This is a first!

These past couple of weeks, I've been sewing up a storm!  Every spare moment, I've been at the machine or the ironing board or cutting table.  For the first time in the three years I've been doing Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilts, I'm completely caught up!  Maybe I'll actually finish one!

Clues 1-7 DONE for Frolic!

Or maybe not - I still haven't finished On Ringo Lake or Good Fortune, but I haven't given up hope yet.

Good Fortune still needs three more borders added - I love the look of pieced borders, but I hate adding them!

On Ringo Lake just needs to be assembled, but I don't love the colors so my motivation is low.

I've been finishing lots of other things lately, though.  I've read half a dozen books in the last couple of weeks, and I finished several knitting projects for gifts this year.

Matching hats for my little boy neighbors who love everything I wear in rainbow colors.

Socks for my mom (at the bottom of her bed is a quilt I made her about 12 years ago - another Bonnie Hunter pattern - and on the bed is a flannel & denim rag quilt I helped her make for herself).

I hope this creative finishing streak continues - I have LOTS of works in progress that I would love to see come to completion!

Plugging away at my Good Fortune

Finishing up my Sew Many Strips top has inspired me to knock out some more UFOs.  First up...Good Fortune!  So far, the center is done and the first of four borders is on.

And as my leaders and enders project, I've decided to give Kevin the Quilter's Simply Sensational Summer Scrap Quilt a try.  Apparently, all it uses is squares in two contrasting colors, so I pulled out my 2.5" squares in those two colors, along with a couple of 5" squares that I plan to quarter.  Is it possible that I'll be able to make the whole quilt with my precut scraps?

A couple twosies done, many, many, many more to go!

Sew Many Strips DONE!

Despite a long day of playing chauffeur and nursemaid to my family before working tonight, I squeezed in just enough sewing time to fix yesterday's goof and finish the Sew Many Strips top.  I love it!  Time for me to find a longarm quilter so I can get it finished and on my bed.

Turns out, I got a little carried away and made too many border units.  No worries - I really like this border, so I may make just a few more and use them to go around a smaller (baby? lap?) quilt.

Maybe I can make a center out of my overflowing HST bin.

But first, I am determined to finish my Good Fortune quilt top.

Just five more blocks to go before I can sew the center together.  I think I've created all the border units already, but I'd have to double check.  My goal is to have this top done before  Labor Day.  Since I have only two working days left before I get three weeks off, I think it is an achievable goal.

Knocking out the UFOs and busting the stash feels so good!

I'm linking up with Oh Scrap and Monday Making.

Night Owl

It makes no sense.  I'm usually ready for bed by 10 PM.  Sit me in front of a TV screen with nothing in my hands, and I guarantee I won't know how the movie or show ends because I'll be fast asleep.  But set me loose in my sewing room, and I'll look up and discover it is the middle of the night and I'm still going strong.

Today was my first day of sewing after two weeks on the road.  What a treat to just play with fabric after two weeks of constant travel - sleeping in 10 different cities!

I assembled four more pinwheel blocks for my Good Fortune quilt (no photos) as a leader-ender as I worked on pressing, cutting and sewing strips for the Sew Many Strips APQ Quiltalong.  There's a lot of orange in there because I started by cutting up scraps from my Good Fortune quilt.  Once I get more pieces cut and sewn, I'll dilute that orange a bit.

I'm not so good at following directions, so I've jumped around a bit in the quiltalong, sewing together one of the corner border blocks.

This quilt could also be called Sew Many Seams!  With all these little pieces, this is not going to be one I'm going to want to hand quilt!

I'm linking up with Monday Making and Oh Scrap!

This and that

Both baby quilts were delivered on Thursday.  Getting those done on schedule really motivates me.  I've finished three quilts already in 2019 - that's got to be a record for me!

So when I had a few minutes this evening, I got started pulling fabric for the #apqquiltalong.  But I can't just pull fabric without cutting it.  And I can't cut lots of fabric without sewing it.  So, while the instructions say to pull this week, cut next week, and start assembling the week after, I'm kinda doing it all at once.  Here's me playing around with what the outer border looks like.

I simultaneously made some progress on my Bonnie Hunter mystery Good Fortune quilt.  Slow and steady, and all that.

I'm hoping to get in a few more hours of sewing tomorrow, too.  I'll be out of town, traveling for work, from March 3 - March 17, so it is important to sew while I can.  While I am traveling, I can knit.  Of course, I could also prep some pieces of my Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt, the one I started almost a decade ago...

So many projects, so little time!

Pursuing my Good Fortune

Now that my last quilt is in its new home and in use

The recipient posted this photo of the quilt (I cropped it) on her Instagram

I've turned my focus back to finishing my Good Fortune quilt.  All of these blocks are done, time to finish the alternate blocks. 

I accidentally made too many blocks...

Of course, I should also finish LAST YEAR's On Ringo Lake mystery quilt,

I have made no progress since getting to this point.  C'mon, Erin, you're so close!

but the colors in this year's quilt just make me happier, so they seem to always get top billing.  And I'd love to finish my 2018 Temperature Quilt, but I seem to have lost my paperwork/chart, so that project is stalled out until I find my worksheets or redo them (I still have December and part of November to complete).

This is everything through September assembled.

And then there is this quilt that I need to finish hand quilting before my niece's first birthday in April. 

I've finished quilting all the white spaces - now to the colored stars

With all these things to finish, I sure hope I can be disciplined about not starting anything NEW!

I'm linking up with Oh Scrap and Monday Making.

Good Fortune Progress

I was still plugging away at Clue 7 of the Good Fortune Mystery quilt when the BIG REVEAL happened, so, of course, I abandoned Clue 7 in order to play around with the final layout.  I love the spinning star block

and this secondary block seems warm and exciting to me.

Hello, little blackbird!

We'll see how well they play with each other and the THREE pieced borders in the final analysis.

I know they are a lot of work, but I LOVE pieced borders!

I'm linking up with Oh Scrap and Monday Making.

Catching up

I'm back in Massachusetts after a wonderful couple of days relaxing with my husband and kids.  I knitted, I quilted, and I binge-watched TV shows.  I LOVE VACATION!

After an uneventful drive home, I finished up Clue #5 for my Good Fortune Mystery Quilt.

Clue #5 done and trimmed

I'll start Clue #6 tomorrow before heading up to NH to spend Christmas #2 with my sisters and their families.  In the meantime, I'm quilting like crazy, trying to finish my 8-month-old niece's quilt before her first birthday!

I've really enjoyed hand quilting these last few days.  Why do I set it aside for so long???

I'm linking up with Oh Scrap and Monday Making.

A Wild Ride!

The time between Thanksgiving and New Year's always seems crazy, but never more than this year!  My husband started a new job in New Jersey in mid-October - and yes, I live in Massachusetts.  He comes up to visit most weekends, but this is my third time driving down to New Jersey with the kids since Thanksgiving.  I know that many, many families live apart in order to make things work financially or because of the nature of their jobs, or for any number of other reasons.  I always thought, "wow, that must be a challenge."  I was right!  I miss him terribly when we are apart, and I don't want him (or me) to leave when we are together.  That's normal, I guess.  What perhaps isn't so normal is how much I RESENT the traveling!  All I can think of when I'm stuck in traffic (usually somewhere in Connecticut) is that if I can't have my family all together, I at least want to spend the time apart doing something I love - quilting or knitting - not stuck in a car surrounded by other cars.  Ugh!  (OK, pity party is over)

As a result, I've not been as productive in the sewing room as I normally would strive to be during this time of year.  My main project has been Bonnie Hunter's Good Fortune Mystery Quilt.  I'm behind, but not too behind.  Another clue will be released tomorrow while I am still working on last week's clue - and I still haven't finished assembling last YEAR's quilt, but I'm enjoying the process.

Clue 1 done and trimmed

Clue 2 done but NOT trimmed

Clue 3a done and trimmed

Bonus triangles from Clue 3, NOT trimmed

Clue 4 done and trimmed

I've been keeping my finished pieces in a butter cookie tin (much like the HSTs that I shared last month).

I dutifully ate 5 lbs of butter cookies so I could use the tin in this way.  :)

In the meantime, my 16-year-old son has been sharing memes (is that right?  Are these memes?) with me, letting me know that he isn't the only one who doesn't know what to expect when he finds a tin of  butter cookies:

I'll have two days back at home before I get back to work.  I'm hoping I can get completely caught up with this year's mystery, make some more progress assembling last year's mystery, and plan out some baby quilts.  I have two showers in February and one in April - better get cracking!

Good (and bright) Fortune

After spending a wonderful and relaxing few days in New Jersey with my husband's family for Thanksgiving, I'm back home.  I'm proud of myself for feeding the dog and unpacking my suitcase BEFORE sprinting to my sewing room to start my Good Fortune Mystery Quilt!

First, I needed to pull fabric.  I decided on ORANGE and GREEN because I have so much of them and they are my absolute favorite colors, and then YELLOW and PURPLE because those are the two colors I have the least of and because it should make for a bright and cheerful quilt (I hope!).  And lots of scrappy neutrals make my heart sing.  I took this photo to remind me which color corresponds to which color in Bonnie's directions (please, Please, PLEASE let me remember that my green is actually blue in her directions and that my purple is her green!).

Before cutting any fabric, I went into my precut scraps to see what I could make from those.  I had a bunch of the appropriate sized squares,

and I had a bunch of neutral strips the correct width for which I just had to cut yellow to match.

To my absolute delight, I was able to sew together almost 25% of Clue #1 without even cutting into my neutral yardage, and just cutting a couple strips of yellow!

Of course, the next 75% will take much longer since I'll have to iron and cut fabric...

I'm linking up with Oh Scrap and Monday Making as well as Bonnie's Monday Mystery Link Up.

Short...in so many ways

Short seems to be my life's theme these days.

Short on time. 
I finished hand quilting the pinwheels in the Good Fortune Lil Twister quilt top, along with two stitch in the ditch lines in the borders, but that is it.  I was out of time, and it was going to have to be enough.  And since I had so little time, I decided to bind the quilt by folding over the backing. I've never done that before, but I knew I had to try, because it was the only way I would finish on time. 

I'll probably do it again on select projects, and it turned out very neat and my corners are nicely mitered, but I will continue to bind with a separate fabric(s) on most projects.  I'd seen someone bind this way using a decorative stitch (was that Cheryl, perhaps?) so I tried that as well - I like the result.

Short on fabric.
Once I decided to bind with the backing, I started trimming the excess batting off, and squaring up the backing fabric.  Once I got to the 4th side of the quilt, I discovered the backing fabric was too short by 1/2" on that one side.  I proceeded to go around and trim 1/2" off all sides of the quilt and the backing to make it work.  So the quilt is 1 inch smaller in length and width than I had anticipated, but you do what you have to do.

Short on ink.
Since I didn't have a seam on the back to sew my label into, I decided to write my label directly on the front of the quilt.  I chose a purple pen.  As I was wrting, first I misspelled the baby's last name - yikes!  So I transformed the misspelling into a heart.  Then the pen ran out of ink halfway through the last line.  It looks shabby, especially with my less than pretty handwriting, but I wrote the last two lines in blue. (It turns out, they've picked out the name Maya for the little girl they are expecting, but I don't trust that you always get what the ultrasound technician tells you you will be getting.  My cousin calls me "Cuz" all the time, so I wrote "Baby Cuz" on the quilt, just in case.)

Short on sleep.
I finished the quilt at 2 AM.  I had to wake up at 7:30 AM to get the kids fed, get the campout stuff out to our campout site, and then get into town with our bikes for the Cub Scout bike rodeo that started at 9 AM.  The bike rodeo ended at noon, at which point I handed my kids over to a friend for the day, hopped in the car, and drove the 4 hours to the baby shower.  After 4 hours at the shower, I had to leave if I was going to make it back home for any part of the cub scout campout that had started without me.  I was so tired, however, that I had to stop twice on the 4 hour drive home for power naps in random parking lots.  I made it home at 1 AM, changed clothes, tended to the animals, brushed my teeth, and was at the campout by 1:20 AM.  Some of the parents had kept the fire going and waited up for me, worried.  Even though I was exhausted, it was so nice to sit and chat, gazing into the fire, that I didn't go to bed until 3 AM.  But it is a campout...all the boys, and therefore I, was up by 7 AM.  After a fun morning fixing our breakfast over the campfire and doing a scavenger hunt, we were home by 11:30.  I got done a couple of tasks around the house, sat in the sun with a book for a while, and then gave in and took a nice long afternoon nap.

This was my view until I finally came in to take a nap.  I love sitting on my porch!

Short in stature.
Here is my cousin and his pregnant wife.  They are over the moon about this pregnancy.  They are both in their 40s, and have been trying to get pregnant for most of the past decade.  Those smiles were on their faces all day yesterday.  I am so happy for them!

Seeing this picture made me feel really short.  It also made me realize that, if I hang out with pregnant women, it will make me feel really petite.  I'm filing that away for those days when I feel dumpy...

The quilt seemed to be well received.  There were the usual Oooohs and Aaahs, but then someone said, "Wait, is that HANDMADE???"  One woman attending the shower hugged me, said she was a cross stitcher and knew how much work must have gone into my quilt and was brought to tears that I would make such a gift for my cousin.  I hope they like it.  I hope they USE it.  I hope the rest of the pregnancy goes smoothly.  I can't wait to meet and hold my new little cousin.

SFO Terminal 3

Imagine my delight to find an exhibit in the terminal called "Threading the Needle: Sewing in the Machine Age," when I arrived in San Francisco on Thursday evening!   But it was getting dark and I had to get my rental car and drive an hour to a place I had never been, so I didn't dawdle.  Instead, I vowed to get back to the airport early on Saturday so I'd have time to check it out.

Fast forward past a wonderful visit with my college roommate and her family, followed by an exhausting yet exhilariting conference, and I was back in the airport on Saturday evening with hours to spare before my redeye flight back home.  I didn't photograph everything - there was simply too much - but I did pick a couple of things to share with you.  First of all, the quilt blocks:

I'm going to make a butterfly block like that some day!

The toy machines:

I'd love to get my hands on a toy machine!

The clever thread/scissor/pin holders - I love these birds!

I wonder if I can get someone with a table saw to cut some birds out for me...

The chatelaine's (I just read a book where part of a chatelaine was uncovered at an historical archeological site, and I wasn't quite sure what it was - now I know!)

If you fly through SFO anytime soon, I encourage you to mosey on down to Terminal 3 to see this for yourself.  And to think, there were people who hopped on the moving sidewalks to bypass this treasure trove!  I overheard one woman say with a sniff, "I don't think many people have time to still sew."  If only she knew!  I was so hoping that she'd be the one seated next to me while I worked on quilting my Good Fortune Lil Twister quilt on the plane ride west.

The front

The back

When I got home, the kids and hubby had cleaned the house and there were hugs, kisses and presents waiting for me.  I spent the afternoon helping Jason make his own travel pillow for our road and plane trips later this summer.  I'm sure Donald will want one at some point, too.  Jason's is flannel, for extra soft snuggliness.  I thought he'd want it to travel, but he's been wearing it around the house...

We made his a little bit smaller than mine, flannel, with a black back.

He has been wearing it ever since he finished it!

He says it is so comfortable he could sleep standing up.  Clown!

Someone asked if I had a pattern, and I don't.  I looked for one online, and there are several, but I just drew my own.