Lots of Winter Woollies, and other festive things

This past weekend DH and I had a little overnight get away and I took a few wool projects along to finish the hand stitching. 

My Buttermilk Basin Mystery BOM is completed. Those who guessed that the blob at the bottom was a bell were correct. I was making a rather feeble attempt at replicating the bell from Polar Express. I even considered stitching the word "Believe" on the block, but decided that it wouldn't blend with the rest of the blocks in this mystery.

Speaking of which, those blocks are shown below. Originally I think Miss Stacy said there would be 11 blocks, but now I believe she said she would do a twelfth.

The Attic Heirloom Ornament of the Month patterns were, as the title states, for ornaments, but I made mine into little quilt blocks. I had chosen to just use the first 9 patterns to make a little holiday quilt, but before I could sew them together, I saw the gingerbread man pattern for November and decided to swap out the mitten and add in the gingerbread man. 



Here is the quilt top stitched together. I still plan to add a border or two.

The three cotton fabrics I have used so far are from thrift store shirts. I want to use shirts for the borders, too, but haven't taken the time to dig through the shirt stash yet to select anything.

I finished up the little HeartToHand Snowball block, too. The snowflakes and lettering don't show well with a flash photo, but without the flash it looked too dull. You can find the pattern for this here.

I'm thinking I should have doubled my floss on the branches and pine needles, but it is going to stay as is. It needs a border of some sort. I think I will audition some Snowman Gatherings fabrics for that job.

Most of my stitching took place in the car going to and from our destination, but I did enjoy stitching in our hotel room to Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in "His Girl Friday". It was showing on TV after DH fell asleep.

Can you tell where we were visiting? (I know a few of you will know.) Click to enlarge photos.
             

                                                                       








After some painful dental work today I have pretty much been a sloth. This evening I wanted to "do" something, but I was supposed to be taking it easy. So I pulled out my machine for the first time in about three weeks, grabbed some HSTs that a friend had gifted me recently, sorted out the red and green and just did some mindless piecing. 
 
 I stopped short of doing any trimming. Can't decide if I will trim these small enough to be ornaments, or leave them this size and make a small quilt. There are so many other things I should have been sewing, but those would all take effort, and I wasn't up to any exertion, mental or physical. : )

One last thing I want to share.
Last year I was awed by Pentatonix' version of "Mary Did You Know?" I still love it, but DD#2 just introduced me to this version last night and it is pretty incredible, too.

 

Hope I did that right--I have never embedded a video in a post before. Hope you enjoy it, too.
Until next time,
Janet O.

A hodgepodge of projects and a little seasonal decor.

A few years ago I made dozens of fabric pumpkins. I always thought it would be fun to have Linus in the midst of them. This year I found a ceramic Linus figure at a thrift shop, but he was painted all wrong. Having painted ceramics profusely in a former life, I brought him home to repaint. My hands are not as steady as they used to be and it took me SO MUCH LONGER than I planned!
And when it finally came down to putting the stripes on his shirt, I used a Micron Pigma pen. The hair gave me enough grief with the tiny paintbrush. I wasn't going to attempt the stripes that way, too. But I am pleased to finally have Linus in the pumpkin patch, awaiting the Great Pumpkin! : )

"Floating Foxes" is under the needle. I am making it up as I go along. I have some of my quilt design reference books handy and when I get stumped, I flip through and find something I think might work. Then I try it on a practice sandwich before actually putting it on the quilt.

After basting this quilt, as I stood in the loft to take the photo, I thought it looked like the foxes were at a New Year's celebration at midnight, with confetti fluttering through the air. If you are not familiar with the pin covers I am using here, and you pin baste your quilts for FMQ, you may want to check them out.

I use the pin covers for a few reasons.
First, with the pin covers on, and using the Kwik Klip tool, I do not experience the hand fatigue I used to get when pin basting a quilt.
Second, while free motion quilting, I am always able to spot my pins and have never run into a pin (which can hurt your machine) while using them.
Third, while quilting, it is easier to grasp and remove the pins as I quilt, when they have these covers on them.
Fourth, you can leave the pins open when not in use. With the covers on, they do not get all tangled up, so it saves even more hand stress, and saves time. I do not have to open each pin as I baste, and I do not have to close them to put them away.

My first Country Roads from Lori's SAL is quilted and waiting for binding. I was going to use red, because I feel like I overuse black. But my personal research indicates that I didn't like the red as well, so it will be black--again!

The grid lines through the green chains seem to dominate the quilting. From the front you can't even tell that I have quilted around the black rectangles.

I had some tension issues that I didn't see until I was finished. I once told myself that I could no longer quilt black-on-black at night. Well, apparently I should be barred from any thread that perfectly matches the fabric. My top thread lays a little flat in many areas, but at the moment I am not inclined to unpick--too busy chasing foxes around my quilting table!

Caught up with the Buttermilk Basin Mystery BOM.  My sunflower is not as disciplined as Miss Stacy's. It is a bit tipsy--by design (or maybe it isn't just water in that jar).





October's block should post this week. I seem to recall that at the start of this Stacy had said there would be 11 blocks. I am really curious as to how we will be setting 11 blocks.
Here are my 9 blocks so far.

Block #9 for the Attic Heirlooms Ornament of the Month is completed now. Number 10 has posted, but I don't know that I will go any farther.

Obviously, I have not been making mine into ornaments. I have cut my blocks at 4 1/2", so they will finish at 4".


The fabric I have appliqued onto is from a thrift store shirt, so it made sense to me to finish the top with repurposed fabrics from shirts. Just played with it a little bit last night, and this is what I am thinking of doing. May add another red plaid as an outer border, if I can find one that doesn't overpower the whole thing. It will only be about 15" square without the added border.

I think I am happy with it as is, and would like to have it finished before the holidays get underway, rather than be waiting for another block to post so I can get it made.

Well, the foxes are waiting for me. I'd better get back to them.
Until next time,
Janet O.

All Caught Up (kind of)

The Buttermilk Basin Mystery blocks that have been revealed so far are all stitched. Here we have July. I know the pattern had a butterfly, but mine was begging for a flag--so it got one.

 

These are May and June's blocks (or June and May, since blogger reversed them).

I've decided my signature mark on each block will be a little round button somewhere--sometimes more than one. I even went back and put them on the older blocks.

But I'm not sure about those buttons on the purple background. They seemed to be a good match in the quilt shop, but in every lighting I have tried them under since, I don't care for the combo. I may have to switch those out.

Here is a shot of all of the blocks so far. I have continued to add little touches as I look back at them. They may forever just be works in progress. : )

The other project that needed catching up is the Attic Heirlooms Ornaments. Mine are little quilt blocks rather than ornaments. I'm cutting the blocks 5" for now, but will trim them down before assembly. It will be a small quilt in the end. I have the first four blocks finished and you have seen them before.

The next three are only fused, and it will take a bit of stitching to bring them to life. That is the "sort of" in my All Caught Up title.

The white and yellow blobs will magically turn into a cute snow angel with a garland. The others are self-explanatory, and they involve some beadwork, too. I don't have tiny beads--this will require some shopping.

These blocks are going to a friend who is making a quilt for a friend. The large ones are 12" and the small ones are 6".

Do you have any idea how long it has been since I made a 12" block? I don't either! : )

But look what those huge blocks gave me in return.

Lots of little bonus HSTs! I trimmed these to 1 3/8", which was easier than it sounds, with my Itty Bitty Eights rulers! They will finish at 7/8", or close to it, depending on how accurate I try to be.

Parting shot--my 85 year-old Mom with her final quilt! I mentioned before that she named this her Happy Quilt. It is machine pieced and hand quilted--all of Mom's quilts are hand quilted!

She says she has no regrets and will not miss quilting. She has loved it, but she is finished! In case you doubt the finality of this, she has given away her quilt books, fabric, and tools. The end of an era that has lasted decades! She was my first quilting mentor.

Until next time,
Janet O.

Little finishes and some wool gathering.

The two little quilts in Kim Diehl fabrics are finished.

The larger one (No Big Diehl) is a mini version of Kim Diehl's design "All in a Row".
In my last post I asked for name suggestions for the smaller one. I received many good ideas, but still can't decide, though I think I have narrowed it down.

My Spring version of Lisa Bongean's Old Glory Gatherings pattern is now completed and hanging in my living room.

I do think there will be one more little quilt made for this series, but it will wait a few months.

Just in the nick of time I finished stitching up the March block for Miss Stacey's Mystery BOM (yes, I know--I don't do mysteries and I don't do BOMs).

I chose not to use the crown, so I added an extra bee for height, and threw in some buzzing lines. Don't you know about those? I live next door to a real life bee garden and I see those in the air all the time (well, it was still April Fool's Day when I started writing this--but I really do live next door to a bee garden).












So here are the three blocks so far for those things I don't do (mysteries, BOMs).

 

Just caught up with the last three Attic Heirlooms Ornaments of the Month. Check out the link for April's ornament. So cute! Each pattern is free through the month it is posted.

You are extremely perceptive if you caught on to the fact that I am not making these into ornaments. I am appliqueing them onto cotton from thrift store shirts and will be sashing them with red and green shirt fabrics for a little mini Christmas quilt. I think I will trim the blocks to about 4 1/2" before sashing them.

Finally, and most fun of all, almost two weeks ago (has it really been that long?) I was able to meet up with friend and fellow blogger, Gayle (The Middle Sister blog) for a nice lunch. We actually remembered to get a photo just before we parted ways.

Always such a treat to get to spend time with Gayle. They don't come any nicer!

Up next on my quilting agenda is to turn my Nabby's Dowry flimsy into a baby quilt. Picked up the backing flannel yesterday and will wash it up tomorrow. Grandchild #5 is less than 2 months away!

Until next time,
Janet O.