Christmas presents almost completed (and a linky party)

In this past week where most of the time was spent on cooking, tidying, cleaning and eating, I managed to get several things done!!

The Ongoing Project List:

1. Hello Block Swap - paused until 2017
2. The SK project - no progress
3. Secret event (January 2017) - no progress
4. Secret event (February 2017) - no progress
5. Secret event (August 2017) - no progress
6. Secret event (Jan-Nov 2017)  - no progress
7. Xmas decorations - 8 started
8. Bullet Journaling into my Quilter's Planner - working on this every day! 
9. Pillow covers for Xmas - 8 done (see below)
10. Xmas stockings - 4 halfway done
11. En Provence (Bonnie Hunter's mystery QAL) - no progress

The EverythingElse List:

1. Splendid Sampler - no progress
2. Charity Quilts for DC General Homeless Shelter project - no progress
3. Summer Solstice QAL - no progress
4. Mirror Mirror Afghan - no progress
5. 70273 Project - sent them out, no new ones
6. Jane T - no progress
7. the 31000 Xs project - no progress
8. Spirit cross stitch project - no progress
9. Alice in Wonderland quilt - no progress
10. As You Wish -  no progress
11. Crazy optical illusion - no progress
12. Memory quilt 2 - no progress
13. Gyleen's BCP Mystery QAL - no progress

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Working on Xmas presents,  most of the people in my list are going to get a pair of pillow cases!

Hot dog pillow cases!

I struggle finding in my stash the big cuts that this project require! Each pillow case uses approximately 1 yard of fabric, so I have to get creative sometimes. On the good side, I can use up prints and colors that I wouldn't use otherwise and make more space in my stash for new purchases :)

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Another small Xmas present is this fabric box 

It has the exact size of a weekly pill dispenser, because I think that it is good to be cheerful when you need to take daily medications :)

I made good progress in several other presents, but they are not quite done yet... however I plan to get them ready by the end of the weekend and this will be the first year that I complete all my presents before december begins!! And all thanks to the Bullet Journal/Quilter planner!! But more on this on December 1st! :)

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How about you? What are YOU up to?

Link it here and share it with me!!

An InLinkz Link-up

The most productive week of the year (and a link party)

After the sadness and numbness of last week, I decided to focus on positive things and projects... and I had the most productive week of the year!!

The Ongoing Project List:

1. Hello Block Swap - sent last block of the year (see below)
2. The SK project - four more blocks done (see below)
3. Secret event (January 2017) - started stitching (cannot share yet)!
4. Secret event (February 2017) - one more block ready (cannot share yet)
5. Secret event (August 2017) - no progress
6. Secret event (Jan-Nov 2017)  - no progress
7. Xmas decorations - no progress
8. Crochet flowers - 4 completed (see below)
9. Bullet Journaling - working on this every day!
   migrated into my Quilter's Planner!! :)
10. Pillow covers for Xmas - 2 done (see below)
11. Xmas stockings - no progress
12. En Provence (Bonnie Hunter's mystery QAL) - no progress

The EverythingElse List:

1. Splendid Sampler - SIX blocks done (see below)
2. Charity Quilts for DC General Homeless Shelter project - no progress
3. Summer Solstice QAL - no progress
4. Mirror Mirror Afghan - no progress
5. 70273 Project - TWELVE blocks done (see below)
6. Jane T - no progress
7. the 31000 Xs project - no progress
8. Spirit cross stitch project - no progress
9. Alice in Wonderland quilt - no progress
10. As You Wish -  no progress
11. Crazy optical illusion - no progress
12. Memory quilt 2 - no progress
13. Gyleen's BCP Mystery QAL - no progress

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Let me start with few project linked to the environment of fear and hate that we live in.
Have you heard of the Safety Pin movement?
The safety pin has been used as a symbol of safety and support for those in fear. By wearing a safety pin, you signify that you are an ally, and that those who fear violence are safe with you.
Safety pins have recently been worn in solidarity in Australia and the UK, and many Americans are beginning to wear them as well, regardless of their political affiliation. This isn't about political parties or who you voted for. This is about loving our neighbors, our communities and anyone who fears or faces oppression.

For this I made myself a tiny embroideried square (that I attached to my bag with two safety pins) and a bracelet that I wear every day.

The bracelet is something that helps me as well... it is exactly the size of my wrist so it is a little tight... it is a constant reminder (like a kind hug) that there are people out there that support me and respect me as well... I am in a situation of fear and sadness too, so having this reminder is very very important.

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And we saw situations like this before... where a part of the population believed that only one race, skin color and religion was worthy of living in their country... this resulted in millions of people being killed and many more with immense sufferings.

This is why this week (and from now on much more consistently) I will make blocks for the 70273 project

(Jeanne Hewell-Chambers says) "Between January 1940 and August 1941 (before the Holocaust began), 70,273 physically and mentally disabled people – men, women, teens, boys, and girls – were murdered by the Nazis. Though they never even laid eyes on the disabled person they were evaluating, the Nazi doctors read the medical files and, if from the words on the page, the person was deemed “unfit” or an “economic burden on society”, the doctor placed a red X at the bottom of the form. Three doctors were to read each medical file, and when two of them made a red X on the page, the disabled person’s fate was sealed. Most were murdered within 1-2 hours.
I will commemorate these 70,273 voiceless, powerless people who were so callously and casually murdered by gathering 70,273 blocks of white fabric (representing innocence and the paper the doctors read), each bearing two red X’s (representing one person), and I will stitch them together into quilts."

I hope you will check out the link and help out. She collected already many blocks and made several quilts, but 70273 is a very big number, so if you can help, you would make a difference!!

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Apparently, even subconsciously, I seem to pick blocks that align with the hot and controversial themes: Stephen King's books called Insomnia (where the Crimson King is a character), a book called Desperation and a book about domestic violence against a woman (Rose Madder). I also completed the cover for "The Dark Tower".

The patterns will be on Fandom in Stitches eventually... if you need it sooner, just send me an email :)

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I completed the last block for Hello Block Swap of this year (for Rachel).

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Working on Xmas presents, I made these crochet flowers for my mom. She makes some compositions and she can always use some extra flowers. I am using only the cotton I have on hand, so the colors are kind of limited, but that's better than nothing!! :)

And talking about Xmas presents, I made these two pillow cases

My goal is to use the fabric I have and I really enjoy be forced to shop my stash and think creatively about what to match. Especially having fabric from Quilty Box is great because it is usually fabric that I wouldn't have bought myself (like the ombre in the cuff) but it works just amazing in certain projects!

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And last, but not least, to try to feel connected to a community of positive and encouraging people, I decided to get back with my Splendid Sampler (with selvages and batiks) journey!

I made 6 blocks in just 3 days!

I sneaked in some safety pins in these blocks too :)

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How about you? What are YOU up to?

Link it here and share it with me!!

An InLinkz Link-up

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita...

I'm sorry, but today I cannot share happy crafty projects...
I'm numb...
I am frozen by sadness because
... I know that 60,072,551 people believe in rewarding bullying and hatred...
... I know that 60,072,551 people believe that the problem of cheating the system is that the system is broken and not that there is a cheater...
... I know that 60,072,551 people believe that I shouldn't be allowed to say no to physical violence...
... I know that 60,072,551 people believe that I am not worthy because of my gender, skin color, disability, religion or place of birth...
... I know that 60,072,551 people believe that money and loud words count more than compassion and inclusiveness...
... I know that 60,072,551 people believe that we should blame foreigners and media for the fact that mother nature is trying to make us extinct...
... I know that 60,072,551 people support anti-scientific believes.

I have seen this before...
in another country... in a much smaller scale...
it left big wounds that are not healed yet...
but it was a country that didn't have the control of critical pieces for the entire humanity well-being...

Here it's hard to see the light...

But I am optimistic... Dante predicted this...
The path to heaven begins in hell.
We have to walk the entire path to the very bottom, there are no shortcuts.

Just some highlights:

--

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita, 

mi ritrovai in una selva oscura, 

che la diritta via era smarrita.

Midway upon the journey of our life, 

I found myself within a forest dark, 

for the straightforward pathway had been lost.

(November 8, 2016)

--

Lasciate ogne speranza, o voi che entrate

All hope abandon, ye who enter here.

(January 20, 2017)

--

Considerate la vostra semenza: 

fatti non foste a viver come bruti, 

ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza.

Consider your origin. 

You were not formed to live like brutes 

but to follow virtue and knowledge.

(Unknown date, 2017-2020)

--

"Rise up, " the Master said, "upon thy feet; 

The way is long, and the road full of evil, 

"Lèvati sù", disse ’l maestro, "in piede:

la via è lunga e ’l cammino è malvagio,

(Unknown date, 2017-2020)

and only then, once we reached the bottom, seen the worst, experienced all brutalities that Inferno has to offer... only then we may be able to:

salimmo su`, el primo e io secondo,
tanto ch'i' vidi de le cose belle
che porta 'l ciel, per un pertugio tondo.
E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.

We mounted up, he first and I the second, 
Till I beheld through a round aperture 
Some of the beauteous things that Heaven doth bear;
Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars. 

I prepared a tracker for the next few years... each day is a square...

Is it a coincidence that I was stitching the Crimson King's symbol when everything happened? 

A planner took over my week (and a link party)

I received my Quilter's Planner!! so I spent most of the week to figure out how to make it work for me :)

The Ongoing Project List:

1. Hello Block Swap - received Nov partner info and received Oct block (see below)
2. The SK project - one more block done (see below)
3. Secret event (January 2017) - started stitching (cannot share yet)!
4. Secret event (February 2017) - one more block ready (cannot share yet)
5. Secret event (August 2017) - no progress
6. Secret event (Jan-Nov 2017)  - no progress
7. Xmas decorations - no progress
8. Crochet flowers - 5 completed (see below)
9. Bullet Journaling - working on this every day!
   migrated into my Quilter's Planner!! :)
10. Various bags and pouches - no progress
11. En Provence (Bonnie Hunter's mystery QAL) - no progress

The EverythingElse List:

1. Splendid Sampler - no progress
2. Charity Quilts for DC General Homeless Shelter project - no progress
3. Summer Solstice QAL - no progress
4. Mirror Mirror Afghan - no progress
5. 70273 Project - no progress
6. Jane T - no progress
7. the 31000 Xs project - no progress
8. Spirit cross stitch project - no progress
9. Alice in Wonderland quilt - no progress
10. As You Wish -  no progress
11. Crazy optical illusion - no progress
12. Memory quilt 2 - no progress
13. Gyleen's BCP Mystery QAL - no progress

--
Let me start with the great block I received from Olivia (the second October partner I had for the Hello Block Swap.

I am not really sure if we will continue with the swap in 2017...
For me it has been pretty difficult to manage, because while many people communicate and share a lot, some people just don't seem to be too involved!

Many people dropped out too and we have less than 15 active members (from the initial 40), so it is becoming impossible to partner up everyone with new people.

For this reason I ask whoever is interested in keeping the swap alive in 2017 to submit their information in the following form.

https://goo.gl/forms/ENHIIDTFg4Tn8BA53

The basic idea for the swap is that I pair you with a different partner every month. You select the block that you want to receive and you make the block that your partner selects (following her/his color request, instructions, etc).
Easy peasy! ONE 12'' BLOCK A MONTH!
If I get more than 20 people in the swap, I will start it again on January 1st... otherwise I would have to step down :(

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Working on Xmas presents, I made these crochet flowers for my mom. She makes some compositions and she can always use some extra flowers. I am using only the cotton I have on hand, so the colors are kind of limited, but that's better than nothing!! :)

--

Another book cover for my Stephen King collection is ready!

The pattern will be on Fandom in Stitches eventually... if you need it sooner, just send me an email :)

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Last, but not least, as mentioned above, I received my Quilter's Planner and I am switching to the planner for all my Bullet Journal activities.

I don't want to comment on how it is going just yet...

I found out that I really need time to figure out if I like something or not... rush judgments are almost always wrong for me :) for example when I opened the package I started "complaining" about how big the planner is (compared to the journal I was using previously)... after 30 minutes of flipping through the pages and after thinking how I can use it in my own way I start thinking how great is that it is so big :)

Sometimes we resist changes for no reason other than we don't want to change ourselves... 

and we don't want to admit that we were wrong...

So I will share a full review of my first month of experience with the Quilter's Planner on December 1st :)

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How about you? What are YOU up to?

Link it here and share it with me!!

An InLinkz Link-up

Bullet Journal - October review

It has been a good second month for my Bullet Journaling experience!!

DISCLAIMER 1: in this post I express my own opinions and my own interpretation of how to use the bullet journal system. It is not necessarily aligned with what the "creator" of the system (Ryder Carroll) describes. If you are interested in the basic original approach go to http://bulletjournal.com/ to find more information.

DISCLAIMER 2: if you are one of those people that get upset because I don't follow the "official rules", I add fancy decorations, drawings, etc and those are not "bullet point lists", please just stop reading here! :) While I get inspiration from the original system, I want it to work for ME. And yes, maybe I change it so much that I shouldn't call it Bullet Journal... but calling it "a notebook where I list things to do, plan my activities, projects, draw, write, doodle and learn new things" is a little bit too long :) So I stick with the name.
As Kara (from BoHo Berry) says beautifully (paraphrasing) "I spend some time to make my bullet journal pretty, and that is actually the thing that keeps me coming back to using it, but the reason I use it is because it helps organize my life". So no, the prettiness is not necessary, but how useful is an efficient organizational system that is always stored in a drawer because it is too boring to look at? :)

Ok... now let me show you some of my pages and shares some of the lessons I learned!!
Click each picture to see all the details.


-- MONTH TRACKER, MAILING TRACKER AND SPECIAL EVENTS --

About the October Tracker...
It is a little more sparse then the previous month... some things were not done not even a single time!! Oh well... I think that a lot had to do with the "shape" of the cells :) being skinny rectangles, it made me feel that even if I was going to do that activity, the "horizontal progress" was not that much, so why bother! :) is my mind strange? yes it is! I will test this hyphotesis next month, when I will use a different layou :)

The mailing tracker is really great because it is good to track if people receive what you send and if you receive what you are supposed to.

The "special events" pages show an example of a very easy to manage day (top) and a crazier event day (bottom). I think they both are great way to remember what worked and what didn't, and the lessons will be forever there for me to refer back to! :)



--WEEKLY SPREAD--

I love how I designed this page.
It's simple, it's cute (at least the latest ones are becoming cuter), it's functional.
At the beginning of each week, I list few things in the "Quilting and Crafting" section or "Home and Personal" section. I put them in approximate days, but I don't stress about it, because I have the view of the full week, so if I feel that I want to do something on Mon that is listed on Fri (or viceversa) it's all good!!

The coloring works great, and I can change up the overall design each week. It is just fun and functional! :)

--CHALLENGES--

It is fun to participate in daily challenges because they are community efforts that keep you engaged and inspired. There are a billion of these in the bullet journal community, and last month I picked two that made sense to me: ZenArtChallenge and RockYourHandwriting.

Both have daily prompts to guide you on what to draw/write on.
While I enjoyed both, I didn't really feel enthusiastic enough for the writing one, so I dropped it.

For the ZenArtChallenge, I like zentangles but I don't particularly like designs that require a lot of shading or designs of object (flowers, ...). so in Nov I will turn this challenge into a "DoodleAQuiltingDesign" kind of thing instead... we'll see!

--DOODLES--

Pages to draw, doodle and have fun with lettering, fonts and no constrains.
The second one is very free form: just pick 5 words (completely random, long, short, in my own language or any other language) and just "draw" the word in a special font. Not having the constrains of writing long sentences it allowed me to get more creative and wild! The only rule I told myself is to write them all horizontal so they will end up forming a "label cloud" kind of design.

I didn't really stick with this activity this month either... so I think I won't do it next month. I will add a different writing challenge, so I can practice fun handwriting (like mirrored and writing with my non dominant hand).

The "doodle an artist" pages are the ones that I most proud of!! I love the idea and I was looking forward every day to either draw something or find something to draw for the next day. The idea is to pick an artist and then copy some elements from some of her/his pieces (Steal like an Artist). The act of researching their life, reading the story of a painting, trying to extract simple elements that I can sketch just with a pen is very very valuable for me. Considering that I have NO art background, NO art education, I think I copied the different pieces quite well! And it's unbelievable how much the daily practice improved in just a month! It also improved my confidence (in drawing and life) and opened my mind to a world of possibilities. YOU SHOULD TRY THIS TOO, especially if you think you don't know how to draw!! just pick a simple clipart and copy that... you will see great improvement if you do it consistently for weeks. Don't try to make it perfect... just keep drawing new things every day and you cannot not improve!! :)

While I was planning to work on two artists a month, I was so busy that I managed to make only one collection. Well, I will keep doing this in my new journal next month as I have a list of artists I want to explore!

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I am planning to use my Quilter's Planner (that should arrive at the end of the week) as my journal. It should be much bigger than what I have now, so let's see how I will be using the space!!