What I've Been Up To

Life here has been a little crazy, as always.  Recently, I decided to really attempt to go gluten free and joined in with a 6 month challenge.  I am joining in with thedailydietribe.com for the challenge.  For the next 6 months, I will be gluten free.  I will get to talk with a health coach every other week, and I have to write a blog post at thedailydietribe.com 3 weeks out of the month.  It's been one month so far and I have had a few aha moments.  I've been working with Mia Davis at Blissful Chicks and she has been great.  She has been supportive and resourceful giving me recipes to try.

One of the recipes was plain yogurt sweetened with honey.  I bought some plain yogurt this week and was not really looking forward to trying it (not one of my favorite foods), but I actually let my son try it since he tends to like any yogurt.  I added some liquid chocolate stevia from NuNaturals for some sweetness.   I also gave his twin sister some to try.  He didn't like it, but his sister did.  I ended up eating his and was pleasantly surprised at how good it tasted.  I now feel like I can get plain yogurt and control the sweetness and use a sweetener that I like.  NuNaturals has had a few products that I have tried and been happy with.  I will say that NuNaturals did provide the products for free, but I will definitely be buying certain products that I love, like the liquid lemon stevia, liquid chocolate stevia, and the fast dissolving tablets.

I've also been trying to make time to be creative.  I have been trying to teach myself how to hand piece quilts.  I have made a couple of blocks so far and plan to make a whole quilt with hand piecing and hand quilting.  I have been working on a hexagon quilt as you go quilt.  I am trying to use flannel blankets from when my kids were little as well as some scraps of fleece and flannel.  I am trying to use up my stash since I don't really have room to keep a stash.

fabric for the hand pieced quilt

I am also working on a english paper piecing project where we complete 1 EPP block a month.  I have completed 2 so far with the 3rd one in process.  The 3rd one is made up of 81 1/2 inch hexagons and I just can't seem to bring myself to work on it much.  I will start the next month's block when we get it and work on June's block a little at a time.

1st month's block in process

I also took a class from my Facebook friend who is opening a craft studio/gallery.  We made floating lanterns and I had a blast.  I am contemplating teaching a quilting class as well as a knitting class.  She is actually doing my dream and if I can be part of it, I really want to take the opportunity.  

I am also practicing playing with fabric dyeing.  I have tried some tie dyeing, with the goal to get it to be less tie dye looking and more batik looking.  I'm not sure how to really get there, but it will be a fun thing to practice.  I am also thinking about trying some more art quilting and maybe even modern quilting to branch out.  I ultimately love traditional quilting, but I want to open my mind and learn a little more of what it out there!

Summer has just begun.  The kids will start summer school and I will start, hopefully, working during the day.  It will be interesting to see what the summer brings.  We have started our garden and started going to our local farmer's market.  I am really excited to start getting things out of our garden and using them to cook with.  I hope that I can keep up with my creative time.  It may be hard, but I plan to be really conscientious about maintaining creativity through the summer and beyond!

Amy