Slow and steady ...

Sorry I've been missing for a while. First, my computer at work was going so slow, I could hardly stand to work on it. Then it spent 3 days in IS while they tried to figure out what was wrong with it. It's back now, and it's working great, but I have a mountain of work that just keeps growing. So there hasn't been a lot of time to post much.

Today's entry is primarily a response to Laurie's post from Monday talking about her slow weight loss. At first I was just going to write a comment, but then I figured it would get way too long, so I'm just using this topic for my blog entry today. No, it's not exactly quilt related, but, oh well! One of those sayings that has stuck in my head over the course of my weight-loss journey is "slow and steady wins the race." Well, okay, but just how slow is slow? I know all of that stuff about how I didn't gain it all overnight, so I won't lose it overnight. That's a given. But what really is a reasonable expectation? I embarked on my journey with what I thought was a reasonable goal of losing 2 lbs. per week on average. For the first 7 months or so everything was moving along just the way I'd planned it. But then it happened - the dreaded plateau! I spent the next 6 months in misery trying to get my scale to budge. I ate more, ate less, exercised more, changed my exercise routine, walked slower and longer, walked faster - all to no avail. I was stuck. Laurie, boy do I feel your frustration because I've been right there. When the scale finally started moving again, it was all at a much slower pace. I've been at this for 20 months now and I truly never would have thought it would take me this long to lose the first hundred lbs. I think if that thought had occurred to me, I might never have started.

But something interesting has happened to me over that time and I've sort of reassessed the goal. When you start losing weight, people are always asking what your goal is. I've always been too embarrassed to actually come out and tell people I want to lose 150 lbs. but there you have it. The thing is over the course of time I've realized that that is not really the goal at all. My real goal is to be a thin person - to make choices like a thin person, to be active like a thin person, to stay a thin person. I've been a fat person most of my life. My body knows how to be fat and it wants to go back to being fat. I have proof of that because I've lost 50+ pounds more times in my life than I can count, but I just keep putting it all back on and then some more. So I honestly think the slow progress is helping me in the long run, because I'm acquiring new eating habits. My body is learning how to stay at this weight. For me that is a very big deal. I've learned to celebrate the small losses and even staying the same from week to week because any time I don't gain, I've won. Ultimately the hardest battle is not losing it; it's keeping it off - FOR GOOD!

Responses and Update

I kept thinking I was going to get a picture to add to this post and I haven't done it, so I'm just posting without the picture. Maybe I'll add the picture later.

Anyway, I did want to thank all of you for your kind comments on my before and after pictures. It still amazes me when I look at those pictures. Amy asked if I was doing any Quilted Diamonds since my "before" picture is with Linda Franz. My answer to that one is definitely "no!" I got to know Linda on the dearjane.com group just after she had completed her DJ quilt that won so many awards. I bought her book because of the excellent hand piecing instructions as I am hand piecing my own DJ. My DJ is going very slowly because I keep picking up projects that I can finish faster. The DJ is intended to be a wedding gift for my older daughter, so hopefully I have at least another 10 years to complete it (her father hopes it's another 20 years, LOL).

Thanks to Amy who posted pictures of her Star Fling quilt, I now have a couple of those in progress. I've cut enough 3.5" squares to make two of them - one for each daughter - as lap quilts. I will try to finish both tops at my guild's retreat in February. I always get a lot accomplished at retreat because I tend to chain myself to the machine. Opportunities for a weekend of concentrated sewing are very rare in my world, so I take them when I can get them. I also finished the fourth block on my applique BOM and got started on the fifth, so it's been a fairly productive weekend. I didn't have yesterday as a holiday, but I decided to take a vacation day so I could be home with the family. It was a lovely day and the girls ended up spending most of it playing outside. What is with this crazy weather? I can't believe we're having 60-degree days in January in St. Louis. I was used to that sort of thing in Houston, but it's definitely not the norm here. I just hope we don't end up with a late freeze after everything's in bloom!

Tag - You're It!

Seems like we've all been tagged with this thing lately. So here is my entry. I have some quilty stuff to write about, but I'll wait until tomorrow to post it and then maybe I can add pictures too.

Four jobs you've had: softball league announcer, gas station attendant, department store buyer, international tax manager

Four movies you could watch over and over: Remember the Titans, October Sky, Ben-Hur, Lord of the Rings (all three movies)

Four places you've lived: Houston; Campbellsville, KY; State College, PA; Florissant, MO

Four TV shows you love to watch: The Amazing Race, Law & Order, Simply Quilts, baseball games (spring training is just around the corner, yea!).

Four Places You've Been on Vacation: Germany & Austria, Switzerland, Scotland, Yellowstone

Four Websites You Visit Every Day: Astros.com, Jumble.com, Quiltville, our blog ring

Four Of Your Favorite Foods: cheese, tamales, grilled salmon, strawberries

Places You'd Rather Be: with my family, in my quilt studio, outside, in the mountains

Four Albums you can't live without: Point of Grace - I Choose You, Steven Curtis Chapman - All Things New, Glad - A Capella Hymns, MercyMe - Undone

Four People you'll pass this on to: Cari, Kathy, Becky, Karen

Before and After

So now it's time to reveal the real me. The first photo is of me with Linda Franz in Paducah the year that she published her first Quilted Diamonds book. I'm embarrassed to say that this was not my top weight, but you get the idea. Ugh! I should probably caption the second picture "during" instead of "after" because I am still a work in progress. I think I had lost about 90 lbs. at the time this picture was taken.

Applique time

I thought I should share pictures of my applique blocks. I'm working on a BOM of Lori Smith's Flowers From My Garden and these are my first three blocks. I'm almost finished with the fourth.

I really love doing hand applique because I can do it almost anywhere. I've been fairly successful in keeping up with my blocks as they come in - at least I was until we got into December. I have the fifth block waiting and I will get another one in soon, so I will be behind. Hopefully I can catch up before the blocks really start stacking up. The applique method I use is back-basting. This method is taught by Jeanna Kimball, although she didn't create the method. For those who've never heard of this method, the way you do it is by tracing the design on the back of your background. Then you baste the applique fabric onto the background using a large needle and heavy thread and trim the fabric about 1/4" from the basting line. You clip the basting threads a little at a time and do your needleturn applique. The basting helps the applique fabric turn under. I think I've tried almost every applique method out there, and this is the one that has given me the best results. You can see a good explanation of this method by going to Apple Blossom Quilts.

The Renegade Quilter

First things first. I gotta cheer for my Texas Longhorns. They got it done last night in spectacular fashion, and I'm one happy transplanted Texan this morning!

So now on to quilting. I've been thinking some about my quilting philosophy because of a discussion in another group. I would say that I'm probably somewhat of a maverick quilter, but since I'm not in the maverick group, I thought I should use a different word. So I'm calling myself the renegade quilter. I've pretty much been a renegade all my life. It's a quality that's helped me out at times, but it has also gotten me into trouble at times. For instance, my 8th grade Home Ec teacher was not amused when I showed my class mates an easier and more accurate way to put in a zipper than the way the teacher showed us. I really wasn't trying to show off, but really I was a better seamstress than my teacher, and I don't think she liked that too much. I think she was a lot happier when we started the unit on cooking, which is definitely NOT something that I excel at.

I'm pretty much a self-taught quilter and I've gleaned a lot over the years from my many quilting books, but one bit of advice that never made much sense to me was the admonition to always press your seams to the side. Now, you have to understand that I started out my sewing life by making clothes. I made most of my own clothes from the time I was in the 4th grade to well into my adult-hood. So I was used to pressing my seams open. But, since every quilting book I could find said to press them to the side, I did it. I spent quite a bit of time being extremely frustrated. I couldn't even get a four-patch to go together right, for goodness sake. So, renegade that I am, I did the unthinkable. I started pressing my seams open. Lo and behold, my piecing started to improve. Seams matched, points were pointy and all was right in my quilting universe. In the last few years I've started taking some quilting classes. Even a renegade can learn some new tricks every now and then. Taking classes has opened my horizons, and I've truly learned a lot and found some better ways of doing things than the way I was doing them. But, I still press my seams open most of the time. I did once have a quilting instructor go into fits when she saw me pressing my seams open, but I just smiled and did it my way. I have found that more and more teachers are coming to the realization that it really is okay and sometimes better to press seams open. I've had several classes recently where the teachers advised pressing seams open. So it seems (no pun intended) the idea may be catching on. But I doubt the quilting universe will ever switch over entirely. Some things are just too deeply ingrained.

Progress At Last

Finally! I'm getting the chance to post, and, yes, I have been able to get some quilting done. In fact, I finished a top that's been ready to stitch for a while. I bought the panel for this 3 years ago at my SIL's quilt shop in Rockford, IL. They had a pattern for a quilt to go with it, but I didn't care much for it, so I just got the panel. A year later, I bought some fabrics to make it into a quilt and ended up buying the pattern. I decided I liked certain aspects of it, and I could just change the things I didn't care for. I'm pretty happy with the end result! I now have 3 quilt tops waiting to be quilted. I LOVE the quilting part, but I'm thinking I may send one of my tops out for quilting. I may be talking to you more about that later this week, Judy.



We had a great Christmas at home this year. Unfortunately, I ended up getting a bad cold on the Thursday before Christmas. I was feeling pretty bad on Friday and Saturday, but thankfully I woke up Christmas morning feeling much better. We played games, had friends over, worked some puzzles, watched Christmas movies, went shopping and just had fun being at home and being together. It's been really great, but tomorrow it's back to work and school. Sigh! I guess all good things have to come to an end sometime. And, hey, it's just two weeks until the first holiday of the new year! I hope you all have a wonderful 2006!