Five Shadows

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! With celebrating our Savior’s birth comes time with family and friends. Part of the celebrating brings gift giving. Today I’ll be meeting with friends and I made each a little giftie.

I traced and slightly altered one of the candles from Helen Godden‘s free Christmas Countdown Quilt-A-Long. I made a pillow-like-case and slipped it over an acrylic photo frame.

I used Sharpie and Fabrico pens for coloring and outlining. Auriful and Mettler threads for the FMQ. Merry Christmas is hand embroidered  with Auriful thread. The finished quilt is 8 1/4″ wide by 10″ tall. I have three more to do the hand embroidery on before stitching them to slip over a picture frame.

That’s it for this week. I caught a bug – going around my family – and spent a couple days in bed. Not how I wanted to spend my time, but I’m glad to be over it! Hope it stops with me, sparing everyone else.

Hope you are all staying happy and healthy!

Last To Do List:

1. Continue stitching up Bat Moon Rising ✗  Illness struck, and most quilting stopped for a few days.
2. Make a few quilted gifts for my quilting friends. ✔️ 4 complete, and 3 to finish up.
3. Keep up with Helen’s quilt-a-long ✔️So far so good!

To-Do List:

1. Make lap quilt for my Dad from his neckties. Mail by the 16th!
2. Finish up the 3 gifts for my quilting friends.
3. Dream about making some Christmas stockings.
4. Bat Moon Rising – probably not. Putting on back burner until holiday prep is complete.

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Sewn by Us.

Thanksgiving Day our town holds the Galloping Gobbler 4 mile race. This is my second year to participate with my kids and their spouses.

We didn’t have any full out runners from our family this year. Usually my eldest is in the top 200 finishers of the almost 2000 people participating. This year he and his wife decided to power walk together as she had back surgery and was just not up to running. Our fastest time was Nathan (middle of the photo in black hat) at 9 minutes 39 seconds per mile. My DIL and I walked in at 19 minutes 16 seconds per mile – 2 minutes slower than last year. There is always next year to make improvements.

Here’s the snowman mug rug I put together and mailed to my SIL.

This was a kit from a LQS. The pattern is by Quilt Doodle Designs. Finishes at 7 1/2″ x 10 1/2″

I am playing along with Helen Godden and her Christmas Countdown Quilt-A-Long.

Each day we will add a little FMQ to the design.

Last To Do List:

1. Thanksgiving baking, cooking! ✔️
2. Enjoying Thanksgiving with family and friends. ✔️
3. Make and mail a little snowman mug rug for my SIL. ✔️ Mailed yesterday!
4. Any quilting or piecing I might find time for this Thanksgiving week ✔️ Prepped for Helen Godden’s quilt-a-long

To-Do List:

1. Continue stitching up Bat Moon Rising
2. Make a few quilted gifts for my quilting friends.
3. Keep up with Helen’s quilt-a-long

Linking to To-Do-Tuesday.

My December One Monthly Goal will be to keep up with Helen Godden’s Christmas Count Down Quilt-a-long. Helen is posting daily videos on YouTube and Facebook.

Here is my piece all ready for the first day of free motion quilting.

From December 1st – the 24th, Helen will demo filling in one part of the her holiday drawing with a different FMQ motif. She offers a free download of the drawing, follow the links above to join in.

And here is my first FMQ for day one.

Echoing the candle flame in yellow thread. That was easy enough.

I also have a snowman mug rug to finish and mail.

Plus I’d like to make 6 little quilty gifties for my quilting friends. I haven’t landed on an idea yet. We’ll see how that goes. I might just have to do store bought gifts this year.

I’m linking to One Monthly Goal hosted by Patty over at Elm Street Quilts.

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays All!

As stated at the beginning of the month, I pulled out this UFO to baste and work towards quilting as my goal for November.

I’m glad I worded it “work towards” quilting. I did get the quilt spray basted. This is the largest quilt I’ve attempted to spray baste at 92″ wide by 104″ long.

I only completed the quilting 4 of the twelve 16″ square blocks. That’s a start.

2 of the blocks photoed below

With the large expanse of white background, I think I’ll just do diagonal quilting. Not sure. At this point I’m just not enjoying the process. And with Christmas just around the corner, I will set this quilt aside – again – and switch to some Christmas gift quilting.

I’m counting this as a finish for November as I was not anticipating finishing the top back when I wrote up my goal in the beginning of the month.

How was your month? Check out other OMG at Elm Street Quilts.

This week filled up with lots of doing, but not much quilting. Here are just a few things I did get to this week.

First, I had to tackle my messing sewing room since I couldn’t get to the cutting mat to continue with Bat Moon Rising!

I did get the mat cleared off, but not the rest of the counter top to the right of the mat.

Anyway, that gave me room enough to cut out more Bat Moon Rising pieces.

I only got a little bit of piecing completed.

Sunday was a day spent with family. Birthday celebration and a Train Show. Our granddaughter thought the Hodges Hand Cars was the best part of the Train Show. Here she is riding a Hand Car.

You turn that wheel round and round to go around the track. She thought it was great fun. Husband thought it was great exercise and a fun way for kiddos to run off some of their energy! LOL

Our grandson, not yet big enough for the Hand Car, sure enjoyed watching the bigger kids!

He stood there going “whoo whoo!” He loves anything with wheels and loves to imitate the sounds too.

Woot! I finished stitching Dropcloth Sampler last night.

I’ll figure out how to frame it, most likely an embroidery hoop, after Thanksgiving. I’ll try to remember to keep an eye out for a hoop while shopping this weekend.

Next up – Thanksgiving baking! Remember those Pumpkin Dinner Rolls I posted last Tuesday? I’m making them today, and putting together the dressing. The turkey is defrosting in the fridge.

I hope you are all enjoying gearing up for the Holidays!

Last To-Do List:

1. Continue with Curve it Up quilting ✗
2. Keep piecing Bat Moon Rising ✔️
3. Piecing block 4 of Happy Little Things ✗
4. Finish Satin Stitch in the Dropcloth Sampler ✔️

To Do List:

1. Thanksgiving baking, cooking!
2. Enjoying Thanksgiving with family and friends.
3. Make and mail a little snowman mug rug for my SIL.
4. Any quilting or piecing I might find time for this Thanksgiving week

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Home Sewn by Us.

Bat Moon Rising is coming along. I’m using an ombre fabric for the background, which means more fussing with placement of the fabric.

I’ve started with light background around the moon and will work into the darker fabric as I move away from the moon. This is a Sew Kind of Wonderful pattern from the Mini Wonderful Curves book.

Happy Little Things: Block 4 embroidery is all stitched up. I’ll be using the fabrics shown for piecing the block.

I didn’t think I got much hand work done this week, but when I pulled out Happy Little Things last night, I only had a little bit of stitching to complete the design. Plus, since I took a road trip last Friday, which included stopping at a new-to-me quilt shop, I bought larger embroidery needles that worked well with the Perle Cotton.

With Thanksgiving in the USA just around the corner, I’m dreaming of making these cute pumpkin rolls for dinner – and use them as part of the table decorations.  Or this version. Maybe both, since I have some vegans in the family.

(photo from Handle the Heat)

Do you have any special recipes that always make it to your dinner table during the Holidays?

Last To-Do List:

1. Continue quilting Curve it Up ✔️ I didn’t get much done, but any progress is better than none.
2. More fabric cutting, then start piecing Bat Moon Rising ✔️ I’m happy with the out come so far!
3. Hand embroidery in the evenings ✔️Finished block four of Happy Little Things, but didn’t get to Dropcloth Sampler.

To Do List:

1. Continue with Curve it Up quilting
2. Keep piecing Bat Moon Rising
3. Piecing block 4 of Happy Little Things
4. Finish Satin Stitch in the Dropcloth Sampler

Linking to To-Do Tuesday sponsored by Home Sewn by Us.

Tomorrow I meet up with one of my quilting groups. I’m behind on the Happy Little Things BOM, so today decided to prep the 4th block, November’s block. It’s ready to take along for some hand stitching time.

Center floral traced, embroidery floss and fabrics selected.

Dropcloth Sampler progress: I’ve learned Coral Knots stitched in yellow, Algerian Eyes in pale yellow, Herringbone in light green,  Couching in aqua, Filled Running in blues.

Next up will be Satin stitch in green. I already knew Blanket, Lazy Daisy, French Knots, Running, Chain, and Backstitch. I’ve been watching Youtube videos to learn the stitches.

My main goal for this week was machine quilting Curve it Up. With my prep for company and then our actual visit time, I didn’t get much quilting accomplished. Here are the few blocks I did quilt -

4-Patch, just the 2 right side 4-Patches are quilted

Dresden Plate

Fancy Fans

Star Block. There is a lot of white background fabric in this quilt. My plan is to quilt the blocks in Superior Threads King Tut 40 weight variegated yellow #985 and then go back to quilt the background in white #971.

Thursday I’m hosting my other quilting group, and plan on working on Bat Moon Rising.

What are your current quilting plans?

Last To-Do List:

1. Quilting Curve it Up, my One Monthly Goal for November. I spray basted it yesterday. Get to the quilting. ✔️ Got a few blocks quilted.
2. We have guests coming this weekend. I’ve got to do some house cleaning and meal prep. ✔️ We had a wonderful visit!
3. Work on piecing Bat Moon Rising if time allows. ✗ Nope, didn’t happen.

To Do List:

1. Continue quilting Curve it Up
2. More fabric cutting, then start piecing Bat Moon Rising
3. Hand embroidery in the evenings

Linking to To-Do-Tuesday, hosted by Roseanne of Home Sewn by Us.

Last week I quilted my friend’s Crazy 9-Patch quilt. Here is a close up of some of the quilting.

I met up with her Friday, and she liked the quilting on the 9-Patch and the Cherry quilt which I worked on the previous week.

I got the idea for the cherries from Lori Kennedy. Lori has a lovely blog where she demonstrates her many FMQ motifs.

I had a big “Oops!” while quilting on the cherry quilt! I thought the stitching took on a different feel. So I stopped and took a look at the back.

Yep. The back and batting got turned under and caught in the stitching. At least it was not too many stitches to rip out and fix! Has this ever happened to you?

Hand embroidery: Evenings after supper is when I try to fit in some hand stitching. But not so much this past week. With the weather turning cooler and evenings growing longer, I should be finding more stitching time this Fall & Winter.

The little I did do this week was on an old sampler.

This is a Dropcloth sampler I bought through Etsy a few years back.

Since I’m still so new to hand embroidery and don’t know many of these stitches, I’ve been watching youtube to learn them. I think I’m coming along ok with this new skill.

New quilt: This is a photo from Sew Kind of Wonderful’s book Mini Wonderful Curves.

The quilt is titled Bat Moon Rising, and I think it will be perfect for a friend expecting her first baby.

Bat and moon pieces are all cut. I’m using an ombre (not shown) for the background, so that might require some thoughtful cutting.

How was your week? What do you have planned for this coming week?

Last To-Do List:

1. Quilting friend’s quilt.  ✔️ Basted, quilted, delivered!
2. Evening hand embroidery.  ✔️Just some stitches completed on an older sampler.

To-Do List:

1. Quilting Curve it Up, my One Monthly Goal for November. I spray basted it yesterday. Get to the quilting.
2. We have guests coming this weekend. I’ve got to do some house cleaning and meal prep.
3. Work on piecing Bat Moon Rising if time allows.

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Home Sewn by Us.

I’m pulling out another UFO to finally baste and work towards quilting as my goal for November.

This was the start – pulling fabric back in 2014.

I taught this as a class at a LQS, Curve it Up by Sew Kind of Wonderful using their Quick Curve Ruler.

After completing the class, it just hung in my “to be quilted” closet until my sister-in-law saw it and said she’d love it for her lake cottage. We shopped and bought fabric for one more border to enlarge it, and bought the back and binding fabric.

She liked the yellow for the border saying it will go in a guest bedroom that is painted yellow.

Now to get it basted and start on the quilting.

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

This past week I spent time spray basting several quilts.

One is a the Hoffman Dream Big Panel which I bought on a shop hop 2 years ago. I actually bought 2 and then later saw how a gal cut one in fourths diagonally and sewed the pieces on to another Dream Big Panel. Since I had the two panels, I decided to go ahead and do that. I framed the top in with a pink border so I would not have bias edges. Here she is all basted.

This Dream Big Panel variation measures 65″ square with the border, which really is pink and looks nice with the center flower, but afternoon light is affecting it.

I also spray basted this cute little quilt sewn together by a friend.

The baking and cherry themed quilt measures 44″ x 50.”

I got it quilted too!

Of course I had to include some quilted cherries.

The last quilt I spray basted is a crazy nine patch, also stitched together by my friend.

Again, bad afternoon lighting. Sorry. I hope to be quilting this one up this week.

My son has borrowed our camera, so I’m using my iPad.

Last To-Do List:

1. Basting several quilts for a friend. Not sure how many she gave to me to quilt for her. I’ll have to dig into the box. My plan is to do all the spray basting this week, and maybe start quilting one. ✔️ There were 2 quilts in that box, both basted, and one quilted!
2. Prep next embroidery project. ✔️ I traced out several projects, and will work on them this Fall & Winter.

To-Do List:

1. Quilting friend’s quilt.
2. Evening hand embroidery.

Linking to To-Do-Tuesday hosted by Home Sewn by Us.