Who am I kidding?

I always have such big plans for holiday projects (like the three Christmas flimsies I was going to have quilted and bound for use during the holidays this year). But of the remaining three Fall projects I had hoped to have on display before Thanksgiving, this is the only one that got finished--and it is the smallest of the three, of course.

The other two are layered and basted, but that may be where they stay for now. Just not much time to quilt.

This is one reason.

It was time to get all of my soaps made for holiday gift giving. There are a few more trays of soaps still in their molds in my soap curing cupboard, but I am finished making soap for the year. Over the course of the past 4 days I squeezed in making 15 batches!

Since this year my b'day is the day before Thanksgiving, that means I will be cooking instead of celebrating. So DH took Friday off work and we did a little early celebrating. Among other things, we took a quick trip over the mountains to Village Dry Goods and I bought something totally frivolous, but I love it.

Are you scratching your head and asking, "What is it?"






Does this help? Each one is hand crafted from scrap metal. I love functional things that are aesthetically pleasing. If it hadn't been for the 25% discount from the quilt shop's "Birthday Club", I don't know that I would have splurged, because it wasn't cheap. But I reminded myself that I had saved up some money for a birthday quilt shop splurge, so this was it--along with some yardage, and another little cool thing I will share in my next post.

Karen sent along a few more "scraps" (my scraps never look this good). Thank you, Karen! I am blessed by your orphan projects.
 
In truth, they are projects for which she has lost her enthusiasm, and they were accompanied by some lovely pieces of fabric.
 
I have formulated in my mind how I will be finishing these projects. Wish there was time to get right on them, but this is not a time of year for me to be taking on new projects--not even Bonnie's mystery! Don't know how so many of you manage that!

I saw on Sarah's blog  a little while ago that she was tatting some snowflakes. Love those delicate, lacy-looking things! I said if she ever decided to sell any I would be her first customer. Needless to say, we worked out a deal (she would make me 2 snowflakes a month for three months) and I now have 4 of the 6 flakes I ordered. 
 

Here they are on my tiny year-round sewing room tree.

I'll give you some individual shots so you can enlarge them and see the details. So pretty! Thanks, Sarah!

















Speaking of snowflakes, we had a real taste of winter this week. Woke to this view one morning.
 
It is mostly melted now--except on the mountains, but this was such a pretty sight. 

Hopefully I will have something fun for my regular followers next post. Stay tuned.
Until then, 
Janet O.

More Madder

Sounds like really poor grammar, I know. But after completing the top for Lori's recent Quilter's Madder SAL, I realized that a few months ago I had begun hand quilting another little madder quilt that was a Lori SAL, and I hadn't touched it for quite some time. Now the quilting is completed, but the binding is only pinned down on the back.

Small Quilt finish #44 for the year!

Lori named her little quilt Harmony, and since I played fast and loose with the design, I call mine "Close Harmony". It finished at about 14 1/2 " square.

Here it is with the more recent (and as yet, not quilted) Quilters Madder.









I hand quilted this one. I don't do that very often anymore. Gidget gets jealous.








That is all the quilting I have to show for the past week, but I will share the last couple of "80 minutes a week" challenge projects I have completed recently. 
I made gluten free, vegan chocolate chip pumpkin cookies. Pretty good, if you haven't tasted a "real" chocolate chip pumpkin cookie for quite some time.




Next I baked up some gluten free crusty seed rolls. They aren't pretty, but they taste good. : )




Hopefully next time I will have some machine quilting finished that I can share. 
Until then,
Janet O.

Lots of Fall Projects--and a little fun

This Buttermilk Basin Pattern, "Give Thanks", is finally ready to be basted and quilted. I shrunk the pattern, so what would have been 42" x 50" is now almost 25", by just over 26". I made mine a little more of a square.

I had SO much trouble trying to choose borders for this. The wovens and plaids I had just didn't work. Still not sure I made the right choice, but after auditioning every combination of Fall colors under the sun, in a variety of fabrics, this is what stuck. I only had a small piece of the outer border and ended up having to piece the top and bottom. It is most obvious on the bottom.

I still do pumpkins in November. I have these two smaller projects basted and ready to quilt. The stems on the two little pumpkins in the basket were too pale, if you recall, but they were also too well fused to be removed. So I took a brown Pigma pen and lightly shaded them to give a little more contrast with the background. We do what we have to do!


My version of Lori's Quilters Madder is also ready for basting and quilting. I did put the HSTs all around. Down the sides the measurements worked out well with the border, but across the top and bottom, not so much. After wrestling and wrangling to make them fit, I did the truly "humble quilt" thing and chopped off the borders.
I really like this little quilt. Madders warm my heart! When I was choosing fabrics for the border I found a gorgeous madder paisley that a friend had given me. It isn't as obvious all chopped up, but it is so pretty (the quilt Lori used as inspiration had a chopped up madder paisley in the border HSTs). There was no selvage, so I didn't know what it was. I sent off a photo to Cyndi and I was able to get a couple more yards from her shop. Thank you, Cyndi!


Again, I made the blocks half the size of the original. After quilting this will probably end up being about 14" x 17".
I read on Marian's blog that this is the 7th SAL she has done with Lori. That made me think of how many I have made. Since I started following Lori in 2011 I have only skipped one of them, and a couple of times I made two. Thinking this might be my eighth SAL with her.  I have created some of my favorite quilts from these opportunities.

The only real "finish" I have here is my little turkey pillow from my fusible test. This was also from a Buttermilk Basin pattern--a pincushion, I believe.







Finally, I am doing another "really out of character for me" project (like the Floating Foxes from last year), but I LOVE it.  Joanne, over at Canuckquilter, has designed such a fun baby quilt pattern called Tic Tac Who? There are three versions--Tic Tac Quack, with a duck; Tic Tac Woof, with a dog; and Tic Tac Hoot, with an owl. They are all so sweet, but I was especially drawn to the owl. When she asked for pattern testers, I couldn't help myself, even though I usually don't do such things. And look at the size of those blocks--8"! I've made quilts smaller than that! *LOL* It was really fun to make progress in bigger leaps and bounds for a change!

I started the cutting on Monday night, began the sewing Tuesday night, and have squeezed in a few hours each day. Last night I got it down to just needing the borders attached. The lighting on the photo isn't the best, but the background is a tan with cream dots. I may add a green outer border to make it a tad bigger. Joanne hopes to have the pattern ready for sales soon--possibly next month. I have to say that her directions are very clear and concise. Everything went together very smoothly!
Thanks, Joanne, for letting me play with your pattern. I may have to make the Woof version down the road.

I have held drawings for the books offered in my last post. Winners are as follows:
Rachel's Reel--Summer
For All Seasons--Raewyn
Prairie Flowers Encore--Doniene
Emma's Courtyard--Gale
If you are named above, please contact me with your address so I can get them sent your way. If I don't hear from you by Tuesday, Nov. 8th (U.S. Election Day) I will draw another name.
Until next time, Janet O.