Strategizing

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There's only one way to get through my monthly list of goals: Strategy. Plan your work. Work your plan. Have an attack strategy, and then ...

You can see I'm learning something from my little cat, Smitty.

Anyway...as I was sitting doing my embroidery yesterday, I was thinking about the things on my list and realized that nothing would get done if I didn't have the raw materials I needed to do the job.

For example, I'm chomping at the bit to get at the quilting on the "Oh Christmas Tree" wall hanging,

but I realized I didn't have all of the threads I wanted to use. I have those on order. As soon as they arrive (sometime next week, I hope), I can get started on that. I'm pretty sure how I want to do most of the quilting, and so it should go pretty quickly once I get started on it.

I have a plan about how I'm going to set the Hello Moon blocks,

but I wasn't sure if I had the fabrics I need. As it turns out, I don't. I needed to order some yellow fabric to use in my sashings. (Check.) When that comes I'll be able to get started on this.

Also, I'm coming to the end of the latest Vintage Tin block, and so I'm going to need to trace out the next of the Quilting Snowladies.

Without looking in the box, I'm pretty sure this is the next one I'll be doing. 

I already know I have all the floss I need for the rest of these blocks, but that got me thinking about the one I'll be starting when I've finished stitching this block. When that one is done, I'll have an opening on my trio of embroidery projects, so I'll be starting a new one. The next one I'm starting is the Gingerbread Square from Crabapple Hill. Here's what the whole quilt will look like:

Isn't that precious? The materials needed include a 64-crayon box of Crayola crayons. I don't know about you, but I haven't done any coloring in years. The whole prospect of using crayons on fabric is sort of intriguing. Also, I checked my stash for fabrics and discovered that I have all the fabrics I need without having to purchase anything. Yay! 

But what I was really interested in knowing was what floss colors I'm going to need. The floss colors were listed by Cosmos colors, and I'm kind of a DMC gal myself. As I started trying to make the translation, I started getting lazy and overwhelmed by the whole thing. Finally, I checked the website to see if there was a kit, and there was! And it was on sale! Hooray! So I just cut out the tedium of trying to make that translation, and bought the floss kit. Now I'm ready to go on my next next project. (Did you get that? The next one after the next one?) Planning ahead...working the plan and then attack! 

The first block I'm going to do is this one, and now I'm excited for that floss to arrive so I can get started. Right after I do the next of the Quilting Snowladies, of course.

As for my current projects, this morning I selected fabrics for the last two blocks of the Dream Machines rainbow scrap quilt. 

November's color was baby blue. For December, I needed to choose my own color. Originally, I thought I'd choose lavender, but then I couldn't find the right fabrics for that. I ended up going with a sort of rose color. Each machine requires three fabrics...one for the sewing machine, one for the handwheel, and one for the thread. So here's what I came up with for my last two blocks. 

That's what I'll be working on today. If I get those finished, I'll make the block for this month's Block Lotto, which just happens to be this "Big O". 

Last month's block was an "Easy X", and so I guess we're doing X's and O's for the last two months of the year. That'll probably keep me busy for most of the day, but I want to get back to quilting the Gardener's Journal quilt as well. 

Yesterday was a kitchen day. I made two days worth of dinners and I boiled my turkey carcass for stock. That yielded about 3-1/2 quarts of stock...not a bad amount. That'll be good for soup next week. 

Also, I tried the recipe for White Chocolate Peppermint Fudge. I'm actually a fan of the regular chocolate fudge, but I'm also a fan of the white chocolate peppermint mochas from Starbucks, and so this fudge looked delicious to me. So I gave it a try, and Oh. My. Gosh.

It was really yummy. It has crushed up peppermint candies in it. I had a box of those little miniature candy canes, and so I crushed those up. They're not quite as hard as the peppermint candies that are often handed out in restaurants. They were really nice. Mike and I each had a few pieces, and then I plated up the rest for him to take to work this morning. We really don't need to eat the entire plate all by ourselves. Having him take my Christmas baking to work makes it possible to do Christmas baking without gaining 50 pounds, and we can still have a few bites of everything. 

As I said...strategy. Plan your work. Eat your work. Wait...what? (See: What I've learned from Smitty, above.)