November Monthly Mini and Thanksgiving

Another "just under the wire" monthly mini. Here it sits among the Thanksgiving decor on the dining room hutch. Linking with Wendy at The Constant Quilter blog.

You may recognize this from back in June or July. When I got it pin basted and ready to machine quilt I finally realized how wonky the inner triple sashing was.

So I unpicked the cheddar and the triple sashing. I tried reattaching the sashing and 9-patch corners, but they were still not as straight as I would have liked. I tried one more time, with a bit more success, but was not satisfied.

I got the piece damp and "blocked" it onto my wool pressing mat, hoping I could stretch the wonkiness out of it a bit and have it dry straighter.



It helped, but it was still not up to standard. At that point I was so done with this, I decided it was good enough. I also decided I didn't want to reattach the cheddar borders. I pin basted it and machine quilted the whole thing with stitch-in-the-ditch.

Now for the binding.There were already so many stars and dots in this little quilt, I wanted something different. I finally chose a blue with a subtle stripe and I cut it on the bias. Sewed the binding onto the back with the machine. When I wrapped the binding around to the front, I could see I had a new set of problems. The triple sashing and 9-patch corners had become very narrow on the outer edges, thanks to the binding--even though I cut my binding 1" and sewed it on with a very scant 1/4" seam. I unpicked the binding and tried one more time--this time shooting for a 3/16" seam allowance. Wouldn't you know it--the 9-patches are too big on most of the outside edges. So be it. I was finished! 
 
I think the past six months of barely setting foot in my sewing room has resulted in me forgetting how to quilt. This seemed so much harder than it should have been. But it is finished and maybe by next summer I can pull it out and it won't be full of bad memories. :)

We woke up Thanksgiving morning to this view from our front door. It was still coming down, and continued to pile up.

I like the shot on the right of the marshmallow hats our mailbox and paper box were wearing.  

We were hosting 20 for dinner, and our roads are not top on the list for getting plowed.  Sometimes it feels like they don't even make the list. Thanks to good people in our community who have large plows on their trucks and tractors, our road was passable. And thanks to hubby who used a shovel and the plow on the farm 4-wheeler, there were places to park. And to our youngest son who was here for the weekend, who joined in the shoveling party, everyone was able to make it up our stairs and across the deck to our door.

All 20 of us

Mom and her 4 kids

  
     Mom used to come to our house for Sunday dinner every week, but this is the first time she has been here since Mother's Day. She just can't do stairs anymore, and you have to go up a full flight to get in our house. She was carried in for this gathering. I think it is time for a chair lift on our interior stairs!

There was a big sale at the quilt shop over the mountain (Village Dry Goods) today. Had to get out after such a busy week. Didn't go with anything in mind this time--just bought what I liked. Found some lovely pieces.

Also got all of the soap out of the "curing cupboard" today. It is time to start packaging it up for holiday gifting.

All 15 batches out on the kitchen island to make sure it passes inspection.

Last week was my birthday and I often do a little "thank you" drawing at that time, but had nothing to share and no time to blog. So let's catch up now.

As a thank you to my blogging (and blog reading) friends, I offer this little quilt I finished recently, a set of Temecula notecards/patterns, a little zippered pouch, a magnetic notepad, some bars of my soap, and a 5"x5" Quilters Select ruler for you to try. Since my friend, Annie M., gifted me one, I am hooked. I bought two small ones right away online, and then I shared them with the quilt shop over the mountain (Village Dry Goods--again). They got them in and I bought two larger ones with my birthday month coupon a couple of weeks ago, and another today at their 25% off 5th Saturday sale. If you are interested, leave a comment--and thanks for following along and being a part of this great online quilting community!

With any luck, I will get another mini finished and post it before December wraps up. :)

Until next time, 
Janet O.

Drawing now closed