This week I finished the September pattern called “Gather Ye Rosebuds”. I got it basted last weekend and I did the quilting in the flower buds and leaves. That left the background which needed a meander. I worked through that on Friday and by the end of the evening I had the binding on 😀
These pictures were taken at night so the colors are a little off… the binding is not as dark as it seems and the backing fabric is not as ‘peachy’ as it seems. I’m really happy with this final result and I’m sure it will be loved when it finds it’s new home.
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We went out for Thanksgiving dinner this year – we had gone to Carolina Roadhouse a few years back and enjoyed the food so we did it again. They work strictly by reservation and it is a plated meal, not a buffet. We got the full plate below plus a basket of mini corn muffins. For dessert, our choice of Pumpkin or Pecan pie. We went with the same friends we share most holidays with here in Myrtle Beach. I was so stuffed at the end of the meal!!!
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I got my Moderna booster last Monday and all went well. Other than a sore arm for a couple of days, I had no adverse reaction. Of course now the new Omicron variant is looming…uuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh, I really want this all to be over!!!
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On a brighter note (pun intended), we got our Christmas tree up and decorated last week!
Lights off….. Lights on
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That’s about all for now… have a great rest of your weekend!!
Yesterday I finished basting the “Gather Ye Rosebuds” quilt and started quilting on it. I decided to follow Debby’s suggested quilting motif and had to re-watch her videos to refresh my memory. The Color Blocks QAL (which is free!) has been so much fun and now I have all the patterns, tips and instructional videos to use forever!
I finished the specific quilting in the flower buds and leaves all that’s left is the meander in the rest of the background. I’m using three different threads on top: a variegated pink in the bud, a medium gray in the leaves and although Dove Grey is show in this picture I’ve decided to use white in the background.
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We pulled out our Christmas tree yesterday and got it assembled last night, now I’ll take my time this week decorating it. The weather has turned chilly here so I think I might be getting into the holiday spirit (only 39 this morning but should reach 69 later today 😉 ). Hopefully I’ll have pictures to share next week!
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In other news, on Friday the CDC approved all adults 18+ can now get the covid booster shot so I logged on yesterday and made my appt for Monday @ CVS. Hubby got his a few weeks ago and unfortunately decided to get his Flu shot at the same time – let’s just say I won’t be doing the same thing! He felt like crap for 2 days afterward and we honestly think it was the Flu shot or the combination of both at the same time that caused it because he had zero reaction after the first two Moderna shots earlier this year.
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I broke down and bought Sammie a few shirts from Amazon… the one I made for her worked ok but it really didn’t fit her well and I had to adjust it every time she moved 😉
(affiliate link)
These worked so well I bought a second set in green :-p She usually hates wearing clothes but these are light weight t-shirts and she doesn’t seem to mind. Of course the colder weather probably helps!
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Our fall turkeys are back! Several days last week they were wandering just outside our fence. Of course, as soon I let Sammie out they scattered!
That’s about all for now… have a great rest of your weekend!
I did get my May color blocks top basted but I have not started quilting on it yet. Here are the pictures of how I glue baste. I use Elmer’s washable glue sticks – they’re purple when they go on but dry clear and wash right out after the quilt is finished.
In the top four pics I show how I center the sandwich on my ironing surface, fold up one side of the top fabric to expose the batting then apply dots of the glue to the back side of the fabric. I cover enough of the fabric the same size as my ironing surface. I roll the fabric back down, smooth it out with my hands and then go over that area with a dry iron. I reposition the sandwich so the next area is on the ironing surface, fold up the top fabric to expose the batting and apply dots of glue to the back side. I roll that fabric down, smooth & iron. I keep repeating this until I get to the end, then pull the sandwich back over the ironing surface until the other side is on top. I repeat that same process before flipping the whole thing over and doing the same thing on the backing fabric (hopefully all that made sense!!)
After top & back are done, I give the whole thing a good pressing again on both sides. Now it’s ready to quilt 😀
Then I had a little autumn distraction when I received my order of Crumb Quilts by Emily Bailey. One of the patterns includes crumb applique leaves and it was calling to me… so of course I answered! This was so quick and satisfying ❤
I had a little fabric shopping spree this week, first I bought some fabric from 5bucksayard.com. I saw the prettiest floral fabric that I think will be the perfect backing for my Rosebuds top.
While I was online I picked up a couple of other fabrics for my stash
Then, after I finished my autumn leaves pillow cover, I had an itch for more Fall fabrics so I went to my LQS Quilting at the Beach and picked up 5 half yard cuts. I have no plan for them at this time but for some reason I just HAD to have them 😉
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That’s about all for today… have a great rest of your weekend 😀
As mentioned in my last post I jumped right on the September Color Blocks pattern “Gather Ye Rosebuds” as soon as Debby released it and yesterday I put the final stitches in the top!! Woohoo!
I used a white-on-white print for the background and I love it 😀 I’m not sure what I’ll do for the back or quilting yet. Debby is usually a month ahead of us and I look to her finished project for inspiration but she just finished her top last week so I’m going to wait to see how she quilts hers before I go any further.
While I’m waiting, I decided to pull out the May Color Block quilt top and get it basted. I made the back from a sheet set I got on clearance and I ‘franken-batted’ some large batting scraps. I’ve got it all draped over my ironing board waiting to be glue basted. I’ll try to remember to take some pictures as I go!
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Nothing to update regarding my retirement date… I’m still focusing on June of next year. There was a restructuring announcement at my company last week but it’s in a different division so I don’t think I have any hope of being impacted – yet, LOL.
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I’m starting to lose ground on my WW journey. Admittedly I have not been focusing on it for the last few months so it’s no wonder 😦 I’m still drinking a good amount of water every day but even that has slipped. I just don’t “feel like” making it a priority… grrrrrr! I’m going to be so mad at myself in the future!
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I made travel plans for the beginning of October and I’m a little anxious. My niece is having a birthday party for my great-niece and I thought it would be nice to attend. They live in Maryland and I can get a direct flight from Myrtle Beach so it’s pretty easy, except I haven’t flown since the pandemic started. I know tons of people are flying every day and there haven’t been any reports of covid spread so as long as I wear my mask and distance as much as possible (outside of the plane), that’s all I can do 🙂 They flew down here in July and they were fine so I just need to focus on that!!
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That’s all for now… have a great rest of your weekend!
I’m happy to say I finished the August Color Blocks quilt! After posting last week I got focused and not only finished the quilting but got the binding on as well! I decided to go with a simple meander – I haven’t done that in quite a while and it felt good 🙂
I auditioned a few different fabrics for binding but the top is so calming I went with a matching solid mint color. You can’t even see the binding in these outdoor shots, lol
I had already started on the September pattern last week so I jumped right back to it and cut the squares I needed from my black/gray scrap bin. I also decided to use a white on white print from my stash for the background.
I’ve got those blocks all pieced and trimmed, next I need to snowball two corners to make the ‘leaves’
I’m pretty darn happy with my progress this week, of course I was on PTO so I had plenty of time to work on it. Also we had one whole day of rain, and what’s better than spending a rainy day in my happy place!
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I also got to watch all the US Open matches I wanted last week. Did you catch the Ladies Final yesterday?? Leylah Fernandez 19 (Canada) & Emma Raducanu 18 (Great Britain) are the youngest finalists since 1999 and they were smashing the ball! WOW, what a match – I’m so happy for Emma!!! Later today Coco Gauff & Caty McNally go for the doubles title then Djokovic & Medvedev battle it out for the Men. It’s going to be another good day 😀
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That’s about all for now… have a great rest of your weekend
Now that the big double wedding ring project is complete I can put my focus back on the Color Block QAL. Last week I finished the nine blocks needed for the August pattern, this week I made all the star blocks and just this morning I finished the center of the top.
The center row of blocks are most true to color
I went with a light gray for sashing to keep the stars as the focus. I plan to use the green dot fabric for the 6″ borders which makes this quilt 68″ square. I don’t usually care for square quilts but this time I like it 😉 I have no clue yet what I’ll use for backing
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In other news, I’m still debating when I’ll actually retire. I plan to do it sometime next year but I haven’t chosen an exact date. I did have a conversation with my boss last week to let him know if any downsizing or restructuring plans arise I’d be ‘willing to take a package’ and save someone else’s position. I’m not sure it will get me anywhere but I put it out into the universe and we’ll just see what happens :-p
I recently started following a new blog Retirement Transitions. Pat’s blog focuses on the emotional side of retirement – what will I do all day, how will I feel like I’m accomplishing something, etc. She recently started a ‘Throwback Thursday’ series where she revisits many of her blog entries that helped her build a plan. I’ve found it very interesting and very helpful.
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On the WW front… eh, let’s just say I’ve not made any progress over the last several weeks!
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That’s all for now… have a great rest of your weekend 🙂
I completely missed posting last week and I had a really nice update on the Double Wedding Ring quilt I was finishing for a friend. As of last Sunday I had finished all the quilting, made the bias binding and machine stitched it the front of the quilt!! Woo hoo!!
The next step was to flip it to the back and machine stitch in the ditch from the front. Well, that was a lot harder than I thought!! I pinned and clipped to ensure I’d catch the edge but after doing about a quarter of one side I looked at the back and there were at least 4 places that were not secured!!! grrrrrr! I needed a plan B.
After debating what to do for several hours: should I keep going and address the missed spots after I was done or should I just hand stitch the binding to the back? I have never hand stitched binding because in my mind it takes too long BUT this quilt was screaming at me to DO IT!! So I listened 🙂 I pulled up a few videos on YouTube to be sure I knew what to do, I put on an audio book and spent time on & off the rest of the day hand sewing the binding.
I started where the machine stitching stopped and when I got all the way around to that section I removed those stitches as I went along. Surprisingly, it didn’t take as long as I thought it would and my hand only cramped a few times – clearly I was holding the needle too tight! LOL
Oh and thank goodness I had these little things stored away to protect my finger tip. I think I got them a few years ago in a Sew Sampler box from Fat Quarter Shop.
After I finished the binding it was time to run the quilt through the rinse cycle to remove the water soluble marker from the flowers. Washing/rinsing a quilt for the first time always makes me nervous, especially so this time because I was not familiar with any of the fabrics used in the top and the backing fabric was a saturated color. I dropped 5 color catchers in with it and I’m happy to report everything came out great 😀
Here’s the big reveal – in the first one I have it draped across my king size bed and in the second one DH is holding it up outside
I mailed it off to it’s owner on Wed and to my shock and amazement she called me the next day to say it had arrived!!!! Wow, maybe USPS is turning a corner? The package didn’t have to leave the state of SC but I still didn’t think it would arrive in one day!
She’s going to let her mother open the quilt since it was her work of art; I’m anxious to hear what she thinks about the finished product 😉
I wasted no time starting a new project! I had said I wanted to make the August Color Block pattern and I knew I had 2 green color blocks left over from a few months earlier so I started to make more. It was really nice to get back to some cutting & piecing after focusing on all that quilting! Here’s the status so far
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In other news, my poor little Sammie has developed another problem this week, something called HotSpot. I had never heard of it before but I’ve learned it’s an allergic flare up on the skin from any number of possibilities… we’ll probably never know what caused it. Hers is located on her back between her hips, I noticed it Wed night before bed, her hair was matted in that section but I couldn’t see anything so I washed the spot and noticed it felt very warm to the touch. In the morning it was all crusty again and this time it was discolored mucus. I called the vet and they got her in that morning. They shaved the area so they could see what was going on and there it was… all red and inflamed…ugh!!! This little girl cannot catch a break!! They gave me cleansing pads, steriod spray, antibacterial ointment along with antibiotic and pain pills. I have to clean and treat the area 2x/day and she is so uncomfortable when I do it… breaks my heart!!!!! I’ll spare you the pictures 😦
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That’s about all for now… enjoy the rest of your weekend
I’ve made more progress on the May pattern from Debby Brown’s Color Blocks QAL. I went shopping last week looking for the perfect background fabric and I found it at my local quilt shop.
I wanted something dark for the background but I also wanted a sparkle effect and this fabric is perfect.
I got started right away adding the corner triangles and then played with the layout until I landed on this setting.
I added the sashing & borders and the top is done!!!
You can see the background reads dark from a distance but it’s got a nice speckled effect to give it a bit more interest.
I also made an addition to my sewing room last week. You may recall I recently purchased another sewing machine, a Singer Patchwork, which I had sitting on my cutting table. Trying to use it standing up was not very practical but I don’t have a lot of space in my sewing room for another big table. I went online searching for a small desk I could put beside my design wall and I found it on Amazon!!!
It fits perfect in this space and gives me all the room I need for piecing blocks. It was incredibly easy to put together and very reasonably priced 😉
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In other news, Sammie got her stitches out last week and is healing up nicely. We got her groomed a couple days after…she really needed it!
BEFORE/AFTER ❤️
That’s about all for now – enjoy the long holiday weekend!!!
Sarah of Confessions of a Fabric Addict hosted the eleventh year of the Hands2Help Comfort Quilt Challenge. During the months of March, April & May she encourages quilters to make quilts to donate to charity. Sarah offers scrappy patterns of her own and ideas from guest bloggers she invites to share their tips, tricks and quilts. She also provides a list of charities you can send your quilts to or you’re always welcome to find a local charity.
Here are the four quilts I made and donated for H2H this year. I’m participating in Debby Brown’s Color Blocks QAL and each month she releases a new pattern to use for the 16-patch blocks we make from our scraps.
I followed her patterns for Jan, Mar and April but I decided to do my own thing in Feb and made ‘Fish Tails’ 😉
These quilts were boxed up and shipped on Monday to Little Lambs Foundation. In case you missed the announcement, they just signed up to partner with Givebackbox.com so any package you send them (less than 70lbs) only costs $15 to ship!
It’s always a pleasure to participate in H2H and it helps to use up my scrap stash – win/win!! ❤
I put the finishing stitches in the binding after last week’s post and went outside for some pictures. Really happy with how this turned out 🙂 This was April’s pattern from the Color Blocks QAL, called Cheer.
The quilts I made in Jan, Feb and Mar and now this April one are all in a box waiting to be shipped out tomorrow to Little Lambs Foundation as part of the Hands2Help Charity drive.
I also made a few more blocks for the May pattern called Gemstone. I’m making 7 blocks from 5 colorways of scraps… so far I’ve got sapphires, emeralds, rubies and amethyst. One more color to go and I’ve decided I’m going to use white/gray to represent diamonds. I’m still deciding what I want to use for background but I know I want something dark so I’m planning a trip to my LQS to do some browsing 😉
I made the blue & red blocks using my new Singer Patchwork and she worked beautifully – but I used my Pfaff for the purple ones cuz I just needed to sit down and sew. I’m going to have to find a place for my Singer where I can sit & sew if I want to use it for more than just a few blocks – because standing & sewing is just not for me 😦
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Look at these cute nails! These are Impress Press-on nails (not an affiliate) and I’ve been using them since the pandemic started. I just love how easy they are to apply (the glue is already on the back, just peel & stick) and they last me about 2 weeks – depending on how much dish washing I do 😉 They have so many cute colors and designs and run from $7-$10. You can also get them at local stores like Target, Walmart, Walgreens, CVS, etc. As you can see from the background, they also carry a selection of OPI colors!
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I had a great week on WW… I was down 1.8lbs!!! Woot woot! Not sure what I did for that big win but I’ll take it ;-p
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That’s about all for now…. have a great rest of your weekend 😀
Sew Quilty Good 