Quilt Clues Galore!

 

A wonderful surprise arrived in the mail this week!  My mom sent me these 2 panels for my birthday.  

I think she was concerned that I had some bare spots on my walls that needed Christmas wall hangings.  Sarah took several tubs of Christmas decorations to her apartment and after she did a video call with Grandma showing off her decorated apartment, my mom realized how many things had traveled to St. Lou.  

I'm sure I won't get these finished for this Christmas as I am still working on the puppy Christmas wall hanging.

I have all the tree blocks finished for it and need to work on the snowflake blocks.  This block is from Lori Holt's Vintage Christmas book.

I did all the cutting for the next Grassy Creek clue yesterday.  Cici was on hand to help for awhile.

She was thrilled we were using the honeycomb color that matches her lovely fur again, but was SHOCKED to realize that when I said "parakeet", I meant the color, not an actual bird.  What a disappointment!

She vacated the cutting counter in protest.

I also spent time in the afternoon pulling finished tops out of the closet and working on finding backings, battings, and bindings for them.  I'm almost (not quite, but almost) embarrassed to say how many there are.  I did make a list of 10 things (but a couple of them are really small) to work on getting ready to quilt.  That is not all there is though (ok, so I am embarrassed to tell you how many there are).  

I will continue the project today and hopefully start sewing the components for the mystery quilts I cut for.

Christi

Sewing catch up!

 

Flock Together - I finished this top in record time!  Sew Sweet Quilt Shop in Brunswick was doing another quilt along over Thanksgiving week that had to have a completed top by today (December 3rd) in order to be entered into a drawing.  I have seen sew many different Flock Together quilts posted on their facebook page......each one different and I just can't decide which I like the best.  

I chose to use these bright batiks because............

My batik tub runneth over........the lid no longer came close to fitting!

I didn't follow the pattern instructions (imagine that!).  I used my easy angle and companion angle rulers to cut 144 flying geese!

The pattern didn't actually call for that many, but I was enjoying these fabrics so much I got carried away.......so I just made my top bigger than the pattern (and still got it done by the deadline!).

A gross of flying geese!

These were interspersed with the half square triangles for the new Bonnie Hunter Grassy Creek Mystery.  

I completed those last night as well...........good thing cuz the next clue releases tomorrow (Friday)!

Cici was a great help with this project.  She loves the honeycomb fabrics because they match her beautiful fur.  She looked at me pointedly as if to say that my hair is starting to match the other color.

While I was rooting around in the batik tub, I pulled the scraps to make this.  It was a pattern I drafted myself.  The strips are only 1" wide, so this is very small.  I'm debating how to finish it now.

There is not a lot to be said for the next 3 photos except that they are part of a bingo game I am playing with Hen & Chicks Studio.

Looks like there might be a new project getting started!  I really said that I wasn't going to keep doing these quilt-a-longs, and I definitely said I wasn't doing Bonnie Hunter's mystery this year.  But, I liked Bonnie's colors, and I had enough scraps to do it, and the Bingo game sounded like so much fun, and because of the Flock Together quilt, I can get the lid on the batik tub, so what's a few more projects started!  I have NO willpower and am very good at justifying my sewing habits.  Let's just say it keeps me out of trouble.

Well, the next clue for the Morewood Mystery quilt was released today, so I better get back to it!

Christi

See How She Grows!

 This post is all about Willow and her amazing growth spurt.  In the 3 weeks in November between her vet appointments, she gained 19 pounds.  

She needed assistance at the beginning of November to get into the window seat, recliners, or couch.

She loves to sit in the recliner with someone...........my Dad seems to be a favorite of the pets.

She is definitely a "gift", and can get into whatever recliner or couch she wants now.  There's hardly room for me with her anymore!

We still give it our best shot though.  She's starting to be a little calmer.  She gets to sleep on the deck with Kenzie at night (much to Kenzie's dismay).  Her favorite activity is bringing her "treasures" up on the deck.  Sometimes you can't even make it in the back door for all the sticks, limbs, and roots she has collected.  

If she grows into her ears and paws, she's going to be a BIG DOG!

Christi

One Month Later............

One month later..........where did the time go?  I can't believe it's been a whole month since I blogged!  Well, some sewing did happen.

Here is the handstitching......... another block for the Appalachian Memories quilt done!

And, we did have a guild retreat!  This was the mystery project we did at retreat.  I've decided to add another border of the cream background material and then use the peachy petal color for binding.  It will make a nice spring/summer wall hanging.

And I did get my Star Junction quilt top pieced.  While I didn't enjoy all those star blocks, I am pleased with how it turned out.  I'm still pondering adding borders.  I have plenty of the fabric left, so we'll see how it turns out.  I like the appearance now, but would also like it to maybe be a little larger, so borders would help that.  (Also notice that it is laid out on the new flooring in the sewing room!)  

 We visited Sarah in St. Louis one weekend (ok, it was really Oct. 31-Nov.1).  We went to the science center which is her favorite place and on Sunday, we went with her to try a new church.  It is really hard to find a church when most of them are closed and doing online only services.  We found that Memorial Presbyterian was open with social distancing and masks, so we tried it out.  It is a beautiful old building.

Everyone seemed very welcoming even though it was hard with masks and social distancing.  She has been back a couple of more times.

The church is located in a very nice residential area.  There is only street parking, but it's a nice tree-lined street with really neat houses to look at.  We enjoyed driving through the neighborhood.

The hubs went north to attend an antique tractor auction with my dad one Saturday.  Of course, Dad had to make a purchase.  It's a pretty cute little tractor.  I think he'll have fun fixing it up.

We also went to Mom and Dad's for Thanksgiving.  I cooked the turkey, made noodles, and pies, and mom made sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, cranberries, stuffing, and rolls.  It was delicious.

We made Aunt Harriett's recipe for homemade caramels which turned out wonderfully.  Mom and I also worked on a table runner called Flying Dutchman that I had brought a new ruler for.  When we left, it was all on her display wall ready for her to sew together.  

We had some little leftover triangle cutoffs that I thought about saving for Aunt Judy because I know how much she likes them...........NOT!

So, I hopefully will do better at posting in December.

Christi

Updates...........including quilting!

Yes, what would a Friday be without a football photo!  This is from last Friday night's win, when Jackson got back to the locker room after his trip to the ER.  He's the one in the stocking cap behind the banner with the sling.  To give you the update, he is having surgery today on his left collarbone.  I think he thinks he will be at the game tonight, but we'll see how that goes.  

And the older nephew is at UNI working on track and field (and some occasional studying!).  He is hoping to be a decathlete, so is learning to pole vault.  

 Sorry for the poor picture quality, but it is a screen shot from a video on his phone.  I think he's loving this new challenge.  

And speaking of challenges, we decided to pull up the carpet in the old part of my sewing room.  The plan was to clean up the hardwood underneath.  However, we didn't realize how damaged it was from the renovations a few years ago.  There were areas of paint, deep gouges, and the old floor wasn't totally flat!  Of course, this was done over a month ago, and then the hubs went to the field.

So this is what my sewing room looked like for awhile.  It didn't help that Sarah was moving and piling boxes and tubs in there as well that were going to St. Louis.

After Sarah went to St. Louis, I was able to get all this fabric stored in a dresser in her room.

We finally gave up on bringing the old floor back, and then the search began to find some flooring that would look good with what was already there.  Lowes and Menards had very little that we liked and none of it was in stock, so would have to be ordered and if we didn't like it, there was a 25% restocking fee.  

I finally went to Sutherlands and came home with 3 samples - large pieces!  We both immediately knew the one we liked and it was IN STOCK!

Isn't it pretty!

It is all done now except for some trim pieces we need to order.  My plan for today is to clean and start putting stuff back where I want it.  I don't think Cici is thrilled with this change.  She's a carpet cat.  And Willow can go sliding across it pretty easily.  But I love it.  No more hauling the vacuum up the stairs!

So, that is my excuse for not much sewing happening.  I did show a couple of completed quilts at our last guild meeting.

Above is my Dashing Through the Snow which was a quilt along last December through Temecula Quilt Company.  I made my churn dashes a little bigger, set them on point, and added the candy cane border to make it a nice sized throw.  

And below is my entry in our guild challenge project this year.

We were to create a quilted item to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of women getting the right to vote.  My entry was called Sarah's Choice.  All of the blocks are from the Vintage Farm Girl books and Vintage Christmas.  The colors of the suffragist movement were purple and gold and the flower was the sunflower.  The block on the truck door is called Sarah's Choice.  My daughter, Sarah, has the right to vote and to be anything she wants to be.  Her dad said she could have been a farmer, raised corn, and driven it to town in her own truck.  She instead chose to be an aerospace engineer.........go figure!  However, she has always talked about building (designing) her own house to live out in Wyoming, where there aren't many people, with one of every different animal..........pig, cow, horse, duck, etc.  We'll see if that ever happens.  Anyway, this was my entry.  I didn't win, but I really like my quilt.

And, I showed this set of placemats..........finally finished!  So, there are only 2 things left on my UFO list from last year.  I plan to get at least one more finished this year.  I think that's pretty good.  Of course, we won't talk about all the things that were started this year.  After all, I was going to need something to put on next year's UFO list, right?

Last Saturday, I attended Scrap Attack at Sew Sweet in Brunswick.  There were 9 of us there and we got to use the retreat room so were socially distanced.  It was sew much fun to be in a group of people sewing and chatting all day.  And, I wasn't looking at my own dismantled sewing room!  I worked on blocks for Star Junction, a quilt-along I'm doing with the Sew Sweet group that needs to be done sometime in November.  I have a ways to go, and am not enjoying the star blocks.  But, it WILL GET DONE!

One of the ladies showed this Bonnie Hunter quilt, which I loved.  I have the book this is in and am tempted.............!

I also did the cutting and sewing for the first 2 clues of the Morewood Mystery quilt I'm doing.  It had been going on for 2 months, and all I had done was select fabric.

And here are my completed components.  I'm looking forward to the next clue which comes out next week.

Sew, TWO blog posts in one week!  What is the world coming to!  Could it be the blue moon, the upcoming time change, Halloween?

Yes, a pumpkin was carved!  I was asked to carve one for the museum (actually 3, but only 1 got done).  This is the Nicholas-Beazley logo.

We will be spending Halloween in St. Louis.  We're planning to go see Sarah tomorrow and come back on Sunday.  She is taking us to the Science Center for Halloween.  Fun!

So Happy Halloween everyone!

Christi