It's Not All Quilting Around Here!

About a year ago, I decided to get more serious about nutrition and fitness.  My workplace offered a six-month program starting last May, so I enrolled in that.  Although it was a lot of work and required a minimum of five hours of exercise a week, I had good success with it, and when it was over in October, I thought I'd better do some things to keep myself exercising.  Some "friends" at work convinced me to sign up for a half-marathon with them.  As part of the training, I signed up for the Colorburst 5K, a local race that was held yesterday.  I'm thrilled to announce that I finished it!  I even ran almost all of it.  (I should mention that this sort of thing is totally foreign to me.  I've never really been all that athletic.) The Colorburst is more of a "fun run" in that it's not timed and you can walk or run.  You are given a white t-shirt, and as you pass each kilometer mark, they throw color at you, so when you're done, the white t-shirt looks more tie-dyed. 

The start of the race

There were about 600 people in the race, including lots of kids, strollers and wagons.  As you can see, it was a lousy day for a race.  What you can't see is that it was 42 degrees, with a stiff wind coming off the lake in the background.  I had a sweatshirt under my t-shirt, but I wasn't dressed nearly warmly enough for this race.  Lots of people had gloves and earmuffs, so I'll do that next time!  Anyway, I'm just glad I was able to finish it, and as cold as it was, I don't think I even broke a sweat.  If you live in Wisconsin, you gotta be tough, I guess.  The half-marathon is in about a month, so we'll see if I survive that.  I just hope it's warmer that day!

The Country Threads UFO Challenge for April was my Star Spangled Banner Cross-Stitch pillow, so I finished that yesterday while I was thawing out from the race.  The cross-stitch was already done, so I just had to assemble it into a pillow and stuff it.  It's a big pillow - I think it finished at 21" long.  This was a kit I picked up at Country Sampler last summer.

While I was in the pillow-finishing mood, I finished a couple other cross-stitch pillows.

This is Butternut Tavern from Stacy Nash Primitives, another kit from Country Sampler. 

And last but not least...

This is My Country from La-D-Da, also a kit from Country Sampler.  This was a pretty quick one to stitch.  I really like the grungy pom-pom trim that came with the kit, but it was a real bear for me to put on.  I had to redo it three times.  I think I'm dyslexic when it comes to sewing trim on a pillow - it always ends up sticking into the seam allowance between the top and backing, instead of on the outside.  Anyway, I finally got it right, but when I tried to iron the cross-stitch piece, some of the pom-poms melted a little.  I'm guessing these are polyester.  So some of the trim is a little more "primitive" than initially planned, but I'm not changing it!  I like the pillow now that it's done, and if I had to do it over, I could put the trim on in ten minutes tops.  It was just a steep learning curve (like so much of quilting!)

It appears that I'm ready for the 4th of July, doesn't it?