Five Shadows

Progress! I finished the second quilting plan on Chic Country. I would like to make one more pass by quilting curved lines. For that, I’ll need to practice using a ruler while quilting. I’ve not mastered that yet – holding a ruler while moving the quilt. I’ll practice for a while and see if I can get the look I’m wanting.

That said, I’ve set Chic Country aside for a bit as I work on making a few gifts for upcoming holiday gift exchanges.  I’ve made 4 Be Merry quilties, inspired by this pillow. They are  displayed on an 8″ x 10″ clear vertical photo frame like the one below.

The little quilts slip over the frames.

My daughter brought over the beautiful Poinsettia Thanksgiving Day, I just had to put it in the photo too!

For the Be Merry quilts, I layered and quilted the background fabric, then fused the words and flowers in place. Then I stitched over the words and flowers in matching threads. I layered a back fabric with the finished top, right sides together, stitched the two sides and top, turned it right sides out, and then slipped the finished quilt over the photo frame.

Earlier, I made snowmen tea-towels.

I bought ready made tea-towels and added the appliqué snowmen heads. I fused the heads and carrots in place, blanket stitched around them, and machine stitched the eyes and mouths in place.

Next up will be making several fabric ornaments. I need to shop for fusible interfacing before starting those.

Are you doing any holiday stitching?

How did I do on last week’s To-Do List:

1. Stitch stitch stitch on Chic Country quilt. ✔️

This week’s To-Do List:

1. Side stepping again – finish up some little quilt gifts for gift exchange.

I’m linking to To-Do Tuesday and Linky Tuesday.

What to do!?  With the Holidays upon us, I want to be realistic in what I’ll try to accomplish this month.

I have a few little quilt related gifts to make for an upcoming gift exchange. But I have not settled on what to make. My ideas include -

1. a few tea towels decorated with snowmen
2. Christmas Star Fabric Ornaments
3. Vinyl Project Pouches
4. Be Merry decoration
5. machine stitch out on Christmas Tree ornaments

Hmmm. That means my goal will be to pick something off the list and make three for the gift exchange.

And, there is the Chic Country quilt to finish. I need to practice my quilting idea for it before actually attempting the design on the quilt. I sure hope December is the month I complete it! One more post on it, and you won’t have to hear about that one ever again.

Linking to One Monthly Goal hosted by Patty at Elm Street Quilts.

My goal for November was to complete stage two of quilting on the Chic Country quilt I’m making for my grand daughter.

Happily, I did accomplish that!

Quilting is showing up nicely on the back (which is actually a blue fabric you can see in above photo.)

Quilting on the pieced front.

Next I need to figure out one more quilting design for the final pass of quilting. Or, I’m wondering if it is already quilted enough.

Linking to One Monthly Goal hosted by Elm Street Quilts. Go take a look at what everyone else has been working on this past month.

Here in the USA we celebrated Thanksgiving last Thursday, November 22nd. I hope everyone had a blessed Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving morning there is a race called Galloping Gobbler here in our home town. It’s 4 miles. You can run, jog, walk, whatever. Some of my adult offspring have done the race several years. Some once, some 4 or so times. This year they wanted the whole family to join in, so I went along with that. Husband tho, opted out, which left him as child care, which the grands loved! And the parents didn’t have to worry about carrying, or stroller pushing, or bundling up kiddos for the 28◦F weather!

Here’s most of our group before the race:

And here are the fast ones in the group:

This was my first ‘race.’ I walked, but was happy with my 18 minute miles.

Everyone gathered at my home for a traditional Thanksgiving meal in the early afternoon. It was a blessed day with family and friends.

I am still quilting along on the Chic Country quilt. Hope to finish up this week! Photos to come.

How did I do on last week’s To-Do List:

1. Enjoy Thanksgiving with my family.  ✔️
2. Keep FMQ on Chic Country quilt.  ✔️

This week’s To-Do List:

1. Stitch stitch stitch on Chic Country quilt.

Linking to To-Do Tuesday and Linky Tuesday

Earlier this year I started to collect Christmas fabric for a tree skirt. In my mind, I was going to do my Christmas sewing in July of this year. Kind of like my own personal Christmas in July. That didn’t happen. This week I pulled out the tree skirt fabric and got busy making a skirt to gift to my daughter Thanksgiving day.

All done!

Other happenings this week, I won a door prize through a quilt shop hop! It included this pattern by Coach House Designs

and Quilters Dream Orient batting.

I’ve not used this bamboo silk blend batting, so I’m curious how it will quilt and wash up. It was not large enough to use in the tree skirt – that would have been just too convenient!

Are you doing any last minute/holiday sewing projects?

How did I do on last week’s To-Do List:

1. Quilting Chic Country  ✔️  I’m working on the negative space petals.
2. Embroidery pumpkin   ✔️ I’m slow and have a long way to go.

This week’s To-Do List:

1. Enjoy Thanksgiving with my family.
2. Keep trucking along on Chic Country quilt.

Linking to To-Do Tuesday and Linky Tuesday.

Lap quilt for a relative confined to a wheel chair.

Snowmen Tea Towels for a relative having hip replacement surgery. She decorates with Snowmen during the holidays – adding a little bit to her collection!  The lap quilt and 2 tea towels below go in the mail tomorrow!

Tea Towels for upcoming gift exchange.

Tea Towel for a friend’s birthday.

Tea Towel patterns are by the Wooden Bear. I found kits during a shop hop that included one tea towel, fabrics, fusible, pattern, and even buttons for the eyes. I bought 4 more tea towels, and added just a bit of fabric. The fabric amount in the kits were very generous. Having the kits sure added to making fast little gifties!

On my to-do list was FMQ Chic Country – I have about 1/3 of it quilted, with another 1/3  marked for the next step. Progress!

Dancing Stars quilt got set to the side to allow time to stitch up the gifts.

Do you have gift making on your to-do list?

How did I do on the last posted To-Do List:

1. Continue paper piecing Dancing Stars ✗
2. FMQ Chic Country ✔️

This week’s To-Do List:

1. Quilting Chic Country
2. Embroidery pumpkin

Linking to To-Do Tuesday and Linky Tuesday.

Oh my goodness! Where did October go!?

And where did my brain go?

I found a few days to work on my project, but when I went to write my OMG finish, I discovered I worked on a different project than I listed as my October goal!

I planned on finishing this quilt

instead I worked on paper piecing stars

I now have 19 pieced stars with 5 more to do.

On October 31st, when I realized my mistake, I pulled out the Chic Country quilt and got busy marking the next section to be quilted.

It’s all marked and ready for quilting.

Guess what my November goal is?

Yep, quilt Chic Country!

Let’s hope I can keep my head on straight this time!

Linking to One Monthly Goal sponsored by Patty of Elm Street Quilts.

I’ve signed up for a hand embroidery class! It doesn’t start until October 30th, but it has already filled up! There will be a kit to purchase at the first class.

Since I’m a beginner, I asked if this class would be appropriate for me, a newbie. And I was assured it would be a good class for learning, I think she said 14 different stitches. I’m hoping I can handle it!

This week’s progress: I got a few more Dancing Star blocks underway. And the FMQ squiggles are all completed on Chic Country. On to the next section! I have 2 more designs to quilt on Chic Country. I hope to finish it this month.

Road trip! I had a blast with my friends. We visited Caroline’s Cottage Cottons in Rome City, IN. Caroline is a delightful person. Her shop is adorable. And her shop was  one of the 10 top shops featured in the Fall 2018 Better Home & Gardens Quit Sampler Magazine. !!!!   Yes, I bought a copy of the magazine and asked Caroline to autograph it! Check her out on Facebook.

Photo from her recent vending at the Ohio One Stop Shop Hop.

From the quilt shop we went to Turkey Lake Tavern in Elmira for lunch. I recommend their fish special. Yum!

How did I do on last week’s To-Do List:

1. Continue paper piecing Dancing Stars ✔️
2. Continue FMQ Chic Country ✔️
3. Road trip with friends to a quilt shop north of us. ✔️

This week’s To-Do List:

1. Continue paper piecing Dancing Stars
2. FMQ Chic Country

That should be it for this coming week. How was your week? Starting anything new?

Linking to To-Do Tuesday and Linky Tuesday.

Aren’t these pretty 6″ stars?

I’m loving the bright colors and the batik background.

I only spent one afternoon working on these paper pieced blocks, so I’m happy with getting 4 more completed.

Hemming dresses? Whose idea was that!? I pulled them out of the bag to discover they are all knits. And not just t-shirt type knits, but those silky flimsy types. I really don’t feel like I have enough experience with these types of fabrics to do a decent hem. I talked to my friend, and she said they are just sun dresses she wears around the house, so she is not too concerned about how the hems look. I told her I’ll take a second look at them and decided if I’m brave enough to attempt them.

After looking at them, and searching instructions for hemming on my Janome, I decided to give a hem a go. I trimmed off some of the bottom of one dress so I’d have fabric to play with. I even called my local Janome dealer to get advice. I set up the machine with proper foot and needle, and gave hemming a go. It looked ok. I hemmed 2 of the dresses, but  passed on the slippery poly/spandex one.

How did I do on last week’s To-Do List:

1. Paper piecing Dancing Stars. ✔️ 6 completed
2. Continue FMQ Chic Country.  ✔️ progress was made, lots more to go
3. GOT to hem those dresses!  ✗ & ✔️ did 2 of 3, and passing on the third.

This week’s To-Do List:

1. Continue paper piecing Dancing Stars
2. Continue FMQ Chic Country
3. Road trip with friends to a quilt shop north of us.

Linking to To-Do Tuesday and Linky Tuesday.

Oh fiddle fiddle. Did I really share about clothing mending in my last Tuesday’s post? I put on my calendar for last Wednesday to hem three dresses for a friend. I was really going to do that! But then my DIL asked if granddaughter could have some grandmother time, and I of course could not turn down that request. Then the rest of the week just filled up and no hemming of dresses happened. It is a must for this week!

On the plus side, Whirled Peas is a quilt top! Read all about it here.

Whirled Peas was started in 2013. Gah! UFO alert! But since I successfully finished the top this September, only 5 years later, I’ve decided to pull out another UFO to work on in October.

Dancing Stars was a Quilt-Along hosted by Amy Ellis back in 2013.

The pattern is free, so go take a look. When I pulled out the box storing this project, I found only 2 completed 6″ blocks. I had pieces cut to make 24 blocks. Let’s see how many blocks I can piece this month. This will mostly be my take-along project for my sewing days with my quilty friends.

I got back to FMQ Chic Country. I’m changing it up just a bit.

I’d like to get this quilt and 2 others completed this Fall.

That is how my week is looking. How about you?

How did I do on last week’s To-Do List:

1. Turn Whirled Peas block into a quilt top. ✔️
2. Get back to FMQ Chic Country, it is turning into an UFO! ✔️
3. Hem three sundresses.   ✗   Do quilters really hem dresses?

This week’s To-Do List:

1. Paper piecing Dancing Stars.
2. Continue FMQ Chic Country.
3. GOT to hem those dresses!

Linking to To-Do Tuesday and Linking Tuesday.