Come Stitch With Me

Therapy Dog Visits

Therapy dog visit with Sadie’s bestie, Baron, at Lost Mountain Middle School at the end of March. We have many more visits scheduled including the regional Special Olympics, Georgia Tech, Life University plus our normal library READ program. I also train prospective READ teams.

Quilting

2023 BOM from A Quilting Life (online) – April block is below. To me, this block is very bland on its own. However, when paired with the other blocks, it provides a place for your eyes to rest.

Home Again Vintage 2 Color Quilt from Lori Holt and FQS

This is my version of the popular 2 color quilt FQS promotes every so often. There is an online QAL scheduled from April 4 to about mid-May, but I haven’t seen much about it online. It’s almost as if it got lost in all the QALs currently going on. Rather than doing 3 blocks each week, I prepped all the FG and subunits first. I’ll be putting the remaining 11 blocks together this week.

Scrappiness is Happiness QAL

I’m a little behind on this one, but it shouldn’t take much to get caught up.

I added 8 new design boards to my stash. Used peel & stick foam core board from Hobby Lobby for one set and the plain $1.25 variety foam core board from Dollar Tree for the others. Yes, there is a difference! The peel & stick feature made it much easier to apply the batting and the board itself is much sturdier. The Dollar Tree foam core board resulted in perfectly serviceable design boards. However, I think it’s worth the splurge for the peel & stick foam core board, if your budget allows.

I’m also prepping for upcoming seminars and retreats I’m attending, plus classes I’m teaching.

Current Reads:

The Quilted Home Handbook by Wendy Chow

We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman (this month’s book club selection)

Marie Bostwick, quilter and fiction writer with novels set in the southern US, will be in the ATL at the end of May to promote her forthcoming book. She’ll be speaking at a luncheon sponsored by a local quilt shop. Yours truly has a ticket to the event!

Walking/Outdoors

Sadie and I have been visiting area parks to get in our daily walk. Today, we ran across a Great Blue Heron and several turtles on our walk. Normally, we encounter aggressive Canadian geese at this park. No dodging goose poop today! The water is muddy from all the recent rain.

Our challenge this past week was to spend time in the grocery store scanning items to learn point values associated with various foods. It was an eye-opening experience! We were tasked with finding snacks with point values = 3 points or less that we would actually eat. No more cheese/peanut butter crackers for me!

Here’s my snack attack list:

Raw veggies: Grape tomatoes, baby carrots, sugar snap peas, cucumber slices

Fruit: Berries, sliced apple, banana

Dairy/frozen: Light string cheese (2 points), fat-free cottage cheese and plain nonfat greek yogurt*
Yasso chocolate bar (3 points)

Prepackaged snacks:

Fruit cups packed in water or own juice (0-2 points)
100 calorie packs of nuts (3 points)
Pretzels (1 oz twists or 8 honey wheat braids) (3 points)
Simply Nature Sea Salt Organic popcorn (Aldi) (1 point per cup)
Elevation Snack Advance Peanut Butter Fudge Crisp (Aldi) (1 bar = 3 points)
Cheerios – 1 cup (3 points)

*Add 1 tsp confectioner’s sugar to 1 cup of greek yogurt to counter the tartness. (1 pt)

One of my favorite hacks when my sweet tooth comes calling is to eat a Yasso chocolate bar OR make a parfait from plain nonfat greek yogurt, 1 tbsp Hershey’s syrup and raspberries. Either treat is a mere 3 points.

I carry bottled water, assorted cheerios and a 100 calorie pack of nuts with me when out running errands. If the weather is cool, I’ll take a snack bar (chocolate melts in the heat). This keeps my hunger pangs at bay. I love popcorn, but it gets stuck in my teeth, so I only eat it at home.

Do you have any favorite low calorie snacks to share?

Spring break is this week, so I offered a bonus CraftLAB session on Wednesday afternoon. Both girls were on time and their parents were very thankful for a fun activity the girls could look forward to over Easter break. Yes, we made stuffed bunnies – a favorite quick project I drafted in 2017 for a kid’s class at Stitch N Quilt.

The girls selected fabric, trims and eyes for their glam bunnies. I had them make their pompom tails while I cut out the pattern. This is actually a good project for students to learn how to cut out a pattern. If we’d had more time, I would’ve had them do it. The girls are much more independent now with their sewing. All I have to do is monitor and reteach/redirect when necessary. Like me, stuffing is definitely not their favorite part of the process! About an hour later, the girls left with their bunnies.

Here’s feedback I received from their parents:

“Thank you Teresa! The bunnies came out so cute, and C had so much fun with you.”

“Awesome. Thanks for all you are pouring in her and C.”

May you have a peaceful and blessed Easter or Passover.