Five Shadows

What a wonderful life! I enjoyed Christmas with my family gathered around. We are blessed to know the King, and to celebrate his coming to earth. I do love Christmas with its special meaning and all the trappings of gift giving, eating yummy foods, sharing time with family and friends.

This year I made 2 stockings for my 2 grand children. We hung them by the chimney with care

and then filled them before the children arrived Christmas day.

My grand daughter wanted a snowman. And my daughter suggested a Christmas Moose for baby grandson. Adding a red scarf makes a moose a Christmas Moose, right?!

Merry Christmas all, and Happy New Year!

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

1. Finish Christmas Stockings for the grands. ✔️

This week’s To-Do List:

1. Bind Chic Country quilt, finally.

Linking to To-Do Tuesday and Linky Tuesday.

One of the gals in my quilting group thought it would be fun for each of us to make fabric stars to exchange at our December meeting. Here are the stars I made.

You can find instructions at Geta’s Quilting Studio.

I also made these stars for another gift.

I found a link on A Spoonful of Sugar for these folded Hexagon Ornaments – take a look at her pretty ornaments! Angie’s Bits and Pieces has a great Youtube showing how to fold the hexie star ornaments. She is using them as flowers on a quilt. Christmas Star Ornaments or Flowers, they are pretty used either way!

I took along extra pre-cut hexies to the party, thinking my friends would like to try their hand in making them. I was right, and they each folded up a hexie star and plan on making more for gift giving.

I’d like to try these ornaments next, time permitting. That little adventure might be waiting until next year!

The photo is from Through the Eyes of a Quilter Blog. You can find a how-to video on the post and some nice hints for creating these adorable ornaments.

Since I have nothing else to do – I’m adding 2 more projects to my week before Christmas. I’m laughing, are you joining in with me!? For several years I have planned on making new Christmas Stockings for our family members, and I have just not gotten around to doing so. Sunday, I decided enough! And dug through fabric, patterns, and internet for ideas and actually started 2 stocking for my 2 grand children! That is at least a start on the 7 stockings I’d like to make.

Here is the one, so far, for my grand daughter.

The Sing for Me snowman & cardinal pattern caught my eye. I used the bird pattern, reduced the size to fit the stocking. Grand daughter likes pink and purple, so Mrs Snowman got hat, scarf & mitten in those colors. Do you see the pink and purple tassel hanging off the hat? That was my daughter’s idea.

And this one is for my grand son, also in progress.

The moose will get a red scarf as he is to be a Christmas moose. I’ll also add evergreen trees. At least the stockings are both started!

Husband and I are hosting Christmas in our home this year. Everyone is to arrive at noon. We will have lunch together, then open gifts, then games and family fun!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! I hope you are enjoying the countdown and not stressing out!

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

1. Side stepping again – finish up some little quilt gifts for gift exchange. ✔️ Little gifts all done and gifted at parties this past week.

This week’s To-Do List:

1. Finish Christmas Stockings for the grands.

Linking to To-Do Tuesday and Linky Tuesday.

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.