Monday Meanderings 11 - 20 - 2023

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?) 

 Blue strings placemat. 

 Potato chip block with 2.5" strips on the side. 

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.

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