Monday Meanderings 11 - 28 - 2016

It seems like I really didn't get much sewing done over the last week.  On the other hand I did make 4 apple crumb pies -- with nary a picture to show for it.  What was I thinking?  Two pies were sold at a bake sale supporting the local singing group.  One was for dessert Thanksgiving day and one is residing in the freezer to be pulled out in the future.  Lots of work but I still have a whole pie left! 

So, I did get 2 Christmas shirts done for Sophie and Natalie. OOPS, no pictures. I did notice they were both wearing them the next day when their mom posted on Facebook.  But, you really can't see the designs.  Sigh.  I've made Theo a Christmas onesie but I can't even find it now.  Yikes.  So, I'll throw in a picture of some more of the onesies I gave him in October.  Jawsome is from Embroidery Boutique. 

And Boy at Work is from Designs by JuJu.  Who knows where I put his Christmas one.  Heck, where is the shirt for Ellie's Christmas embroidery?  I am getting a little too scattered. Must mean I need to spend way more time in the studio.  I have hardly been in there over the last week or two. 

Here's my newest knitting project.  Don't expect to see anymore of it for several weeks.  Just saying'.

I finished my OMG pretty early this month.  I wanted to sew the blocks together and get the borders on.  And yep, both borders are done.  

You can visit other OMG blogs by going to Elm Street Quilts to see if others have finished their November goals.  (If you have time, take a look at other posts on Patty's blog.  She has a lot of information on making bags/purses.  I need some time to page through all the wonderful posts.) I'll post my goal for December early in the month. 

Now, it's on to the weekly goals.  I didn't give myself too many goals as I knew I was going to be busy with non-quilty things last week.  Heck, it'll be the same this week actually.  So, overall, I did well. 

November 21, 2016

Keep knitting √

Get 2 more shirts embroidered before Thanksgiving√

Load customer quilt on Ruthie (Started the backing will finish on today)

Cook Thanksgiving dinner√

Make pies, cookies and muffins for community bake sale√ I don’t want to make another apple pie for a while…I made 4 of them!

And this coming week.... again, a little less quilting involved.

November 28, 2016

Load and quilt customer quilt

Make backing for Christmas Favorites

Knit

Have lunch with Dorothy and attend Pat’s concert

Sing with Spottsylvanians

Find Christmas cards and start getting them ready to send…

Embroider Ellie's Christmas shirt

We'll see if I buckle down and get the two quilty things done.  I'm very motivated on the knitting so I know I'll keep working on the various projects I have going.  

Take some time to relax with a cup of tea (unless you are a coffee fan) and check out these Monday Linky Parties: Main Crush Monday and Monday Makings.

That's it for me now.  I am going to load a quilt this afternoon and knit some more.  

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meandering 11 - 20 - 2016

For some reason I really didn't get all that much done this week.  Of course it could have been because Saturday and Sunday were taken up with a rehearsal and a concert with the Spotsylvanians.  Here's a link to one of our pieces from rehearsal on Saturday.  If you live in Fredericksburg/Spotsylvania county think about coming to one of our free concerts.  Check out their Facebook page to see our concert dates in Spotsylvania and in Culpepper, Virginia.  

One thing I did do was go to my local quilt store and buy enough fabric to go with a couple of yards of fabric I already had so I can make the backing for the Christmas Favorites top.  But, that won't be happening until after this week.  Too much needs to be done this week for Thanksgiving.  Also, our community is having a craft show Saturday and I'm baking some goodies to sell to raise funds for the community chorus.  Yea, we do sing around, a LOT.  With the church choir I'm singing with 3 choruses and Pat's still singing with the Virginians in Richmond, so he's in 4.  We'll probably be cutting back some for the spring season. 

I've been knitting hats for the girls in the family.  I've got two done except for making a pompom for the top of each hat.  Luckily these little hats go really quickly.  

I've finally started catching up on my fabric usage since the move.  Um, it doesn't look all that good recently.  Here are July stats.  I really couldn't do much sewing so I decided to do a little internet shopping instead which I wrote about here.  Hum, I'm definitely NOT using fabric up.  I did use a very small amount of the fabric I brought in during July.  But, honestly 3 pieces no bigger than 3 x 6" just doesn't make that big of a dent! 

2016	Fabric In Month	Fabric in Year	Fabric Out Month	Fabric Out Year	Total In or Out Year
July	20.00	79.875	1.375	34.375	-30.375

Moving right along to my goals for the last week.  Not bad but definitely not fabulous either. 

November 14, 2016

Put last border on Christmas Favorites√

Make backing for Christmas Favorites oops – I had to buy some additional fabric

Begin embroidering Christmas shirts √one done, 3 more to go

Keep knitting! √

Vacuum and straighten up the studio √ at least I got the vacuuming done but I still need to do some straightening

And this week's goals:

November 21, 2016

Keep knitting

Get 2 more shirts embroidered before Thanksgiving

Load customer quilt on Ruthie

Cook Thanksgiving dinner

Make pies, cookies and muffins for community bake sale

That's it for now...I've got a rehearsal in 45 minutes and I need to take a shower!  I'm linking up with Monday Making and Main Crush Monday. 

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone and hope you can squeeze in some quilting time this week. Bonnie 

Ryan's Case for Smiles

Saturday was the annual pillowcase making day at Country Piecemakers Quilt Guild.  Our November meeting has been dedicated to making cases for Ryan's Case for Smiles, the new name for ConKerr Cancer, for the last seven years.  Wow! A group of quilters that generally number 42 to 43 members have cranked out 2243 pillowcases in that time.  In reality only 20 to 25 members show up at any one meeting and this past week was lower than normal with 19.  And, yep, less could stay to work on the pillowcases. 

But our pillowcase leader was well organized and we all buckled down to make cases.  C announced that we made 100 pillowcases on Sat.  This year alone we made and donated 400 pillowcases.  C has a dedicated closet to pillowcases and fabrics for pillowcases.  She announced it was bare.  Time to restock as all of these pillowcases have been given to the organization for distribution.

Some of us used sergers, others used regular sewing machines.  All the cases were made with French seams.  A group of gals ironed, turned, pinned and carried cases from ironing boards to sew machines.  We were a well oiled machine! 

Knowing I'm seeing a guild member tomorrow, I decided I was going to make a pillowcase to help restock the closet.  I can't make the December meeting and who knows what the weather will be like in January but at least one lonely pillowcase will start the restocking of the closet. And, I'm down a yard of fabric. Did I mention we are meeting at the local quilt store with every intention to look at buying some fabric?  (And, yes, long time readers -- eventually I'll figure out my fabric usage and purchases/acquisitions since I last reported.  I know I've been going pretty crazy on the purchases.)  

I know I've made at least one, possibly two baby quilts out of this fabric.  I still have some left and I'm thinking of fussy cutting the musicians to make Happy Blocks. That is any easy pattern to make and perfect for donation quilts. 

Do you want to make a pillowcase or two?  They are great for gifts for the grands or for donations to various organizations.  I used directions from Craftsy but used the guild's measurements.  We use 26" for the main case, 10" for the cuff and 2" for the accent. (Honestly, I think a 2" accent is too big so I used 1 1/2" accents -- and I can always find a strip in my strip drawers.) The 26"/10" makes great sense as you can buy two different 1 yard pieces and get 2 cases out of it.  

I'll be linking up with Needle and Thread Thursday and Let's Be Social. As always,  go take a look at all the fabulous things people are working on these days. 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

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Monday Meandering 11 - 14 - 2016

What a week.  My quilting mojo has pretty much left the house.  Or at least it was gone last week right after I finished quilting a baby quilt.  I have been knitting up a storm.  I actually started and finished a small project last week.  Of course, no pictures of that project for 6 weeks or so.  Today I'm sharing my new leader ender project.

Faithful Circle Quilters works with Project Linus to make quilts for kids. One group that always gets some of our RWB quilts is Good Grief Camp for Young Survivors in Washington, DC that is held in conjunction with the National Military Survivor Seminar put on by TAPS - Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors.  
I have been making red, white and blue quilts for for a year or two to go to this organization.  Well, I tried to get one done in time for 2016 but I didn't succeed and I couldn't find any pictures of the one I did in 2015. The quilt I started last year and hadn't finished is well on its way to being finished.  So I've started another one as a leader/ender project.  

Now, what does that note say? 

I am learning to write notes on my projects to help me remember what was going on when I last worked on it. (I'm doing it with knitting too.) It sure makes it easy when I pick up a project that I haven't worked on for several months, er, or years. These will be sashed with white. Should help to lighten up the quilt. I'm a throwing in all sorts of odd ball pieces that will give kids a little chuckle. You can't really tell but there is a lizard on the top left of the block above. 

I forgot to take a picture of the baby quilt I quilted and bound last week.  I've already turned it in but I might be able to have a picture taken and sent to me.  Maybe you'll see my string pieced quilt sometime soon.

Pat and I are singing in the neighborhood chorus and we performed at the Veteran's Day celebration.  It was a great program with interesting speakers, good food and a nice performance by the Spare Time Singers.  I thought this cupcake "cake" was really clever. 

No one needed to cut it.  Crumbs weren't all over the table (although a bit of frosting was smeared around.) Best thing was the cupcakes were really tasty! One of the advantages of living in a 55+ active community is lots of different businesses want to get their message to us.  So, like this event, the food is sponsored.  We hear the name of the company a couple of times but there was no hard sell at all. 

I did more on my goals than I remembered doing although I am repeating the goals on Christmas Favorites. 

November 7, 2016

Put last border on Christmas Favorites

Make backing for Christmas Favorites

Finish second red sock√

Load and quilt baby quilt√

Pillow Case Day at guild Saturday√

November 14, 2016

Put last border on Christmas Favorites

Make backing for Christmas Favorites

Begin embroidering Christmas shirts

Keep knitting!

Vacuum and straighten up the studio

That's it for me today.  I'm linking up with Main Crush Monday and Monday Making.  Join me as I surf the web using these two sites as my starting point.  Lots of creative ideas come from this surfing, or at least that's the excuse I tell myself for surfing rather than quilting! 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

Monday Meandering 11 - 7 - 2016

As usual, my post is all about trying to get Christmas Favorites done.  I've been using it as my One Monthly Goal for most of the year and this month is no different.  Here's where it's at now... 

It's together! It's got its first border on!  I've done the embroidery on the two blocks! But, oh no!  I realized I hadn't  blanket stitched around the center of the 2 "e"s in the Mistletoe block.  OH GOOD GRIEF! 

Hopefully early this week I'll have the last border put on.  Here's a close up of the border fabric. I was a little concerned about the variety of greens I've used in this quilt.  Lime green, yellow green, blue green.  Lots of different colors.  I finally decided that all those greens go together in nature so they can go together in this quilt. 

I have some real issues with the lighting in my new studio.  I will eventually get it all worked out but for the most part I don't have enough light on my design wall to take great pictures.  I had my overhead cam lighting on and about 3 additional lights on.  Must figure out how to get better lighting down there.

By the way, that embroidery of red circles on Santa's cheeks is his rosy cheeks not crazy eyes!  His eyes are little buttons that will be put on after the quilt is done. 

Goals were accomplished this week!  (Well most of them anyway!)  Here's last weeks:

Oct 31, 2016

Do the hand embroidery on Christmas Favorites√

Put the last few items on the CF blocks√

Knit on the second red sock√

Find a small quilt to quilt on Ruthie√

Work on Stack N Whack nope – nothing happened on this. 

And for this week: 

November 7, 2016

Put last border on Christmas Favorites

Make backing for Christmas Favorites

Finish second red sock

Load and quilt baby quilt

Pillow Case Day at guild Saturday

I'll be linking up with Main Crush Monday and Monday Making.  I'm also looking forward to spending time with the folks who link up with those two websites.  I find so many wonderful ideas by surfing these two link ups. (Well, along with all the other ones I link up to!) 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

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