Going forward for now..................

If you had talked to me back in January or February, (when I was busy working on filling these little cases for this year's upcoming Pick A Case Mystery retreats), and told me the retreats wouldn't be happening, I might have wondered what you were talking about?? I was getting ahead for once, so that I wouldn't be cutting at the last minute as I usually do. It felt good when I had about 30 of these all finished. We did have one Mystery retreat back in March, and then the world turned upside down.

After that fantastic weekend, I still had 21 cases remaining, and 2 Mystery retreats planned for June. Well of course, with current restrictions in place, this is not possible. And there is no way of knowing just when weekend retreats will resume.

I have had a lot of thoughts going around in my head for quite awhile now, and even before this crisis occurred, about my life going forward as I reach "retirement" age. It even goes back a few years, when I started talking about that word "BALANCE". This phase of isolation and staying home has certainly given me balance, without me even trying.

My plans had been to do less quilting, and still have retreats in "retirement". I don't plan on stopping all my activities completely, but would like to scale back. Well of course, now there are NO retreats, so plan A won't happen, and I need to think about Plan B. I guess it will all work itself out in time.

Meanwhile I had all these cases looking at me. One of the retreats planned for June was a group from the South East who have been coming for a few years now. They decided they would purchase the kits and sew them at their own group meeting. At the top of my blog there is a For Sale Page of kits and fabric packs. Last week I decided that the information on that page was old news, so spent a day loading up the current kits that I had so they could choose which kits to buy. In the process I also added 4 quilts that I had the fabrics sitting there to cut, which made 25 kits. And wouldn't you know it, they decided that those 4 were amongst the 10 they wanted!!!

Time for action, and yesterday my checking lady came for the day, and we cut, packed and checked those 4 kits and this morning I finished packing them all up into some different little containers ready for them to be collected. Thanks Pat, you do an amazing job, and I am very thankful.

That still leaves me with 15 kits remaining, and these are all listed on the For Sale page, as well as lots of little bundles of fabrics that would love to find new homes. If you are interested in any of these, I would love to hear from you. Email me: simmoja@internode.on.net for more details.
There will be more kits loaded as soon as I get them cut and packed, and have lots more planned. Perhaps your group would like to have a sewing session using these kits, all cut and packed and ready for you to start sewing.

I will post news of retreats on my blog when they will resume, but in the meantime we will see how this goes. Until then I will continue to put fabric together and design quilts, as there is plenty here for me to use up. Another bundle landed on my doorstep recently, so I don't think I will be sitting around twiddling my thumbs anytime soon.

When I found out that my weekends would be free for awhile, I thought it would be a good chance to get back to working on some of my own UFO's!! But no, what did I do instead? Started new projects didn't I? As well as working on those applique quilts for my grandies, I have been following the QGSA Mystery projects. I did make the first one, designed by Chris O'Brien, and posted my progress on this back in March/April. The next one was a Pick a Box with Lessa Siegele, and while I joined the group I did not make the quilt. The next Mystery is one that Rachelle Denneny is currently doing and the fabric requirements and cutting instructions have been released. This Friday the first instructions will be posted. I spent a bit of time trying to decide on fabrics to use for this, and had stuff everywhere.

I was looking for packs of fat quarters, and found one that might work, but then realised that there were 2 of each fabric in the pack, so instead of having 20 different fabrics there were only 10. That was disappointing. I could have gone completely scrappy, but that would take me too much time to sort through the drawers. And then I looked at brights......and got out lots of bolts....

..................and then I found a fat quarter pack that did have 20 different fabrics. This made it much easier to sort, and I just needed to choose a background........so spread them out on another surface..........

.........and have settled on this lot. The background is really brighter and prettier than it looks here. Of course, these have not been pressed, or cut yet, and Friday is fast approaching.

While the group is waiting for Rachelle to release the next stage directions, she is holding some auctions of various donated goods. Rachelle is organising this fundraising appeal on behalf of Backpacks 4 SA Kids Inc and you can find out more about this group by going to the following website....http://backpacks4sakids.org  So far well over $8,000 has been raised for this worthy cause. 

I have donated one of the Ready Set Sew kits for Rachelle's cause and tomorrow it is being auctioned.

Joining in with all these Mystery groups during isolation has been a lot of fun.

Well I think that's about all the newsfromjude for this time. Will be back soon, and hopefully have some progress photos of my cut fabric, ready for the start. I will try to keep up.

Blessings, From Jude