Hello and welcome to Thanksgiving Week in the USofA. Have you seen all the ads for pre-Black Friday sales? I've noticed all sorts of ads offering too good to believe sales. I am trying to decide if I am going to buy some backings at JoAnns this week. Their Keepsake cotton is on sale for $3.99 a yard. Wow. Best price I've seen. I just bought 6 yards for border and a backing and the best I could get was $5.30 a yard. It was a decent quality and went well with the top I'm making. You'll see the end result after Christmas as, yes, it is a Christmas present. There's a good chance I will buy some backings as I have over 20 tops waiting to be quilted. A few already have backings but most do not. And, honestly it's hard not to as I live about mile away from my local JoAnns.
I've had a decent week but I didn't get all ✅ marks. I was very happy with what I did get done. Take a look -
11/13/23
✅Sing two concerts — They went well. Just 2 more with our other group in Dec.
✅Make some placemats for guild - one made and delivered, more made for next month.
Finish turquoise RSC blocks — didn’t even start this one.
✅Layout and begin sewing Flower Song quilt — The center is sewn together; on to the borders.
Stitch out a sample embroidery before starting some sweatshirts — Started but gave up on it…
Check out these placemats I've made for the guild's charity work. (Do you have any of these fabrics?)
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Blue strings placemat.
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Potato chip block with 2.5" strips on the side.
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I made my block with 2.5" x 4.5" strips. I followed the brief directions that Sarah wrote on her blog, My Sewing Room. Scroll down to the end of the post to see her block. I used the same coloration she did. I might reverse the darks and lights for the next one, especially if I use it as a placemat. I quilted in the ditch. First I did the two teal strips from top to bottom. Then I started at the top white rectangle and quilted to after the green and made a right turn. Down to the end of the darker grey and made another right turn. After the green and pink block I made another right turn. I turned right again after the grey, white and black block. Another right turn before the orange, a right turn at the white block and a final right turn between the white and the multicolor ribbons. In other words, I was able to quilt the whole thing with only 3 starts and stops! Bonus.
Well, I admit, I went wild on my last placemat. This was from a pattern in an old Quiltmaker. There were 2 snowmen and 2 penguins. I wasn't sure I'd ever make them but, why not? They are really cute. I think there will be at least 1 penguin in my future. True confession time... I picked the easiest one. And, the penguin is a bit more involved but I guess I'll make him too. And maybe more of both of them.
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| Mr. Snowman |
Because I had decided not to work on the Christmas present quilt, I took out the Flower Song pieces to see if I could put it together. I spent most of Saturday getting the center blocks sashed and sewn together.
I had cut the border strips out before I went to the October retreat. So when I was fussing with color placement I laid out the two borders too. I was tickled to get it this far.
It wasn't a bad week for goals considering we were driving home one day, sang an afternoon concert another day, a night concert another day and a brunch after all the singing. (Dare I admit to finishing 6 books during the week too? Two were audio books I was listening to while sewing. One of those was really long and I'd been listening to it for the last two weeks.)
I did a little off list sewing -- mostly sewing and marking the half square triangles for Malted Mystery. I got one set (62) HSTs finished but have another group still to do.
Here's what's up for this week:
11/20/23
Sew on ornaments
Add borders to Christmas present quilt
Put borders on Flower Song quilt
Embroider one sweatshirt
Work on the Nov. clue for Malted Mystery
It's been a long time since I've used my machine embroidery unit. I was going to make a sample stitch out this week but when I got started I ran into tension issues. They were probably due to not having a full bobbin. (Or something else, who knows.) Anyway I figured out how to do everything again so I hope I'm ready to actually stitch the design on the sweat shirt. And, yes, I'm putting a full bobbin in for this one! We'll see if I'm pulling my hair out by the end of the day I decide to work on this one.
I've been blathering on enough and thank you if you've read to the end. You know the drill now -- try surfing the web from this list. You never know when you'll see something you might like to try. (Think of the potato chip block I tried!)
Oh Scrap
Stitching Stuff at Life in Pieces
Design Wall Monday
Sew and Tell
Did you notice I put in a new Linky party? I've been reading Kate's Life in Pieces for years. And, I just figured out I could join her Linky party on Sundays. Well, duh of me! I haven't been doing the 15 minutes a day challenge this year but I thought I'd start up over the next few weeks to see if I could succeed for a whole year. So, I have figured out which days I've sewn for 15 minutes from Monday to Sunday. 5 out of 7 days I was able to sew. (If we were talking about reading it would be 7 for 7. I've read at least 30 minutes every day for 580 days! Wow.)
Here's wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving or a great day in the countries that celebrate a Thanksgiving day some other day than we do in America. May you also be thankful for your sewing and quilting time. I sure am.
Happy Quilting! Bonnie
