All My Hobbies: 2020

Thursday, December 31, 2020

2021 New Year New Starts and Challenges

I am beginning this year with a 70 day challenge. Taylor and I did one in 2020. It was hard but successful. Keri tried one and didn't make it. She wanted to do it again starting on January 1. I asked if I could join her and she said yes. I hope it brings us closer together and heals our relationship. I made up my challenge. It has some of the same rules as the other one with some small changes to reflect things I want to do. The 70 day challenge was a fail. The cold weather got me. I'll try again before the year is out.

Beginning January 1 – March 17

1. Walk 45 minutes outside - due to weather my 2 exercises got combined beginning on 1/18

2. 45 minutes of other exercise

3. Drink 1 gallon of water

4. Read 30 minutes of non-fiction book

5. Work 30 minutes on some craft

I added the 30 minutes of craft and the other challenge insisted on reading an actual book. I plan to listen to my 30 minutes. I very seldom read an actual book.

My Reading Goal will only be 100 books. I think with all the crafting I am planning, I will be hard pressed to read as much and I'm okay with that.

I am also doing this reading challenge on Facebook. It's a 52 book challenge following these parameters.

1. Set in a school

2. Featuring the legal professions

3. A Dual timeline

4. An author that is deceased

5. Published by Penguin

6. A character with the same name as a family member

7. An author with only 1 published book

8. A book in the 900's of the Dewey Decimal System

9. Set in a Mediterranean country

10. Related to the word fire

11. Book with discussion questions in back

12. Title starting with the letter D

13. Includes an exotic animal

14. Written by an author over 65 (when Published)

15. A book mentioned in another book

16. Set before the 17th century

17. A character "on the run"

18. Author with a 9-letter last name

19. Book with a deckled edge

20. Made into a TV series

21. Book by Kristin Hannah

22. A family saga

23. An ending the surprises you

24. A book you think they should read in schools

25. A book with multiple character POVs

26. An author of color

27. First chapter ends on an odd page number

28. Includes an historical event you know little about

29. Featuring the environment

30. Watch out dragons!

31. Shares a similar title to another book

32. A selfish character

33. A selfish character

34. Featuring adoption

35. A book you would rate 5 stars

36. Set in a country that starts with "s"

37. A nameless narrator

38. An education read

39. Recommended on BookBub

40. An alternate history novel

41. Found via #bookstagram

42. An endorsement by a famous author on the cover

43. An epistolary (writing of letters)

44. A character with a pet cat

45. Includes a garden

46. A coming of age novel

47. Winner of the National Book Award

48. A character with a disability

49. A cover with a woman who is facing away

50. A flavor in the title

51. A shoe on the cover

52. Published in 2021.

I plan to schedule my crafting days this way. I will stitch something small during my 30 minutes each day and evenings while watching TV. During the day I must sew something. On the weekends I will work on a large stitching project.

I'm participating in a large Block of the month called Nebula. Making a quilt for my bed using Tula Pink fabric. It is going to be fabulous.

I also plan to work on an English Paper Piecing project call Tela Nova using Tula Pink fabric.

So these are my challenges for 2021. Let's hope things go well.

2020 in review

I always try to start my year in review with my Goodreads report. Here is the short form because I cannot find the complete report yet. (The long form is below.)

I did think this was interesting:

I believe this year I have read the most books I've ever read in one year. Of course, that could be because this year has been CRAZY!

It started off as a normal year until March. That's when Covid 19 entered the picture. Well first I guess we got Marian's diagnosis of a spot on the memory portion of her brain. We struggled throughout the year until they decided she had epilepsy and put on her on a very strict diet and medication. It seems to be helping. She went through a time when she didn't want to be alone at home.

Covid came along in March. It cancelled all large gatherings for the entire year. Since those large gatherings was my way of earning a living I was without work. For the first time in my life I went on unemployment. Weird. Not where I thought I would be at 61. I got a lot done during the lockdown however. I made lots of quilts, read lots of books and took up cross stitching again. I'm really loving the cross stitching. I spent a lot of time walking with my friend Mary and we took up pickleball. We had a couple of lessons before the shut down happen. Then luckily we had an outdoor court near by so when it opened back up again, we started playing. Then Marian and I joined a club in Karnes so we could play with others in a foursome. We have meet lots of new people!

This shutdown has been especially hard on people like Mom who have to stay home with people who are not always nice to them. She loves being around people so it is hard to be alone. We went several months without seeing her. During the warm months we were able to stop by and sit outside and visit. But it was many months before we hugged and then it probably wasn't safe. The holidays were very hard. We were supposed to have Thanksgiving at Taylor's. The numbers were climbing and they were warning people to stay home. Marian and I went to Taylor's so she wouldn't be alone but cancelled everyone else coming. This pissed off Jonas and Keri. They got butt hurt bad and who knows if they have forgiven me. I apologized and sent them homemade pillowcases, but I never heard anything about the cards or gift. Taylor got Covid during the Thanksgiving weekend from her friend Derrick. Since we saw him that weekend we had to stay isolate for 10 days. Taylor and Derrick spent most of December hold up in her new town home. We went to Mom's on the 20th but only Jonas and his family could come. We wore mask and socially distanced the whole time. Then we went to Jonas's on Christmas Day.

Taylor ended up divorced this year because Josh was cheating on her. What a jerk. I'm so proud of how she has done through the whole mess. She has a beautiful new town home and a new friend. She is amazing.

My Aunt Mary died this year which has been very hard on Mom. They were so close. At least she had time to say goodbye to her. Funerals during Covid were hard because no one could really come.

We only saw 6 movies this year because the theatres were closed.

I did take some classes before things closed down:

Charlotte Angotti with Marian at Quiltfest

Klaudeen Hansen at Quiltfest. This quilt is my favorite pattern - Magical Illusion

Cheri Termini - Umbrella class

Terri at Mountain Creek - zipper class

UT Non Credit marking graveyards - this was Marian's birthday present from me. It was lots of fun.

Tracy Souza - Hand embroidery @ Mountain Creek

No trips in 2020 :(

We saw 3 play including Miss Saigon which was wonderful. We were supposed to see Hamilton in Atlanta but it got moved to September 5, 2021. We did get to see Hamilton on Disney +. It was amazing.

I also stopped one book club and started another one. The one I started in 2015 at work dissolved due to Covid. No one could decide on books or whether to meet in person or on zoom. I got tired of being in charge so I stopped it. Then I decided to start a mystery book club that just meets on Zoom. I read a book this year called Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson. I wanted to read the eight books it was based on. I put the idea out on Facebook and several people said they want to participate. There are about 6 of us who have done it every month, but it has been fun. We read some unusual books.

I have discovered Flosstube on YouTube. I love seeing all the things people are stitching.

We cancelled our quilt show this year. Hopefully we can do number 40 in 2021.

It has been an interesting year all in all. The Democrats won the White House again, thank God. Not sure Trump is going to leave since he is convinced he won. A lot of people died. Over 300,000 from the virus and some people died because they didn't have access to a hospital bed due to Covid patients. It has been a lot of bad but the good has crept through. I have enjoyed being home for the most part. I've been very creative. Bring on 2021!

75,493

pages read

210

books read

Lynn Sykes

This is my journey in books for 2020!

Edit

Updated December 30, 2020. Newly completed books appear after a delay.

Shortest Book

pages

Longest Book

818

pages

Average book length in 2020

359

pages

My first review of the year

it was amazing

Great twist at the end.

Monday, September 28, 2020

Journey to Nebula

I am going to do a block of the month in January 2021 called Nebula. The pattern is by JayBird quilts and the fabric is Tula Pink. To get us ready for the project, JayBird quilts is conducting a free Journey to Nebula. One week she released a video on cutting out your fabric and the next she does a video on sewing your project together. The first was called Seaside and it is a table runner. I did mine in Christmas fabric

This is the finished table runner. (update - sold to Nikki Anderson for her Mother-in-law for Christmas 2021.)

This is an upclose view. I used Glitter thread and straight line quilting to finish it.

Our next project was a pillow using the Lucky Charm pattern. Again I went with Christmas fabric.

Here is Jawbreaker - I really liked the process on this one. Putting binding on the edge instead of turning it inside out.

Next up was Rock Candy. This one I actually used Tula Pink fabric and I made it to go on our new table. I love the way it turned out.

Final project - Gazebo

This one has not been quilted yet but I'll post another picture when I finally get to it.

Sunday, September 6, 2020

Family homes

I have been visiting some of the homes of my family members:

This is the house where m father grew up in Nashville, located at 906 North 14th Street

This is the home where my grandparents lived (my dad's parents) when I was growing up in Nashville. It is located on Live Oak Drive in Nashville.

This was my Grandmother's house when I was growing up. It is located on Highland in Sparta, Tennessee. My sisters, cousin and I spent many hours playing on the porch and in the back yard.

This is the house on the farm where my Mom grew up. Her family lived there until she was a junior in college. The family that purchased the farm from Granny still own the house. It is located near Sparta in the Cherry Creek area. Beautiful home.

Sunday, March 8, 2020

Quiltfest 2020

I took 3 classes this year at Quiltfest. The first I took with Marian, it was a mystery quilt with Charlotte Angotti. I've never done a mystery quilt. We actually paid her for the fabric which was cut by her step son with a laser so it went together beautifully. The smell was hard to get use to at first but it disappeared after a little while. I got all the block sewn together in class and finished putting it together a couple of days later. Now I just need to quilt it.

The next class I took was with Klaudeen Hansen. It was called Diagonal Illusion. I did it scrappy and only got 2 blocks finished, but I intend to finish it because I love it so much.

The finished quilt

My final class was on Saturday with Marian again. We took a class to make an umbrella. The class teacher was horrible. Fortunately the pattern was fairly easy to follow. It would be a great pattern to make on a serger. Going to try that next.

I used all the Tula Pink fabric I purchased from Mountain Creek Quilt Shop in Greenback.

Friday, February 28, 2020

SMQ Round Robin and Row Quilts

So I was volunteered to be in charge of another round robin for the guild. I didn't take a picture of the 12 1/2" block I started. But the first block I worked on was Mary Abbott's. I'm going to post each month about the blocks I work on.

I did the row on the left and on the bottom.

Here is round 2

This was started by Dee West, then Denise Holloway and I added 3 rows - the left, the bottom and the right. We have had a small delay due to the Covid-19 virus.

This is Denise Holloway's. I added the row at the top with the wavy edge and the circles.

The last one I worked on was Sally Sante's -

I added the bottom row.

Here are all the finished tops:

Sally Sante

Here are the finished quilt tops:

Dee West

Denise Holloway

Kathy Slifka

Leslie Hinson

Mary Abbott

Mine

Gloria Felter

Marian Sykes

Hopefully everyone liked theirs. I hope they finish them off and bring them in the future to share with the guild at show and tell. If we ever have a meeting again. So far, we have cancelled April - August due to the Covid-19 virus.

After finishing the Round Robin, it was so much fun, I decided to host a Row Robin. In the row robin, you start each quilt with a row of 6 - 6-inch blocks. I made mine with black and white. Of course, I forgot to take a picture of it, but I will get it when the challenge is over. The first row I got to work on was completed by Andrew Lee. His row featured Abe Lincoln and civil war fabric and blocks. I'm not a fan of civil war fabric, but I liked the history of the row. It was really hard not to tell him that the Underground Railroad Quilts are not true. Not my place though. I wanted to make blocks that dealt with slavery, however. Marian had a book called "Facts & Fabrications, Unraveling the History of Quilts & Slavery" by Barbara Brackman. The blocks were perfect except they were the wrong size. So I decided to try drafting my own. It turned out pretty good. Here are the blocks I used in the order I put them on the quilt row (from left to right)

Chained Star - A block to recall capture in Africa

Last Ship - A block to recall the ocean voyage

Cotton Boll - A block to recall the slave economy

Slave Chain - A block to recall the slaves' clothing

Catch Me If you Can - A block to recall escape

Lincoln's Platform - A block to recall the emancipation

For round two I had Denise Holloway's. Jennifer Wilkerson had it first. I added the row on the right.

This is my new row. I did the one on the top. It belongs to Jennifer Wilkerson. It is actually laying sideways. She oriented the quilt vertically. Not sure how this one is going to turn out.