The kids had a snow day yesterday thanks to Winter Storm Landon. I was pulling fabrics for backings for this month’s OMG projects and borders on Cassie’s quilt and found a bunch of fabrics that were too small to do much with. Scraps from previous projects that just got thrown in the big tub of fabrics that I still need to get put on mini bolts and put away. So I spent some time pressing them and getting them cut into squares – from left to right, 1.5″, 2″, 2.5″. They are now in the tubs and ready to be used in projects instead of buried in a bin.
Hard to really tell from the picture, but we got a bunch of snow. We have a 650′ driveway and I only went out yesterday long enough to drive Alex to his friends house around the corner and pick him back up later. The roads were bad, but I think our driveway is worse 🙂 We are currently waiting for someone to come and plow the driveway, unfortunately the snow blower won’t work very well on this wet snow. Hubby has major issues with the snow blower when it’s wet since it just clogs up everything.
We got the new month’s pattern for the Table of Elements SAL on Monday and I’ve been working hard this week on it. I’m getting about 200 stitches done a day, might get more done this weekend since the kids are going to my sister’s for some fun and we’ll be catching up on some movies that we’ve been meaning to watch. During the day I’m planning on working on some quilting for this months OMG projects.
So I have 2 items on my 2022 UFO Challenge list that I want to complete this month. The bottom runner is going to be a Valentine’s cathedral window runner for the island that just needs backing and batting. I will find that somewhere in my stash as I’m not buying any fabric this month! I have a total of 4 of these holiday runners I want to get done this year, this one is made with a white Bella Solids charm pack and a charm pack of Holiday Essentials Love by Stacy Iest Hsu. It will be quilted while I finish putting it together and I’d love to have it done for Valentine’s Day.
The second item is a runner for my sister which includes a pillow since there were some extra pieces that we didn’t need for the length. This has been waiting for a LONG time to be finished and I’m sure at this point she’s forgotten all about it.
Wow, I wasn’t sure I was going to make it this month! I was so close last night after working on it all afternoon and evening yesterday, that I decided that this morning I was working on it until I got it done. Now I need to figure out what size borders are going on this to fit Cassie’s bed. She thought it was going to be 100% done and she’d be able to use it already, she was so very sad when I said it wasn’t done yet. Guess I’ll need to work on it when I’m done with some other items next month.
Linking up to Elm Street Quilts and will be back soon with February plans.
Well with all the top finishing I’ve been doing lately I decided to try and figure out one of the quilts that’s been on my to-do list for a LONG time. Really a bucket list quilt. I found instructions on how to design it in EQ, got that done in a couple of hours and started looking for the fabrics I needed. The triangles were the easy part, used up just about all of a half yard of fabric I had sitting here from another project. I need to figure out what I’m going to use for the hexagons, not sure if I want white or something else. I’ve started going through all my 1.5″ squares and separated all the whites from the colors and started making piles for each 9-patch. I’ll start working on those until I figure out what I want to work on next. Here’s my EQ design – the 9-patches will be scrappy both color and the white-on-white squares. This one will be a bit of a challenge to put together, but I’m up for a challenge!
Looking forward to start putting this together, once I figure out what those hexagons are going to be!
I finished this months Table of Elements section with plenty of time to spare. It was getting difficult to hold the scroll frame while trying to stitch so I ordered a stand with an Amazon gift card I received. It’s taken some getting used to using both hands for stitching, but it’s made me actually stitch faster since my right hand isn’t going under the frame for each stitch. Right hand now stays on top and left hand stays on the bottom. Now I’m looking to see if I can put some of my other projects in a scroll frame so I can work on them faster. I’ll be able to just switch out the frame on the stand when needed. Can’t wait for Monday to get the next piece of the design, we had 13 elements for the first month and for February we get 20 elements! Since I’m hoping to have other projects done before then, I might actually be able to stay on target with this.
I had to order way too many fabrics to try and get what I wanted for the last border on this quilt and still didn’t get the one I wanted. But after a couple of guild meetings where I asked advice from friends, I picked a fabric and got the borders on this and now it’s ready to be quilted. I talked about finding the pieces for this quilt back in 2020, the post is here. This was a fun quilt to do, and used a ton of my 1.5″ squares, but somehow there’s still a ton of them in the bin. I have another quilt that will use a bunch of those, that will be another post though!
Wow, this 2017 Hexagon Temperature Quilt took 5 years to complete the top! I started part way the year in 2017 and just totally lost the urge to work on it for awhile. The hexagon blocks were done for a long time, I just needed all the sashing pieces completed. I even had the 4 border pieces completed way before I needed them. Thankfully EQ allows me to see how many pieces are used in a quilt, 1,415 2.5″ squares in this quilt. Yet somehow the bin is just as full as it was before! I have 1 little lone hexagon that needs appliqued on and it’s ready for quilting. I have so many ready for quilting!!
So while I was doing some cleaning and putting things away I found a bin of already cut HST pieces that finish at 2.5″. So I decided that would be perfect to use as a leader/ender project while I work on other things. I matched up everything I had already cut – 1 white with 1 color and then found that I had a TON of colored triangles that needed a white to match. Ended up spending an afternoon cutting white-on-white fabrics with the Studio, I needed 356 white triangles cut and then spent time during Cassie’s gymnastics class pinning them together so they are ready to stitch when I need them. Have no clue what pattern I’ll use for these yet, I have plenty of time before that needs to be figured out!
I finally finished the Harry Potter quilt top!!! Well I need to do a border still, but the fabric is sitting here waiting to be cut and sewn on. I am only going to do a small border on the top and bottom since it’s already the right size for our bed. I need a little bit more on the sides though. I have no clue what to do about the backing yet, I have a bunch of different Harry Potter fabrics I’m thinking about putting together for the back, I just don’t know if I have enough or not though.
I’m very excited that I’m making progress on so many things this month. I currently have 46 items on my 2022 UFO Challenge list, and I think about 20 of them JUST need quilted. I’m still saving up to get a long arm and I’m hoping there are some good deals at the sewing expo this year that will allow me to get the one I want for less money. Still not 100% sure where it’d go if I do get one, but man I’d be able to get so many quilts completely finished if I had one! I’ll be back in a few days with more, I have an OMG post to do as soon as I finish the EPP work on Cassie’s quilt and I have a new project to let you know about.
I think I mentioned in my last post that I was going to be starting a new cross stitch piece, and I did start it on Monday. I gotten a few patterns from Pixel Patterns, and found out she was doing another SAL that I wanted to do too, the last one was a crochet SAL and I don’t do that anymore. Details are here, it is the Table of Elements and I’ve gotten some good work in the last few nights. I really haven’t worked with a scroll frame very much so this is definitely new for me. I’m trying to make myself use both hands to stitch and when I do it goes much faster. I think the app said I was just over 25% done with it. This first month we have 13 blocks to do so it’s not too much work. The picture is from last night when I was working on it, Raven is the lap puppy (at 5 years old) and refused to move so I could stitch. I might have gotten a little more done after the picture was taken and I’ll get more done tonight. The next section doesn’t come out until January 31st, so I have plenty of time to get this section done. I’ve already added this to my 2022 UFO Challenge list, I’ll be putting that up soon.
Ok, we are going to try this again for 2022. Every year I have the best of intentions of doing one monthly goal (hosted by Elm Street Quilts) and I do ok for the first month or so and then never continue. In the attempt to get my 40+ list of UFO’s down I’m going to try this again! 🙂
This months goal is to get the top of Cassie’s EPP quilt put together. I have the first 4 rows assembled and I’m trying to work on it at least a little each night. 5 rows left to put together and then assemble into a top with border. Tonight I’ll start working on row 5 after dinner as my Sunday slow stitching. Cassie gets more and more excited with every row that gets added, which is making me want to get this done for her before her birthday in mid-March. I’ll be able to work on the quilting while she’s at school so she won’t see it.
Wow, what a year we’ve had! Lots of camping and family time, some health issues with Raven back in the spring – she’s back to acting like her old self – and not much finishing of projects! I’m determined that 2022 will be the year of finishing projects and I’ve been getting things to the point where I can finish them.
I’ve been working on Cassie’s bed quilt, since it’s EPP I can work on it at night. 3 rows are put together and I have the 4th ready to add on, possibly tonight since we are staying up to see the ball drop.
I’ve been working on cross stitch this year, trading off with EPP and my puzzles. I did a couple of Star Wars planets (patterns from Etsy), did 2 of the teacher pieces in the spring, and lately I’ve been working on the Deathly Hallows that I found on Etsy. Monday I’m starting on a SAL with PixelPatterns and we are doing the periodic table over I think it’s 7 months. I have everything ready to start, except the pattern!
I’m still working on too many EPP projects, but some of them are REALLY long term projects. I have the EPP pentagon quilt top almost done, unfortunately I need to order fabric for the border before I can finish it, the piece I want to use is too small, and it’s pretty small so I should be able to quilt it on my domestic. Haven’t done much on the Dear Jane EPP quilt, but a little bit got done on the Hexie Insanity quilt. I’m hoping that once I get the hand work done on Cassie’s quilt that I’ll be able to get another old EPP quilt put together.
I’m still working on saving the money to get the longarm machine that I want, it would help me finish quilts so much faster! I might see about renting time on a machine and see how much it will cost. I just don’t know if I’d be better off saving the money toward my own instead of renting time. We’ll see.
The Harry Potter quilt blocks have now all been cut out, and like I mentioned yesterday I have only 2 left to stitch. Once I get those done I can start putting the rows together, but I can’t get too much of it done since I need more of the background fabric that I’m using for sashing. I only have a little bit of it left. I can’t wait to get this one done since it’s for our bed. The quilt I have on it now is a queen and doesn’t fit very well on the king bed!
Happy New Year, be safe if you are going out and hopefully I’ll be back soon because something is finished! 🙂
Wow! I wasn’t planning on being gone so long! Life took over with lots of activities for the kids, camping over the summer and with new school year volunteers are allowed back in the school! I’ve been spending lots of time with 2 kindergarten classes, plus PTA activities and holiday parties for the kids.
Since the holidays are over and all gifts finally got sent out (1 package went out late!) I decided that as much as I could this week I wanted to spend some time sewing. I have a few quilts in process that I’d like to get to a finished state, or at least finish the tops. I’m still saving up for a long arm, it’s very slow going! Today I got back to working on the Harry Potter SAL quilt, finished the Quidditch Cup and started working on Fawkes. Hoping that I can finish Fawkes tomorrow and cut out the last 2 blocks I have to put together!
While I was working on the HP blocks I worked on stitching the sashing strips I need to continue working on my 2017 Hexie temperature quilt. I now have all the strips done for the sides of the blocks that have been done for awhile, so I can start putting the rows together, possibly while I’m working on finishing up the HP top.
I have some cross stitch projects I’ve started in the last few months, I’ll write about them another day. One is a SAL (stitch-a-long) that starts on Monday (1/3) that I can’t wait to work on.
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.
