd (who can ever hope to beat Terje) or occassionally 3rd (who is this Ruth who suddenly popped up and was vying with Terje for the lead last week) This week I am a long long last.

The heat has made food less attractive and drinking water much more attractive and I have chipped away a bit more weight. I didn't weigh myself but yesterday afternoon I was under 97kgs so that means I have lost a little more this week. (we had Thai takeaway last night and I ate a whole serve on my own so not sure what that will have done to my weight) I have also been cooking the last 2 days. Yesterday I made plain sugar coated peanuts and savoury sugar coated peanuts and since it took me a while to get them bottle up a lot more of them got nibbled by me (and my family) that should have.

Today I made smoko biscuits - jam drops and chocolate ones that I sandwiched together with white chocolate icing. A few of them didn't make the jars either. Usually I keep a few back out of the jars that I cut up and let people try before they buy but with a 24 year old son visiting at the moment... the extras got eaten! Never mind. They will have to believe me when I say they are good.

These biscuits are so easy to make. They have just 4 main ingredients.

500gms butter or marg creamed with 1 cup sugar
Add 1 440gm tin of condensed milk (I use the low fat) and beat in till smooth
Add 5 cups SR flour (you can sift if you like but I didn't bother)

For the chocolate ones I added 4 tablespoons cocoa - or 1/4 cup (use 4.75 cups flour)

Roll into balls. For the jam drops I  made a dint in the top of the balls with my thumb and added jam.
For the chocolate ones I pressed down with a fork.

Bake at 150-180 C for 10-15 mins

Cool.

For chocolate cream biscuits sandwich 2 biscuits together with icing. I used white chocolate icing.

White chocolate icing. Melt white choc buttons (1.5cups) ( I used the microwave and followed the instructions on the packet) When completely melted I added 1.5 Cup sifted icing sugar, and stirred to combine. Add 1 tsp vanilla essence. 

Actually I didn't measure. I added what white choc buttons were left in the packet but figure it was about that. Then I added icing sugar till it was the right spreading consistency. Then I added too much icing sugar and having no more chocolate I added some milk till it was back to the right consistency.

Spread one biscuit with the icing and put another biscuit on top. I put them in the fridge to harden up a bit since its hot today. (Not as hot has it has been but still hotter than chocolate likes)

All this cooking was for a stall Handmade With Love had at our churches Walk Through Bethlehem tonight. There was a bit of rain early on necessitating slight change to our stall. This is our original set up before we moved under shelter

On a sad personal note my uncle died yesterday. He was my dad's younger brother. There was 6 years between them but they were always great mates and loved to tell stories against each other. They obviously loved each other dearly. Goodbye Uncle Jack. A life well lived.

My mum and dad at their Golden Wedding Anniversary in 1990 with Uncle Jack who was Dad's best man and Aunty Beryl (my Mum's sister) who was her bridesmaid. Mum is wearing her original wedding dress. Aunty Beryl made a replica of her dress. Dad was in the army when they married so he is wearing a army greens and his army hat. Uncle Jack is wearing a suit as he wasn't in the army when Dad married.... he joined up when he was old enough a few years later. Only mum is still alive but the other 3 all lived into their 90s so they did well. Mum is 94 now.

My Fitbit stats for the week  
Friday         13 695
Saturday     14 807
Sunday       10 420
Monday       11 632
Tuesday       11 501
Wednesday  11 366
Thursday     10 952

Monthly Goal Check in ... one week in

Its only Day 8 of the month - taking the chance to review how my goals are going this month. Usually I do a mid and end of month review but this month I am jumping in early. Going through the goals can keep me on track I find.

1. Work on Handwork Heritage. I have started on the borders for this. There are lots of 5" bits being sewn together! Not sure if I will have enough or will need to cut some more.

2. Make Backing for Amy Gibson's BOM quilt. This is DONE. I completed it yesterday. I used up a stack of orphan blocks in the process so double bonus.

3. Complete Darlek Potholders commissioned by friend. DONE and posted off yesterday. I used up all the Darlek fabric that I had when I cut them out... but then a parcel from Fangirl arrived with some more in it so ... Darlek hand towels or zipper bags anyone?

4. Secret Commission for a friend. I made a test sample of the pattern (didn't want to risk the pattern not being right and wrecking the specially ordered fabric. It worked out just fine so now to make one with the special fabric.

5. En Provence Mystery Quilt. I am up to date with all the clues released so far. The first one was released Nov 25th and  new one is released each Friday in December (although its about 11pm Australian time so I get it Saturday morning). 2 parts have been released so far and I have made 221 4 patches and 100 triangle units. Next one due in 2 days time!!

The 2 goals I haven't made any progress on yet are:-

6 Quilting my hexagon quilt (hoping to line my friend Lyndi up one day next week to help get that done)

7 Assemble "Stingin Em Along." The blocks are still in their box awaiting my attention

 

WIP Wednesday

This week I have managed to decorate my house for Christmas. I've got the trees up (a big one, a small one and a number of miniature ones) They are all plastic trees. In the summer heat in Australia real trees don't last too long. 

 We used to get a real one  when I was still living at home but we could only cut it on Christmas Eve and it was dropping all its leaves on Boxing Day. My inlaws were still cutting a real tree when we were first married and I loved it but after a few years they got a plastic one too so it would last longer. I admit to being a tad disappointed but...

Anyway - decorating the house has been a work in progress all week as I have gradually unpacked the boxes of decorations. The only things still to go up are my quilted wall hangings. I can't find any of the rods. I suspect I have taken them up to church over the year to hang quilts up there. I've tried to buy some from Big W but they didn't have any but will check out the hardware shop. 

Besides decorating the house.... I have done some sewing. (surprised you there didn't I!!)

I finished off the 5 Darlek potholders I started to make last Wednesday. I finally got the labels stitched on at Handmade With Love yesterday and posted them off to Allison, who commissioned them from me today. (I didn't get a photo of the finished 5 so here is a cropped photo from last week )

Bonnie Hunter's En Provence Mystery quilt, clue number 2 came out Saturday morning Aussie time and I got the 100 units made that day. They are a long way from perfect but done is done. I still need to trim off the tag end bits from the triangles. 

I have also worked on the 4 patches from last week. We had to make a pinwheel at the joins of the 4 blocks on the back which reduces the bulk at the seams (Check out Bonnie's blog for the explanation of how and why) I hadn't read that instruction when making the blocks.... and also that the blocks needed to spin in the one direction. I sewed some wrong and so whilst they are all now pinwheeled, some are clockwise and some anti clockwise but meh you get that.

I am working on a Christmas present for a friend. I wanted to test the pattern before I used the special fabric I had ordered in for the project (ok asked my daughter to buy and post) so I made it out of some cat fabric. I really love the way it turned out

One of my goals for this month is to finish off my 2012 Amy Gibson BOM. To do that I need to make a backing. I have some fabric that I thought would be good but there wasn't quite enough so I decided to piece a row of orphan blocks down the centre to join the two pieces and make it big enough. Yeah ... well I dived into that basket of left over blocks and before long I was having lots of fun making them into a backing. 

There were too many for just a strip so instead it ended up that I pieced almost the entire back with just wide borders of the fabric that was going to be the backing to make it large enough. 

That of course took way longer than just piecing a back but... it was fun. And I used up heaps of orphan blocks and left over bits. I decided that this was appropriate to have a sort of sampler on the back given it was a sampler on the front. I think it looks great!

How have you gone with your WIPs this week/Month?

Part 2 - Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt En Provence

There is a disadvantage to being in Australia when doing a mystery quilt that is being run out of the USA. Currently I am doing the Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt for 2016 En Provence.

The clue is released on Friday in the USA, I'm guessing in North Carolina (since that is where Bonnie lives). 8 AM on Friday there is 11 PM Friday here here where I live in Central Queensland. Bonnie has deliberately not specified when the clue will come out but when I went to bed on Friday it wasn't released (and I had been checking all evening :) ) but there it was when I woke up the next morning. I had been so excited waiting for it. Now I will know not to look for it till Saturday morning.

I wanted to get started on it straight away but first we had to walk the dog and then we had to clean the church since we were on the roster to do that this week. So it was more like midmorning when I finally got the time to start on it. 

I don't have the speciality rulers that Bonnie is using - or any similar ones. At least I don't think I do! I tried using the templates that Bonnie provided but they were coming out too small. In the end I used a combination of a triangle ruler I had and the template (to get the angles right) and cut my own. However they didn't turn out as well as they might have... a little undersized. I also have to go back and trim a lot of tag ends cause I didn't snip them off as I went.

I used some pink fabric I had in my stash but I didn't have quite a metre (yard) of it. I didn't measure it but used it anyway. I had enough to make these units and have some left over and a few scraps in my basket and bins. It will depend on how much we need in subsequent steps. I may have to go buy something to match it - I certainly don't have anything similar in my stash.

A pile of the side triangles ready to be sewn on.

I got them all made on Saturday so that was good going. Now of course I am hanging out for the next step. Crazy woman that I am.

I was rather disgusted when I saw how stained my ironing board cover was in the photo. I trimmed it right back to hide as much as possible hence the weirdly shaped  photo.

I had a few whoopisies where I sewed the wrong side of the pink triangles to the neutral one. 

I wrote a post about my Part One last week but when I wrote it on Monday the linky on Bonnie's page wasn't up and when I went back on Wednesday it was already closed. Another disadvantage of being in a different time zone.

I didn't spin my centres of my 4 patches. I didn't read about that till later. I might go back and work on it now but not sure if I sewed mine the right way in the first place. Ho hum. Guess we shall see.

How are you going with your mystery quilt? If you haven't joined in yet its not too late to jump on board.

One Monthly Goal

I recently came across this Linky  party on Elm Street Quilts which tallies with something that I am already doing. 

For several years now I have been setting myself monthly goals at the beginning of the month and at the end of the month reporting back on how I have gone with my goals. Patty, from Elm Street Quilt invites bloggers (and posters on Instagram or Flickr) to select one of their monthly goals at the beginning of the month and then at the end of the month to link in to a completion blog.

I was hoping just to be able to link my goal setting blog for December (here) however you have to choose one goal and I had several listed. Next month I will select one of them to be my OMG goal. This month, in looking at my monthly goals I have chosen my "secret commission" for my friend. I didn't go into details about this when I set my goals as my friend reads my blog occasionally when I put the link on Facebook. I won't put the link for this on Facebook so I can go into more details. 

My friend offhandedly mentioned to me that she would like a carry case for her iPad with a shoulder strap. I told her step daughter this, as a suggestion for what she could give her for Christmas and told her that I would make it and she could give the money to Handmade With Love, the craft group I sew for (we raise money for a school, Our Rainbow House in Zambia for the poorest of the poor children in a particular area.)

This friend is a keen Doctor Who fan and so I asked my daughter, Fangirl to get me some Doctor Who fabric from the fabric shop near her in Brisbane that specialises in licensed fabrics - all things geeky. Its called Make It Hobby n Craft and is only a couple of kms from her place.  She has purchased .5m each of Doctor Who Tardis fabric and Darlek fabric. That should be plenty for me to be able to make a simple satchell type bag for her. I still have to find a pattern - or invent one if I can't find what I am looking for.

Most of the patterns I can find for Ipad carriers don't have straps so instead I am looking at messenger bags. I've been collecting patterns on Pinterest. These are the ones I am considering













Since it is to be a Christmas Present then I definitely HAVE to get it done. Wish me luck.

Sunday Stash Report - A good week

I have had an unexpectedly productive week this week. I managed to have 2 big finishes plus a number of small things. 

Christmas Stockings My middle son (Kombi Boy) and his partner (Gamer Girl) aren't going to be with us for Christmas this year so I have made them Christmas stockings to have at their place. KB's features Starwars and GG's has pokemon on it. I love them. .75m

Handmade Heritage Too. I got this finished at Patchwork this week and today it was on display at church (and I forgot to take a picture. Doh) 4.76m

Darlek Potholders. My friend Ali ordered another 2 sets and since I had enough fabric I made up the extra one. No more Darlek fabric left (but Fangirl is posting me some from Brisbane for a special project) .74m 

they aren't all finished in this picture but they are now.

Purse size tissue covers. I made up 18 of these to use as gifts at a couple of Christmas parties I am attending. Since they are sewing related I made them using fabric featuring sewing things. .7m

Nativity Panel. I was given a number of panels over a year ago to make up to use at the aged care home I attend each week. I wanted to get the nativity one done for this Christmas. I had planned to use wadding in it and to do some feature quilting to make the figures pop out but... done is better than perfect and since I was running short of time I used a flanel to back it and didn't do much quilting. It meant I got it finished in an afternoon though which is good. I will take it up to the aged care home during the week. Need to find a rod to hang it with first. 3.87m

To make things even better there was no fabric in this week! So glad to have had some good output. I know I have a few inputs coming before the end of the year so need to make some good finishes before then. If I make my goal of getting two more quilts finished this month that will be good! I can dream about it anyway.

My good use this week has meant that my net fabric usage is greater than the fabric added. I've been in the positive all year but its good to have accomplished that milestone too!

My stats for week 49 are

Fabric used               10.81 m        
Fabric added               0.00  
Net                             10.81m

Year to Date
Fabric used               164.39m
Fabric added               81.19
Net                              83.20m

Linking up with Patchwork Times

Fitness Friday

I am not feeling very fit today to be honest. I feel a bit icky on the tummy. I'm still on the very tail end of a cold that has been running for almost 3 weeks. I just have the post nasal drip left from that and that tends to make me feel off. Fixit Guy contracted the cold after me (caring is sharing after all) and then he has come down with a stomach bug so now I am not sure if my "not quite right" feeling is the post nasal drip or a different wog.

And Central and Southern Queensland are expecting a heatwave. The temps have been gradually climbing all week and its predicted to hit 41 today (that's Celsius - 110 F) and climb to 42 tomorrow and 41 Sunday and stay up at 40 till Wednesday at least. 

Fixit Guy and I have started walking in the morning. Our bedroom is on the Eastern side of the house so we get the morning sun and its light by 5 now and so we tend to wake up earlier. This isn't good when you are going to bed after 11 but does mean we can go for a walk before it gets very hot. The dog still thinks he should get his afternoon walk as well so we have been going at 6pm when it has cooled off somewhat. It does mean that getting my steps hasn't been too much of an issue this week!

On the negative side its Christmas time and there are lots of yummy foods about and so - yeah - healthy eating is way more challenging.

Despite the temptations (and the numerous yieldings to it) I have managed to nudge the scales down just a little bit. I was 97kgs this morning but that was after breakfast so I was happy with that.

I didn't post a FF blogpost last week so this is for 2 week.My steps this week have been good although the previous week I had 2 days when I didn't make target. One day I was furiously busy - it was the craft show. I was on my feet all day but lots of it standing in the one spot so not many steps.

For the last few weeks I have been going in a challenge amongst my Fitbit friends - Workweek Hustle. One of the women in the group always does amazing numbers - usually over 100 000 in her weekly steps and so she creams us. I have been 2nd to her most challenges but this week someone else has been out there in 2nd place.

Anyway My steps for the last 2 weeks

Friday 3 907
Saturday 10 607
Sunday10 132
Monday 10 026
Tuesday 10 096
Wednesday7 835
Thursday 12 249 
Friday 14 229
Saturday 10 383
Sunday 10 182
Monday 11 284
Tuesday  12 239
Wednesday 10 524
Thursday 13 986

How have you gone this week with your own fitness challenges and goals? Hope its been great for you.