Let’s close out 2020

We had a quiet Christmas, just the two of us. There weren’t many presents, at this age if we want something we just get – no waiting for the holidays 😉 We talked/Skyped with family and friends which was nice, otherwise we spent the day watching TV. It was pretty chilly here in Myrtle Beach, the high was only 32 with a ‘feels like’ in the 20’s…Brrrrr!

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I think I’ve found a quilt-a-long for 2021: Debby Brown’s Color Block QAL This is intended to use up scraps and each month she will release a new pattern. Fingers crossed I can keep up! LOL She has released some information early in case we want to get a head start on January and I’ve decided instead of using scraps, this time I’ll use one of the many FQ bundles that have been piling up from my FQS subscription.

As per the details, most of the patterns will use 2.5″ squares and the first one will use 16-patch blocks so I cut and pieced the FQ into strip sets, then subcut them into 2.5 strips ready to be pieced into blocks.

I pulled out four strips and made a block…but…I don’t like it. The color placement is off – too much dark blue and yellow check in this one block so I’ll be ripping it apart and starting over Plus I didn’t iron my seams open and it’s just too bulky at the intersections…must remember that when I get started again!!

I’ll be using up the last of my PTO this week and I plan to spend most of my time in the sewing room {fingers-crossed!}

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No big plans here for New Year’s Eve. I bought a bottle of Martini & Rossi Asti Spumante and some frozen appetizers that I’ll heat up for munching as we watch the ball drop in Times Square.

I want to take a moment to Thank You for sharing your kind words with me this year, it really has meant so much ❤

I wish you all a safe and very Happy New Year full of Health, Wealth and Happiness!!

Holiday apathy?

Yeah, unfortunately I’m not much in the holiday spirit but I’ve been trying to change that! I made a Christmas quilt, we pulled out the tree, I (minimally) decorated, I made Christmas cookies (with issues) and I’ve been listening to Christmas music for days – nothing is working! I guess it’s just going to be one of those holidays where I’ll be happy when it’s done.

There really isn’t much more to say… I still have not been in my sewing room to sew or quilt, not one single day 😦 I did look on Pinterest last night to see what 2021 quilt alongs have been posted but nothing really ‘hit’ me. Ugh, I can’t wait for this mood to pass!!

I did go for a run yesterday, the first time in over a week since I tweaked my left calf muscle. It felt OK but I only went out for 20 mins so as not to have the issue come back. I’ve been watching more TV lately – I usually watch sports (tennis & NFL) but I’ve also been sporadically catching up on episodes of The Crown on Netflix. It’s a good show but sometimes it’s a little slow.

And that’s all folks… I hope you have an awesome and very Merry Christmas!

Whole lotta nothing

It appears I’m taking a break after finishing my Christmas quilt cuz I haven’t been in my sewing room all week! I planned to make a few holiday masks after the fabric arrived early last week but I only got as far as washing and drying it.

In non-sewing related news, I mixed up my cookie dough yesterday and plan to bake them up today. I’ve had mixed results with my cookies in the last several years… I can’t figure out what the issue is – either the cookies spread too thin or they’re too thick and ‘cakey’… UGH!! I guess we’ll keep our fingers crossed for this year 😉

My great-niece had holiday pictures taken last week so I’ll leave you with all this cuteness!!

with Step-Brother

Have a great rest of your weekend!!

Making a Christmas quilt

I no sooner finished my Wonky Stars and I started making another quilt. I only have one Christmas quilt so I decided I need to make another. Sarah of Confessions of a Fabric Addict started making a postage stamp quilt with Christmas fabrics and I’ve used her technique before to make a quilt I lay at the foot of my bed… so it was a no brainer!

I pulled all my holiday fabrics together and if my math was correct I had just enough fat quarters so I started cutting strips. As I did with my last postage stamp quilt, I cut my strips 3.5″. I tossed them all in a plastic bin and then started pairing them up into sets of four.

From there I pieced them all into strip sets and ironed the seams open. I don’t usually take the time to press seams open but it really helps in this situation! Aren’t they pretty!

Over the next couple of days I cut 3.5″ strips from each set. I was able to get 6 strips from most of them. Then I put them in sets of 4 to be pieced into a 16 square block, I had enough for 36 blocks.

There were about 10 strips left over so I’ve decided to add one additional row to the last set of blocks to make the quilt 3″ longer than it will be wider.

And here are all the blocks up on my design wall, they’re not pieced together yet, I like to leave them for a day or two so I can determine if I have any matching fabrics too close

from the left side

from the right side

The lighting is not so good in these pictures… the colors at the top are much closer to the true shades. I’m going to piece this by sewing the blocks into 4-patches then sewing those together. I hope to get that done while watching football today.

That’s about all for now… have a great rest of your weekend!!

Wonky Stars finished

Right after I finished last weeks entry I went to my sewing room and started working on my Wonky Stars quilt. I decided to use my standard ‘meander’ for quilting and just ‘get it done’!

A few hours later (including breaks) the quilting was done!

Now to pick out binding… I wanted something to carry the halloween theme so I searched my stash and found this black & white stripe – Perfect!!

I quickly cut the 2.5 strips, pieced them together and ironed it in half. I had the quilt up on my design wall so I pinned the binding on to make sure I knew where to start the sewing so no piecing seams landed on the corners (I learned that lesson the hard way many years ago!!)

After a break for lunch and to watch some football, I finished off the binding later that afternoon and now I have a finished quilt!! Yay!!

Of course I no sooner got this one finished when I got the itch to start something new. Sarah of Confessions of a Fabric Addict always has plenty of ideas posted on her blog and one of her most recent projects is making a Christmas quilt using her postage stamp tutorial. I’ve made one of these before in random scraps and it really came together fast. I went searching for all the red & green Christmas fabrics I could find in my stash and wouldn’t you know it I found a FQ bundle of Holliberry by Corey Yoder!! What? When did I get that? Oh yeah, it was from the FQ club at Fat Quarter Shop – ‘Doh, I completely forgot about it!

Sarah is making her quilt with 2.5 strips but I’m going to use 3.5 strips like I did on my last one. To make a 60×72 quilt I’ll need approx 24 FQ’s, this bundle only had 12 pieces… and two of those pieces are a gray colorway that I don’t want to use. Luckily I have enough ‘other’ Christmas fabrics that will make up the difference – whoopie! I plan to get started today – wish me luck!

That’s all for now… have a great rest of your weekend!!

Progress…

Not much sewing took place this past week but there was a lot of activity as we get closer to closing on our other house.

The inspection report called out a few electrical things, some minor repairs to a few roof shingles and a few windows where the seals had broken. DH drove up on Thursday to take the windows to get an estimate so we can offer a credit at closing. We lined up a roofer and he took care of the issues the next day. We’ve lined up an electrician who will have the work done by this Friday.

The house is on well & septic and the Buyers had those tested last week too. The well came back with minor traces of bacteria – which we’ve been told is normal because no one has lived in the house for 4 months. We’ll need to line up someone to ‘shock’ the well next week and that should take care of it.

The appraisal is scheduled for tomorrow – that’s the last hurdle to get us to closing. Please send out all the good vibes you can spare that it goes in our favor!!! 🙂

Last but not least, this is the first time in my life I’ve put my Christmas tree up before Thanksgiving!! We bought a new tree during ‘Christmas in July’ so we’ve been anxious to see what it looks like. It’s a slim-line tree, it has LED lights that can change colors and motion all with a remote control. It needs a bit fluffing up but I’ve got plenty of time to do that and decorate it!

Lazy Holidays

It’s been pretty low key around here for the last week. I was sick with a stomach bug on Christmas day – ugh!! I woke up at 3:30am with diarrhea, chills and a very sour stomach. I was able to go back to sleep for a little while but was back up before 7am again. I moved to the couch and around 10am finally ‘tossed my cookies’…sorry if this is too much information. I suffered through the rest of the day feeling like I’d been hit by 17 buses (no clue where that saying came from !?).

Needless to say, Christmas was postponed in our house until the next day. I felt a little better so we exchanged gifts and just hung out on the couch most of the day. Later, I fixed dinner but I couldn’t eat any of it 😦  I feel much better now so all’s well that ends well.

There was no sewing this past week – ugh – but I did talk with my neighbor about making changes to her commission quilt. As you may recall, in it’s current state it’s about 30 inches longer than it is wide and it will be too long for the full-size bed she plans to display it on so, we’re going to move one of the rows of shirts to the back side and position it at the top so if the quilt is folded down there is a little surprise of more shirts! (A big Thanks to Quilt Mouse for the suggestion!)

That will be my mission this week – unpick and resew the top and piece the backing.

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Let’s hope the new year brings lots of good health, joy and adventure!

 

Two weeks worth!

***Fair warning: this is a picture heavy post***

I missed posting last week but I had a really good reason – I was in Maryland visiting my new Great niece!! OMG she is just the cutest, sweetest baby EVER! (Ha, I’m sure all Great Aunts say that…lol). Just look at Miss Campbell Elizabeth:

 

It was so hard to leave but after 6 days (!) I was ready to get back home. I missed DH and my fur baby…and I was itching to get back to my sewing room too!

First thing I did was finish up an old UFO (unfinished object) I started a few years back when I wanted to learn applique. This was a block of the month I followed from Jacquelynne Steves called Cozy Afternoon. The top had been done for a long time so I finally pulled it out, basted it and quilted all over it.

No specific plan for this – it measures 45″ square…I’ll offer it for sale on Facebook for $70, if there are no takers it’ll sit in my ‘done’ pile until I decided to donate it.

I’ve also started working on a Washington Redskins quilt for DH – after their extremely poor performance Thursday night I’m really not excited about making it but I’ve had it on my ‘to-do’ list for way too long so I’m just going to get ‘er done! Here’s part of it on my design wall, I still need to add a section on the right of the t-shirts. When it’s all done it should measure 75×84…whew!

I took a break today to put up a few Christmas decorations. As you may recall we’re supposed to be moving to Myrtle Beach (yeah that’s taking much much longer than anticipated) and I really didn’t want to pull out all my decorations just to have to pack them up when we move so I’ve only pulled out our pre-lit tree and a quilt I made last year to decorate the living room.

I then realized I didn’t have a Christmas table topper so I went right into the sewing room and made one! When I flipped my wall calendar to December there was an adorable snowman quilt which gave me the idea for this table topper. I pulled out my small bin of Christmas fabric and went to town – I really need to embellish this with some buttons for his eyes and mouth, and for his mid-section 🙂

And to top all that off, I’ve re-started the Couch-to-5k program (again!). The temps here in SC have been pretty mild so it was really easy to get outside. Week 1 Day 1 in the books…and it wasn’t pretty. My lungs are definitely out of condition – I was huffing and puffing through the first 4 intervals and I was only running 60 seconds!!! Ugh! More evidence that I’m sorely out of shape

That’s all for now…have a great weekend and week ahead!! 😀

 

Big News!

I’ve got lots to share quilting wise but the biggest, bestest news is: I’m a Great Aunt!!!

My niece gave birth to a 5lb 11oz, 18″ long little girl on Friday, Nov 10. Her name is Campbell Elizabeth and she’s perfect!! She came about 2.5 weeks early and they’re keeping an eye on her but she’s doing really well 😀

I’m just so tickled…my niece has been trying to have a baby for many, many years so this is such a blessing. I’ll be traveling to Maryland later this month to spend a week with them, helping out in any way they need me to – squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

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A few weeks ago I mentioned that I made some seasonal table toppers for a friend who lives near Seattle…and here they are! She saw me post about my own Pumpkin topper and asked for one, as well as a Christmas topper.

I used decorative stitching on the tree to mimic garland…I love it! Now I need to make myself one 😀

I added to my Honeypot Bee collection with this October block…every time I make one I get all giddy because I still love that Blueberry Park fabric!! Can’t wait to put all these blocks together 😉

As I usually do, when I’m knee deep in a big project I just have to pull out some fabric and start a new project :-s I had a charm pack of Batiks and I was feeling the seasonal change so I added a brown background fabric and made up this little baby top. It’s sitting patiently in my ‘tops’ box until I get back around to it.

I also finished the Quilt for Vegas and put that in the mail this week. I used fabric from a half-yard bundle of Mini Bracelets I’ve been hoarding for a few years. I did straight line quilting to mimic the block pattern and used text fabric for the backing.

 

Last but not least…I F.I.N.A.L.L.Y. finished the Memorial quilt. This one really challenged me because of all the different clothing fabric – velvet, satin, crepe, and rhinestones – wow! The customer picked it up yesterday and she was thrilled which makes all the hard work worthwhile 😉

I did double straight line quilting in each row…used Kona Navy for the back and binding. It measures 67″ square.

Now that I’ve finished these big projects, I think I’ll spend a few days cleaning up my sewing room before I dive into anything else…yeah, that sounds good – let’s see if I can do it 😉

ttfn…

 

 

Sickness and sewing

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve posted on the blog and I’ve got several projects I need to get caught up on. I’ve completed quite a few quilts and this week I’ve been focusing on getting ready for the trunk show coming up on Sunday. This will be my first event ever where I’ve sold my stuff to the general public so I’m a bit nervous and anxious to see how it will go.

I put all the items I’m going to be selling at the trunk show into a spreadsheet and between quilts, oven mitts, table toppers, table runners, zipper pouches, I have over 40 items that I could sell! I’ve put a target price for each of them into the spreadsheet and if I were to sell all of them at that target price I would bring home $2,000! HAHA yeah, I’d be happy if I sell just one thing!

In other topics I’ve put up all of the Christmas decorations, there aren’t a whole lot but at least they’re up.

 

I have this coming week off work so I hope to get quite a few more quilting projects completed. I have one specific that I’d like to get finished before Christmas and get it shipped off to that special person but I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to get it done – we’ll see how focused I can be next week.

Last week was a complete washout, I picked up a stomach virus from dear hubby and was really down for the count for almost an entire week. I didn’t step into my sewing room for FOUR STRAIGHT DAYS so you know I had to be really sick!

And now the gratuitous display of my finished items and WIPs:

I finished the commissioned “Beachy” table topper and mailed it off to Maryland.

I started another Halloween top with the Cheeky Wee Pumpkin fabric I won. The center is a panel that came with the FQ bundle…how cute is this!! It’s now basted and ready for quilting.

Here’s the stack of basted quilts waiting for me to ‘get er done’! The top one is Acorn Park which I finished up last weekend (picture below). The second one (turquoise) is the quilt I hope to finish this week and send off to a special friend. The middle one is a project that’s been sitting in the closet for a year. I pulled it out when I was basting all the other quilts – I have no idea how I want to quilt it!! The bottom two are my Halloween quilts (I’m sure all the black & orange didn’t give it away!)

I finished up the Sugar Block club December block…ugh, now comes the hard part of figuring out the layout I want to use…this could take a while

I saw this really cute tree farm quilt on Pinterest and decided to make a table runner…I’m taking this with me on Sunday, if it sells I’ll just have to make another one for me!

Last but not least, here’s the finished Acorn Park quilt. I just love all these bright autumn colors. Yes, this is going with me on Sunday too.

ttfn…