Thankful for time to sew!

Working at a boarding school is SO DIFFERENT than running a yarn shop!  For the past four years, I closed the shop early on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, enjoyed a day of food and family, and then started the holiday retail season bright and early on Friday morning.  There never seemed to be enough time to enjoy the holiday.

Not so this year!  The students left for home yesterday, and I have an entire week off!  Woo hoo!  I spent quite a bit of time doing housework yesterday, but I also found time to sew!  I've been itching to start new quilts (a desk job means more time on the computer which means more time for me to be inspired by what everyone else in the quilting blogosphere is doing), but I've been pretty strict with myself about not cutting into any new fabric, just tackling the UFOs and orphan blocks that I already have overwhelming my sewing room.

Perhaps it is a function of being back in New England, but I really want to dive headfirst into the holiday spirit this year.  I want to decorate.  I want to bake.  I want to watch holiday movies while cuddled up under a holiday quilt.  Except I don't have a holiday quilt...

And then I remembered the Twelve Days of Christmas Quilt Along I joined back in July 2016, the one where I only made it through Day 3 before getting distracted by finishing off my county fair quilt show entry.  

By Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, tutorial found here

I hauled it out and got to work!  I already had most of the fabric cut, and the centers of the four big blocks pieced.

I made these on July 15, 2016

Non-pattern follower that I am, I set to work constructing a block from the inside out.

CUTE!  But I'm doing it wrong...

When I actually looked at the pattern, though, I realized that the block is built as a nine-patch, not from the inside out.  Oops!  I can make that block work.  But I'm making the other three blocks the correct way.

Not sewn together yet, obviously, since I need to buy more Kona Natural to finish the block

Except I never cut the 4" strips or the sashing and borders, and since I sold my shop, I no longer have a bolt of Kona naturals to cut from.  Luckily, the Textile Company is less than 3 miles from here, and I'm pretty sure they have a full selection of Kona solids.  Unfortunately, they are closed today, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to complete any one block, but I am determined to do all the other piecing that I can do today.

As I said when I first started this quilt in the summer of 2016, working with just three fabrics is hard for me - my scrappy nature wants more variety.  The fact that there are only four blocks using big (4.5" squares, big for me, anyway) squares of fabric is the only reason I think I can stay on track with this quilt.  Maybe I can go scrappy for the back, piecing a bunch of large chunks of Christmas fabrics together...

And I'm SERIOUSLY considering tackling Bonnie Hunter's Mystery, On Ringo Lake, this season.  It's not a UFO, but having already completed one UFO top in the past two weeks and well on my way to completing another, I think I'm going to treat myself!

Lest you think I've skipped over Thanksgiving to get to Christmas, I used my turkey potholder this morning when I pulled the morning's muffins out of the oven.  Fun, fun, fun!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!