Sunday 31 December 2023

Fettling list for 2024!

My main list is on my Fettling page so it will be interesting to see how it changes over the year. I'm excited to see what will be the first finish in 2024, for once I dont actually have an inkling! Could be a few things 😆 excited! Many thank to Archie The Wonder Dog for hosting as ever 😊

Blossom Jane

Floral big cats -Panther liontiger, lynx, cheetah, Jaguar, mountain lion, snow leopard, cloud leopard

Bubbles in speckled fabric (almost done)
Bargello Angels wings with Tula (serenity pattern)
Moda Blockheads done in donated fabric 
Scrap quilt drunkards path
Selvedge quilt
Sisters quilt
Marbling fabric
Emmaline bag for Cath
Drawstring bag for Lynn's foot peddle 

Sew Alongs 2024 Weekly Monthly Other
In the meadow by quiet play in speckled, January-June
Riley Blake BOM January-May
Repro quilt lover - tiny nine patch 

The waiting list
3x Emmaline retreat bags for Shonas auction (due early April)
Chair pads for dining chairs
Applique quilt - Threadneedle street
8x charm pack Quilts
Janet Clare minincharm pack Quilts
8 sea parrot Quilts (may combine some)
Vintage flower sampler quilt
Tilda quilt
Birds and baskets quilt in AMH echinacea
Sweet William quilt?
Tula butterfly in capel and castaway or using left over speckled?
Medallion quilt in liberty big prints
Orphan block quilts?
Jen Kingwell Bakers dozen, Blockheads or pluses quilt in Lucy Engles bundles?

Non quilting crafts - In progress
Temperature embroideries 2023
Trees from Victoria Sampler
Mood wheel of the year for 2024
Warm hearted penguin
Lolli and Grace mandala
Carina mandala
Get stitch done Oval f**k
Non quilting crafts - Waiting list
Spare bobble hat for me
Michael Powell snowy chapel X stitch
Michael Powell snowy street X stitch
2x Michael Powell bookmarks
Floral Alphabet sampler
Phenology Wheel

December swimming

Well! what a december it has been for swimming!!
and this was the perfect start, Little Denny reservoir, its so close to me but the entry point is a bit hidden so me and the Scoobs went on an adventure to find it.
We found it!!!

The swans were very uninterested in us!
Scoobs feeling very proud of himself for getting in!


 It was so lovely, little rocky getting in but I now have new swim shoes which should help, I will be back!

Ice dip!!!!

I was SO up for this, Jenny the Cold water therapist who I started swimming with put up an Ice dip event, so I HAD to try that


The Ice wasnt too thick but enough, Jenny is very safety concious so I felt very safe, we all wore costumes only which was actually ok we were only in for a few minutes
Nice fire after to warm us up!
Extreme close up!
It was a tad nippy!
But it was awesome!!!

Next up a regular swim with these lovely people, I cant express how welcoming and lovely this group has been, I was quite cold on this swim, I hadnt had anything to eat before and it was quite early, lesson learned, I now make sure to have at least a bananna before I swim

There was a bit of a time before my next swim, I am trying to go at least once a week but it was more like 10 days, just festive stuff got in the way so it was good to be back.
Jenny organised a swim for everyone who had come to one of her events this year. So lovely and a great group of folks




The community spirit of these groups is phenomenal, one of our group was dipping for the 12 days of Christmas to raise money for cancer research. We all went along to participate in her 12th dip, she raised 1k!





So! December had been epic so far but Christmas day was quite simply the best. Emma who hooked me into the group I mostly go with comes from Fraserburgh too! I know another bonkers co incidence. Turns out she was going back up North for christmas too, I semi joked and said "Hey wouldnt it be great to have a xmas day dook down Broch beach!!" 
Well, just looked what happened! 😂
The benches were perfect for changing at. 
Two very excited and happy bunnies!!!


I love this place so much

Right ready to go in!!
And glowing after!



There may be one more dook lets see 😊
There was one more dook! A Hogmanay dook and it was lovely 😊 big group of us at the normal spot in Linlithgow,  just the best ❤️




Saturday 30 December 2023

End of year Fettling report

So! End of year repoprt for 2023!!! My goodness how fab has fettling and furtling been this year? Pretty awesome if you ask me! I dont miss a lot about work but I do miss being organised having frameworks to feed into, ticking things off lists so it is lovely to have this to help me account for my crafting in my retirement!
Having this list has really helped focus me stop me from always jumping to something new and it keeps me accountable. I missed the finish along a lot but this is even better I think 😊
Lessons learned:
Be more picky about choosing SALs there were a couple this year which were OK but just that no more. The blocks were all predictable and the settings as well. I have enough other lovely things on the list to be getting on with 😊.
Same goes for embroidery. Be more choosy there too. I don't really join in the social side of SALs so there has to be something in the making of it to justify the time spent. 
Use up scraps .... blimey they are getting out of control again!

So what has been achieved in the last half of 2023?

Ticked off in 2nd half 2023

OK thats quite a lot I think, below is what was ticked off in the first half of 2023

Ticked off in 1st half 2023
Bountiful - February- September first Friday of every month  removed feb 2023 pattern not to my liking.

All in all I think a great start with my first full year of retirement!!! Especially if you compare with 2022, which I still think was none too shabby!

So what's in order for 2024? I've updated the list below on the main fettling page. One main goal is to find a way to keep Blossom Jane on the radar, she sort of fell off, the individual blocks don't take that long to do, I would ideally love to make 3 or 4 a month just to keep it ticking over, let's see.

Blossom Jane

Floral big cats -Panther liontiger, lynx, cheetah, Jaguar, mountain lion, snow leopard, cloud leopard

Bubbles in speckled fabric (almost done)
Bargello Angels wings with Tula (serenity pattern)
Moda Blockheads done in donated fabric 
Scrap quilt drunkards path
Selvedge quilt
Sisters quilt
Marbling fabric
Emmaline bag for Cath
Drawstring bag for Lynn's foot peddle 

Sew Alongs 2024 Weekly Monthly Other
In the meadow by quiet play in speckled, January-June
Riley Blake BOM January-May

The waiting list
Applique quilt - Threadneedle street
8x charm pack Quilts
Janet Clare minincharm pack Quilts
8 sea parrot Quilts (may combine some)
Vintage flower sampler quilt
Tilda quilt
Birds and baskets quilt in AMH echinacea
Sweet William quilt?
Tula butterfly in capel and castaway or using left over speckled?
Medallion quilt in liberty big prints
Orphan block quilts?
Jen Kingwell Bakers dozen, Blockheads or pluses quilt in Lucy Engles bundles?

Non quilting crafts - In progress
Temperature embroideries 2023
Trees from Victoria Sampler
Mood wheel of the year for 2024
Warm hearted penguin
Lolli and Grace mandala
Carina mandala
Get stitch done Oval f**k
Non quilting crafts - Waiting list
Spare bobble hat for me
Michael Powell snowy chapel X stitch
Michael Powell snowy street X stitch
2x Michael Powell bookmarks
Floral Alphabet sampler
Phenology Wheel

Fabric and thread inventory 
I should add this in. At the start of 2023 I decided to look more consciously about what I bought. While working buying fabric was a distraction from the stress, I dont need that any more.
So! At the start of 2023 I roughly had about 470.5 meters (I know I know ....) at the end of the year I took in 95.25 meters but put out 94.25 meters so an almost neutral (but not quite) year. This gives me something to work on and aim for in 2024. I want to be in negative as in I put out more than I take in. Let's see!
As for thread I have taken in 1 spool but put out 5 so that's  a good start there. I dont want any spools older than a year for 2025 lets see if I can do that!

December furtle

Goodness I dont know where to start! In many ways its been my usual December a frenzy of finishes! I simply hate carrying a project over to the new year if I can help it (Blossom Jane is an exception!) I like nice neat finishes.
So first up, and this is in no particular order! First is the wheel of the year from stitch doodles, I did enjoy this
Up next is the Celtic wheel of the year from Carina Craft Blog, now this one I adored making I do love Carinas patterns. This will go on the wall!
Yes my top nine, I didnt share on instagram as I saw a fair bit of snark about top nines, but I still wanted to make mine just to see, I am happy with it, it pretty well sums up the year 😊
Aww cute wee dorset button, I do love making these, very satisfying and a nice reminder of the FOQ this year where I bought it

And yes this is a christmas movie 😂 and its the only christmas movie I could get scoobs to watch, so very happy to make do with this one!
Oh my Alan Rickman, surely the best screen baddie?
Aww Alexander Gudonov, a real teenage heart throb of mine!
Well this is very apt for a furtle post! I found these while furtling around in my button box, memories and momentos of the stitch gathering of 2017. I adored the stitch gatherings, so many friendships and happy memories made there
I am sloooooowly getting sucked back into Christmas but I am still standing strong with the "no presents" line, well mostly strong! I made these cute pin cushions for chums, lovely pattern by Arabesque Scissors
Oh and we finished another big cat! 4 down 5 to go! This is the tiger and I do love him rather a lot
Here he is with chums
I thought this was going to be the last quilt of the year, but no .... there is another to come! this is the sunny patches BOM from Coriander Quilts, I loved making this esepcially with the really bold setting
My lovely chum Jo brought back these cute labels from holiday, now I never really think about labelling the quilts I keep for myself but I should, I labelled 3 of my liberty quilts and have thoughts about making more labels so I can label everything else.
Aww and this came through! I love this email. For about 14 years now this lovely man has been passing on emails to me, His name is Samuel and he has almost the same email address as me, so if someone mis types my email he gets it. He passes them all on, always with a sweet message they always brighten my day


I found an ideal xmas card for scoobs 😂 I had already bought him one but this year he gets 2! because he is that special 💗
 

Last but definitely not least! My final quilt for 2023 😊, this was very last minute when I decided to make all the 6 inch blocks as well 🤣 but im glad I did and I love the finished quilt, so here it is in my very wintery house 🤣
So! Many many thanks to Archie The Wonderdog for hosting these furtles I do enjoy them so much 😊 have a lovely hogmanay ❤️