Sunday, March 30, 2014

I am keeping busy

I finally pinned my Log Cabin quilt yesterday evening. It is about 108x108 inches. I set the blocks into a star design. Now the only problem I have is, that I have no idea how to quilt it. I am planning on quilting it on my domestic machine, and already know, it will be a bear to wrestle through. I thought concentric stars would look great, but I am running in to the problem that the stars get distorted as they get smaller and larger. I thought about free motion quilting, but my quilt frame with the machine is too small for this quilt. I think free motioning a large quilt like this on my sewing table will not turn out great. My batting has to be quilted between 2-4 inches apart. I am trying to figure out some kind of straight stitching, because I think that would work the best. I will have to do some more thinking on that.

My sweater I am knitting has not been touched since I posted last. But I am planning on changing that today. I have so many knitting podcasts to catch up on. So I thought I could knit a few hours today, relax, and catch up. A cold front has moved in to our area again, and that makes of course perfect knitting weather. Also, I would like to get this sweater finished so I can wear it before it gets too warm for it. If I can get the body finished today, which is about 5 more inches, I think that would be great.

This brings me to a new endeavor I am starting. Like everyone else, I am trying to lose weight. I figure if I lose weight, and become skinny, my sweaters will knit up so much faster. I am not following a certain diet plan, because that just made me fail every time in the past. The "you are not allowed to eat this" approach is making me want the "forbidden" food even more. I tried a lot of diet plans, lost weight on them, but could not stick to them. Until I think, now it finally clicked. Not a diet, but a different lifestyle. So I have decided to do the "French Girls don't get fat" approach. I am controlling my portions, make good choices, and move more. I chose walking and strength training. I really enjoy Leslie Sansone's Walk away the pounds franchise. I have enough DVDs to keep it interesting and mixed up. On days I don't want to do her workouts, I have a Treadmill, exercise bike,  weight machine, rowing machine, Swiss ball, and assorted weights and stretch bands. So quite a home gym that I will use more now. I started on Friday with 195.1 lbs. and am down to 194.3 lbs. I know it is better to start weighing weekly, but I find it more motivating for me to weigh daily. This way I can make corrections when I see a gain or stand still, and I will catch it before it becomes too big. Now I know people say, "What about fluctuations?" Yes, that is mostly water you take on from eating too much sodium. But my theory is, if I see that fluctuation, I can counter act it by drinking more water, and flushing my system out. I will keep you updated how that is working out for me. But for my first week, I need to have special strength. I work in a doctor's office, and get take out lunch a lot from visiting drug reps. It is all very nice and good, but eating out gets old, and is nothing special anymore. My plan for this week is to bring my lunch from home. It is more calorie controlled that way. I just need  to be strong, and say "no thank you" when the menu comes around to me. I think it will be tough the first few weeks, but once I get control over my eating habits, I can start to take part of these lunches once a week, and make it something special again, rather than the norm.

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