Back to work.

Monday was my first day at work for 2016. It was a real bind getting up and leaving home whilst it was still dark and also driving home in the dark in the evening but apart from that it was an OK day. Monday evening I sat and did some hand stitching as I wanted to relax by watching TV. Yesterday I planned to start the quilting on the baby quilt but I had some jobs to do and once I'd finished those Kathryn came over to visit and wanted to go shopping. I bought myself a couple of jumpers for work but didn't see anything else that I needed or wanted. I have to admit I'm not a great shopper unless I have something specific that I need. Very little stitching got done on Tuesday evening as Kathryn and Olly stayed to dinner and we sat chatting until late.

That brings us to today. This morning I sat down with a cup of tea to catch up with my blog reading and in doing so found a link to OMG - one monthly goal. Sadly 'a lovely year of finishes' has come to an end but Heidi at Red Letter Quilts is running a monthly link up called 'One Monthly Goal'. You set yourself just one goal for the month and link that up at the beginning of the month. At the end of the month you link up again to share how you got on. The button is on my sidebar.

I have 2 goals for the month but the one I'm picking for this challenge is my nine patch quilt.

My goal is to quilt and bind this quilt by the end of this month. 

This morning I set up my machine ready for free motion quilting. It took a little while to get the tension right and decide on the thread I was going to use but I finally got myself sorted.  I quilted three blocks but wasn't sure about the thread so I went back to my quilting threads. That was when I saw the monofilament. I bought this early last year but hadn't tried using it yet. This seemed like a good time to give it a whirl. I was pleased with the outcome and decided to unpick the blocks I'd already finished and re quilt them. I'm just doing simple straight line quilting. Well simple isn't really a good word for it because I find quilting in a straight line quite taxing.

I do love the science theme fabric in that block. There are cute robots on it as well.

Jen at Quilter in the closet has set herself a 100 day challenge to complete three quilty or craft goals. In reading her post I realised this would help me to complete some of my goals as they will take more than a month and I don't do well with open ended goals. So my three goals I want to complete by April 15th (the end of the challenge) are.

1. Complete my millennium cross stitch sampler. This is one of my goals for 2016 as it has been hanging around since Christmas 1999.

2. To complete the arcs for my double wedding ring quilt. I can't remember off the top of my head but I think I need to make 98 in total. I'm not sure how many I've made but I guess it is about 10. I'd like to move this quilt on although I don't expect to finish the top this year as it is my long term project. 

3. I want to blog more. I let work get in the way and as a result I post for a few days and then get bogged down with work so don't do a lot of sewing and don't post. I don't want to set a number of posts I'll do in a month because you can't be that specific but it would be good to do a post alternate days if possible.

This evening I've been doing a little more work on the christmas tree cross stitch. I was going to switch to a different piece of stitching but I'll carry on till the end of the month before I switch on the millennium sampler. Shortly I must go to bed as I have work again tomorrow but I'm looking forward to doing some more quilting tomorrow evening.