Finishes From Spring! Oh My

After finishing my last quilt of 2024 this morning I decided it was time to figure out how many quilts I made this year and whether I actually posted any pictures of them. EEK! I haven't posted all that many pictures of finished quilts.  So today I'm posting 3 of them in the attempt to get pictures of all my finishes posted in the next few weeks.  

First up is Sea Creatures. The name comes from the Hoffman fabric -- it has sea creatures on it. (Original aren't I?) Thanks to my friend Gail for gifting me the fabric.  It is hard to see the the animals.  (Notice the azaleas blooming away -- I took the picture a while ago!) 

I really like 3 yard quilts. This pattern is from Fabric Cafe's book Quick As A Wink 3-Yard Quilts. The quilting design is Fast and Easy Swirls from My Creative Stitches. 

Next is Knuffle Bunny.  The main fabric is based on the illustrations of Mo Willems, who wrote and illustrated the book, Knuffle Bunny.  It's a great picture book for toddlers and primary graders. 

I used a Villa Rose Design card called Baby Goose. It's a bit smaller than the directions called for but it used all the fabric I had.  It is a great design to highlight the Knuffle Bunny fabric. I used Sugar and Spice quilting design - another My Creative Stitches design.

Last up is a quilt I call Blue Flowers. Except it dawned on me when I look at the fabric the flowers are yellow on blue fabric.  Oh well. I'm not very creative naming my quilts!

This quilt is Stepping Up Quilt also by Fabric Cafe. You can download this pattern on your computer.  If you visit Fabric Cafe online be sure to check out their free patterns. Right now there are several patterns available. Generally the patterns are pretty fast to make too. I've been using them to make kits. Then I can grab and sew when I take my Featherweight on the road -- sew ins and retreats. 

This quilting pattern is called Rhapsody-leaf. It is also by My Creative Stitches. 

I have more than 15 finished quilts that I've forgotten to post pictures of this year. So I'll be trying to post them over the next week or two.  My next posting should be on Friday.  

I'm linking up with Wednesday Wait Loss and Put Your Foot Down when they become available. Stop by these blogs to see what people are doing this week. ** Alycia suggested linking up at Quilty Girl. So I did! Enjoy the parties. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings - 12 - 30 - 2024

Welcome to the last few days of 2024.  I'm a big user of my library's ebooks. Since I check out books frequently,  I'm already getting used to the year as 2025. And in just a day or two it will be 2025.  Will you be staying up to welcome it in on Tuesday night?  I doubt if I will. I might if I find something interesting to watch on tv that will motivate me to stay up.  

I promised I'd share the ornaments I made for my grands once Christmas was over. Here's one picture of them.  Yes, I really staged them. 

Everyone thought they were very cute.  I was happy to have them done. I'm starting to think (only think) about what I want to do for them next year. Maybe some machine embroidery instead of all the hand work.  

Here's what I did toward finishing my goals this past week. 

12/23/24

✅Bind bow tie quilt — done!

✅Enjoy the family together on Christmas — we had a great time. 

Put borders on fall quilt — not even started.

Pick fabric for New Years Day Mystery — I decided to save directions then decide if I want to make it later. 

✅Quilt and bind pinwheel windmill quilt — Quilted and first side of binding sewn down. 

✅Pick 12 projects for the UFO challenge — 9 piecing projects and 3 quilting projects are on my list. 

Not a bad week considering Christmas was in the middle of it. Luckily I only had to do a little food prep.  And, I made a point of hitting my studio on Wednesday morning before we went to our son's house.  

Here's the windmill quilt while it was being quilted.  

Generally, I'm not a fan of variegated threads but this one worked so well on this quilt that I used it.  It is a YLI 100% cotton thread called Havana Market, 40 weight. It did lint a lot but I really like the colors on this one.  You can see the whole top here.  Below is the backing I used.  I tend to use excess backing for my binding which worked well on this quilt.  I used Fern Gully quilting design to give a lot of texture.  (The first side of the binding is sewn on the back. Sometime this week I'll flip it to the front and machine stitch it down. 

Here's what I'll be doing this week.

12/30/24

Finish bind pinwheel quilt

Put borders on fall quilt 

Enjoy the Rose Bowl Parade 

Work on UFO Challenge project

Spend 15 minutes a day cleaning up especially the front of my cutting table

I've been making a point of using up small dribs and drabs of thread on spools. One of these was used up; the pink is still available. I'd sure like to get it and one other used before the new year. 

Sometime after the new year I'll make a report on my thread spool usage this year. 

I had another 7 days of success making sure I'm stitching for 15 minutes every day. 

W/ending 12/29 — 364 days in to 2024. 

• 15 minute days/week Dec = 7/7
• 15 minute days/2024 = 353/364 days
• Success rate = 96.97%

I'll be doing this again in 2025.  I like the idea of having a bit of stitching going on every day.  If you are interested in joining this program go visit Kate at Life in Pieces. I think the main part of joining is to report your numbers every week. Pretty easy.  I need to ask Pat to make me another spread sheet to mark off my stitching days. 

I'm linking with the following parties: Stitching Stuff, Oh Scrap, Design Wall Monday, and Monday Musing.  

Here's another closed up pic of the little penguin ornaments. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

January 2025 Mysteries and Sew Alongs

Here’s something a little different from the normal quilt along.  If you are familiar with Round Robins check out the Stay at Home Round Robin (SAHRR) that will be starting on January 13. Do you  want to know more about it? Go to Quilting Gail’s blog post to find out all the details.  https://quiltinggail.com/2024/12/22/announcing-the-2025-sahrr/. 

The Ft Wayne chapter of the American Sewing Guild is sponsoring a mystery quilt starting in February, 2025.  The quilt is big — 100.5 x 100.5” but a smaller wall hanging that is 40 x 40” is also available.  From what I can tell the directions will be loaded each month onto their web site. Here’s the url that will take you directly to a You Tube video showing the leader’s fabric choices and where to down load the fabric requirements. https://www.asgfortwayne.org/events/mystery-quilt/. Previous year’s mysteries with directions are also available on the same page. 

Sarah’s Softies is hosting a quilt along on her Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/groups/sarahs.softies.quiltalongs.  It will start in January. The quilt is Sarah’s Succulents made the traditional way rather than paper piecing.  Fabric requirements are available now. You can sign up for Sarah’s newsletter to receive emails of the patterns and an additional free pattern. https://subscribepage.io/Sarahs?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR2NBBOizxQLz6fzzyeFZxhoFO91WFhgo7QgyG6eX-A408XPyiKaG5I_dvo_aem_J29n0gTVufxVHj3JR9GIEg

2025 Minnesota Quilters Online Mystery begins January 1, 2025 and runs until October 1, 2025. Nonmembers are charged a fee of $47. There is also a Facebook group for paid members. You can choose between a queen at 96” square or a throw at 64” square. It’s not too late to sign up and get going although clues are emailed on the first day of the month at  11:59 am. I’m guessing it’s central time. $

https://web.cvent.com/event/705efe43-0044-416e-89a8-76de0015f88a/summary

Join Canadian Quilters quilt along, True Colors 2025. It begins in mid January. Look for it at https://canadianquilter.com/truecoloursqal/ 

Effervescence Quilt Along started at the beginning of December and will run through July 2025. Fabric requirements were released in early December but cutting doesn’t start until January.  This is based on Yvonne’s Improvisational quilt, Effervescence,  but she says the new pattern is made with conventional piecing.  Here’s the beginning post https://quiltingjetgirl.com/2024/11/15/announcing-the-effervescence-quilt-along-signups-open/. You must purchase the pattern, which will be sent in sections by email as the quilt along proceeds. $

 

Monday Meanderings 12 - 23 - 2024

The year is winding down.  Library e books that I'm checking out now are due next year.  In fact, I've already read a couple and returned them before the year has turned.  Keeping up with book due dates really helps me get used to 2025.  I am getting more reading in now that singing activities have been finished.  

I had a great week working on goals.  In fact I added one mainly because I wanted to motivate myself to actually do it. Here's the revised list. 

12/16/24

✅1 Concert — done.

✅Make a table runner — finished and given to my friend.

✅✅✅✅Finish grands’ ornaments — finished and wrapped. Photos will be shared after Christmas.

✅Make a bunch of mini cupcakes for the Va Star Guild’s holiday party — done and eaten. 

✅Wrap presents — half done. I’ll be at it again Mon or Tue. 

✅Added — sew backings together — one sewn together. The other is ironed and waiting for me to sew it together. 

Here's the table runner I made for a friend. She's a china painter and has given me several lovely pieces over the years. I didn't start working on this early enough so I had a late night the day before I gave it to her.  It was hard to photograph the whole thing so this isn't the best overall pic. We sing in the neighborhood chorus together so I thought the note fabric was appropriate. 

And a close up of one of the Ohio stars.

I didn't take any pictures of the mini cupcakes -- mainly because they looked badly. I carefully measured the right amount of batter into the cupcake papers. They came out of the oven fine.  The next day I frosted them using Duncan Hines chocolate frosting. It tastes like my own homemade frosting so I was making life a little easier. I had gathered some candy canes to crush and sprinkle on the top. After I finished them I decided to stash them in the refrigerator to encourage them to set up. OOPS! The frosting got soggy and the crushed candy canes melted. No wonder there were a lot of them left over.  They tasted fine at home but they still looked a mess.  And to think I have another 24 of them in the freezer I'm planning on frosting for the kids to have on Christmas.  Anyone have experience solving the melting frosting issue?  I think I'll put some cocoa and/or powder sugar in the frosting to see if I can make it a little stiffer. Hopefully it will frost easily still. And it won't be going into the refrigerator. 

Here's the plans goals for this week....

12/23/24

Bind bow tie quilt

Finish wrapping the presents 

Enjoy the family together on Christmas

Put borders on fall quilt

Quilt and bind pinwheel quilt 

Pick 12 projects for the UFO Challenge

I actually worked on more projects than listed on my goals last week.  Here are some of them. 

First up I made a mug caddy as a gift for quilt guild gift exchange.  I made a cute mug caddy using a pattern I got along with the mug caddy.  I chose to alter it so it wasn't as thick as the one I had. It was a bit of a challenge but in the end it turned out well. Here's my photo of it. Being clever, I wrapped it in the fat quarter I used for this backdrop.  The recipient seemed to like it too.  I got a wonderful cross body purse. It is a size I use and will hold a more than what I can fit into mine. Win! 

I am trying to get a few more quilts finished this year so I loaded another one and got it quilted on Saturday.  Here's the photo early in the quilting process.  I call this one the old bowtie top as the beginning of it was a bunch of bowtie blocks I made years ago.  I picked a fun bright backing for it. I found a blue fabric to use as binding.  (It was leftover from a backing for another quilt I've done this fall. Bonus!) 

I'll be binding it this week. The quilting design is called Fast and Easy Swirls.  And, yes it is both. I've been using it a lot recently. 

15 Minutes of Stitching -- I was diligent this week and made sure I stitched every day.  Considering everything I got done I must have spent a lot more than 15 minutes a day! Here are the stats.

W/ending 12/22 — 357 days in to 2024. 

• 15 minute days/week Dec = 7/7
• 15 minute days/2024 = 346/357 days
• Success rate = 96.92%

I plan on continuing this during 2025.  I like that it motivates me to stitch nearly every day. I've only missed 11 days all year. Not bad!  I do tend to spend a lot more than 15 minutes but sometimes it really is only that short amount of time. 

I'm linking with my normal parties.  I hope you can spend some time surfing the web.  It's a lot of fun seeing what folks are working on. Maybe you'll find a perfect project for you to start in 2025! Here are the links: Stitching Stuff, Oh Scrap, Design Wall Monday, and Monday Musings. 

I leave you with this little saying that I've hung on my bulletin board right by the sewing machine. My friend gave it to me as a small Christmas present or reminder? 

She knows me well.  If only I won't buy fabric for a while.... 

Here's wishing all a wonderful holiday season.  I'm looking forward to new quilting projects and finishing up some old ones in 2025. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 12 - 16 - 2024

It's been a week! I was going to write my blog on Monday instead of Sunday but I decided I'd write it Sunday night as usual.

First up is concert week info. Our concerts actually started on Tuesday when a group of Spotsylvanians went into DC and visited the White House. I'm sure you're wondering why we visited the White House. We were honored to be selected to sing to visitors as they toured the White House to see the amazing decorations. We were set up in the State Dining Room between two huge Christmas Trees.  

We sang a cappella for about an hour and three quarters.  Visitors to the House were walking behind the table in the bottom of our picture.  I was amazed at how many people were going through seeing all the wonderful decorations.  And, how many people stopped to listen and to video us as we sang. (Hum, I now have a little experience with the paparazzi!) (Note: I'm on the left in the back row just about under the sconce. Pat's center front with the red tie.) 

After singing we were delighted to find out that we could leave by taking the tour of the House. (They could have taken us out the back way and we'd never see all the wonderful decorations and these historic rooms.) 

At this point we've been checked in, given WH visitors passes, and gone through metal detectors. (Um, I was pulled over for a handheld wand over my front and back.  Who knew bra hooks would set off the detector?) 

The sparkling chandelier was augmented with a reflective canopy to give the feeling of a peaceful snowfall.  It was stunning.  Heck, the chandeliers alone were amazing.  There were 3 in the room but only the center one was augmented.

The official White House Christmas Tree was in the Blue Room. The carousel was a surprise.  The pink pennants in the circle at the top of the tree feature the names of every state, territory, and the District of Columbia. The chandelier is removed every year to accommodate the official tree. This year's tree is 18 1/2 feet tall. 

A friend snapped us leaving the White House through the front door better known as the North Portico. It was an amazing day. There was a lot of standing and walking. But we wouldn't have missed it for anything. ⬇️ I took one last picture as we were walking to the gate to leave the WH grounds.

Just in case you thought I found out all the information about the rooms listening to a tour guide or reading a plaque -- nope. Each family is given a full color booklet. This year's theme was A Season of Peace & Light. The booklet gives a lot of information about the rooms that were decorated as well as the decorations in the rooms. No doubt I'll be keeping this one for a long time. 

We left our house at 6:30 am to meet the bus we took to DC and returned about 2:30 pm. We were pooped out. And, did mostly nothing the rest of the day. 

I'm going to squeeze in my goals from last week here. Surprisingly it was a pretty successful week on the quilting front. 

12/9/24

✅Finish quilting sloth quilt and trim it — all done and returned to Jenny.

✅Finish sewing stash busting blocks into top — finished, measured and stored in the quilt closet.

✅Keep at cutting up scraps into usable squares and rectangles — quite a few scraps were “processed” this week. 

Concert week✅✅✅3 rehearsals and ✅✅✅3 performances — all done!

✅Shop for Christmas presents 🎁 — surprisingly we got a little shopping done. 

Here's Jenny's Sloth quilt. I used a light grey So Fine thread. The quilting design is called Just Leaves. I trimmed it for her and gave it back to her after the concert Sunday afternoon.  

Here's what I'll be working on this week in between all the holiday related events.

12/16/24

1 Concert

Make a table runner

Finish grands’ ornaments

Make a bunch of mini cupcakes for the Va Star Guild’s holiday party and attend the party

Wrap presents

I'm really hoping I can get more piecing and/or quilting done this week but it may not happen. 

15 Minutes of Stitching. Oops! I forgot to stitch on the day we went to the White House. Here are the statistics. My percentage dropped a little. Oh well -- it's still a terrific number! Do you realize there are less than 2 weeks left in 2024? 

W/ending 12/15 — 350 days in to 2024. 

• 15 minute days/week Nov = 6/7
• 15 minute days/2024 = 339/350 days
• Success rate = 96.85% 

I'll be linking up with my regular parties. Please take some time to check them out: Stitching Stuff at Life in Pieces, Oh Scrap at Quilting Is More Fun than Housework, Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts, and Monday Musings at Song Bird Designs.  Hopefully I'll be back with more quilty news next week.  With only 1 concert left to sing, life is calming back down. Oh, except Christmas prep. 

I leave you with my starring roll in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer at the concerts this weekend. A friend from the neighborhood chorus gave me the nose and a bunch of us will be wearing them at that concert.  I snuck mine on at the Spotsy rehearsal and started singing Rudolph with the rest of them.  I was hamming it up. I checked with our director afterwards to make sure she was ok with it.  My first review -- it was great and I was very cool. Yes, do it for the shows. So of course I hammed it up a bit more for the two concerts. Another review came in -- "she was really having a good time with that song." Well of course I was! On the other hand none of the grand kids had much to say about it. One might have been in shock but she wasn't saying anything about it.  

PS -- I didn't think to take this picture while still dressed in concert black. So I decided it was fine if I took it in my bathrobe against my closet door! The things I'll do for a laugh! 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie