...And, It's the New Year!

...So far, it has not been as relaxing as I had hoped. But my hopes were probably unrealistic. Peter had a car accident Sunday - fortunately, no injuries - and is dealing with needing to get back to WSU tomorrow while his car is not drivable yet. My sister had another cardiac "event" Monday and is hoping to be released from the ICU today. At under 40, she is a bit young to have heart attacks but she has a rare condition that apparently makes them more common; this time, it seems that she just needs to have her medication adjusted. All of this has not helped any plans I might or might not have had to get healthy, get more sleep, have less stress and stay positive in 2017. But as I've often thought, these holidays are superficial and self-imposed anyway. We do what we can. And God sees us through.

So to deal with all the extra stress I have been trying to control some of the things I actually can. After following it on facebook for two years I am finally starting with the Declutter challenge. Today was counters... I spent a whole lot more than 15 minutes and half of my kitchen counters are clean. I am working on getting back to regularly posting my Latin for Duolingo lessons, although that will probably be tomorrow at the earliest. And I have been busy on the En Provence mystery quilt. Bonnie was kind enough to post the last clue on New Year's Day... but it contains about 5 times as much work as any of the other clues. I feel quite content that I have all the individual components made now and ready to be seamed together into blocks and then the whole quilt. Some overachievers on the fb page have already quilted the whole thing! I can't even.

I like greens and yellows together -- Hobbit colors! Part of the fun of these mystery quilts for me is the process of working intensively with a few colors, and getting my fabrics organized bit by bit. I now feel pretty comfortable with Bonnie Hunter's scrap user's system, and most of my fabric is now organized that way.

 My 2" strips are now vastly expanded, neatly rolled up and crammed into the plastic storage box ready for the next time. I have a LOT of greens. I would have even more blues, but there wouldn't be room for them right now so I haven't felt the need to cut them. Before the "reveal" post came out, I had these three block possibilities on my design wall:

 Of course they do not include the units that were in part 7, but I was hoping to include these in the Mystery link-up post which didn't happen this week.

 Like I said, I was feeling really good about how well I was keeping up with the challenge until the last part came out and all the speedy people have pictures of their finished, and some even quilted, tops.

The finished quilt will be so pretty! We will see how much more I can get done before next Monday, but I can guarantee right now that it will not be a finished quilt by then.