Category: Teacher Gift

2024 Recap

Wow what a year! So much happened this year! Alex is learning to fly with his dad and he loves it! We got him the new version of Microsoft Flight Sim 2024 to help him with his flying. Cassie is so darn smart I can’t stand it! She’s all about Harry Potter still which makes my heart soar.

I’m loving my long arm, haven’t had a lot of time to go to the basement in the last 2 months due to travel, Xmas stuff, etc. I really want to finish the massive amount of ruler work there is on my Crowning Star quilt. I don’t think I got even the first row completely done before I had to take a time out on stitching.

I did finish another quilt last month, the 2022 guild quilt block exchange quilt. The quilting was all done in October, binding finished in November. After my October long arm classes I was more comfortable with doing ruler work so that quilt was chosen to play with it. Took awhile but it looks great! Cassie has already stolen the quilt for her bed.

I finally started working on Barb’s T-shirt quilt again, hoping to get it finished before we go to see her in March for Spring Break. It’s going to be HUGE, which means a long time to quilt on the long arm, but I’ll make it work.

Hand stitched a bunch of 3D ornaments for teachers at school this year. Took quite awhile, but I loved how they turned out. The bus driver got one too and I saw it hanging in the bus the last few days before winter break. The teachers I talked to after gifting loved them as well.

Hoping to get my UFO list down more in 2025, I got 8 quilts finished and 6 cross stitch projects finished in 2024. I’ve added a few new projects and I might get 1 or 2 off the list before the challenge starts February 1st. We’ll see what happens.

It was a great year for crafting for me in 2024, and I hope 2025 is just as great.

Happy New Year!

Odds and Ends

I haven’t been doing much quilting lately, but I have been working to change that this weekend. After I finished making some masks for my sister and finished a small project for my dad, I decided it was time to work on my bow tie quilt. It’s been sitting around since before 2017 and I needed to get more done on it. So I stitched up all the bow ties I had sitting here already prepped and then finished all the alternate 9 patch blocks I needed for the border. I’m trying to do each bow tie block out of a different fabric, so I pulled out a large bag of scraps that I had bought years ago at a guild garage sale. All the squares are 3″ so I have to do some trimming before I can start sewing them together. I also need to cut some 2.5″ white on white squares, I will do that on the Studio once I’ve got the rest of the squares cut up. Hopefully I’ll have some time this week to cut them and get everything paired up so when I have time to stitch I’m ready to go.

I’ve been spending my time after the kids go to bed working on cross stitch. I have 2 wonderful teachers at school that are getting special gifts this year, one is finished and I need to get the second one started soon. I don’t have any pictures of the piece I’m working on right now, but it’s almost finished and I will post about it then. A friend on instagram had posted some Star Wars planets she was working on and she told me where to get them on Etsy. The first planet is almost done and Alex is quite thrilled with them getting done, all 9 will be framed and put on the wall in the hallway upstairs. I’m hoping that I can get the last 2 colors finished off tonight, depends on how tired I get after dinner. 🙂 That will be my Slow Sunday Stitching, check out what others are working on today at Kathy’s Quilts.

Since I got my cross stitching out again I found that there’s an awesome app that you can use to mark off what you’ve stitched. Unfortunately for me it’s only available for android, what’s a girl to do but buy a small android tablet for the app to run on? Pattern Keeper is a great app, but not all charts can be loaded in it yet. So I pulled up my MacStitch app and started putting some of them in myself. I also found that some charts on Etsy are already formatted for Pattern Keeper (PK) and if you ask nicely they might even add that to the download for you. I had one that I asked about before I bought and she saved it in the download for me. I can’t wait to start that one, it’s a Harry Potter Deathly Hallows piece, but I need to get the teacher ones and the Star Wars planets done first.

I need to get back to work on cutting up the 3″ squares, I hope to be back soon with some finishes.

May OMG (April results)

I was cutting it close to finish my April goals, I very quickly got Cassie’s quilt taken care of and hung back up all in the same day! (I say this because the quilt that was taken down in my office for the quilt show last October STILL hasn’t been hung back on the wall – waiting for hubby to help me!)

The second goal I had for April was to make and complete the quilt for my son’s Kindergarten teacher and be able to deliver this week for Teacher Appreciation week. I went to school and had each child draw a picture for the teacher with fabric markers. Then I put it all together, quilted it and was finishing the binding the beginning of this week. I would have been done sooner, if I hadn’t spelled some kids names wrong on the label! My son caught it and so I had to totally redo the label. I’m very happy to say that she loved the quilt! I even got a special note from her today saying thank you again!

Ok, on to May goals! I feel like the month is already over and it’s only been a week! I’m hoping that I will be able to have all of the black areas quilted on my hexie diamonds quilt. Since I took the Mario quilt off our bed and moved it to the trailer I don’t have anything for our bed right now. The picture is from March when I pinned it, it’s currently balled up on my sewing table since I needed the room for the teacher quilt. With camping and end of year school tasks, plus a vacation the last week of the month I don’t know what I will accomplish, but I’ve got to try!

Linking up to Elm Street Quilts, Crazy Mom Quilts and My Quilt Infatuation.

April OMG

Door Mouse Retail Therapy 040517.jpgThis is going to be an interesting month for projects! I had hoped that I’d be able to spend the entire month quilting my hexagon diamonds quilt. Silly me, I talked with the head room parent in my son’s class and we are now making a quilt for teacher appreciation week! While I was at The Door Mouse Tuesday I picked out some purple fabrics and I found this really cute panel of teacher quotes that I can use in the border (far right side of the picture). So my OMG for April is making this quilt for the teacher – the main portion of the quilt is going to be the kids drawings bordered by the purple (and some greens that I need to buy still) and we will be working on that next Tuesday at school.

Cassie's quilt 040617.jpgI also decided that I will be making sure that the label gets added to Cassie’s signature quilt this month. The quilt has been done for 2.5 years and so has the label, I just never got it sewn on. Now is the time to get it finished!

Linking up to Elm Street Quilts.