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!

Leading with my Leaders & Enders

Sometimes my Leaders & Enders project gets me so excited that I work on it exclusively.  That was me this weekend.  My husband's basketball team was in a tournament outside Philly, so I spent two afternoons watching his games on my computer so I needed something easy and mindless to work on.  For me, that is Bonnie Hunter's Leader & Ender challenge from summer 2018, Jewel Box Stars.  I'm adding scrappy sashing and cornerstones to let each of the stars shine.  Oh how scrappiness makes me happy!

When I wasn't sewing this weekend, I was knitting.  I visited WEBS yarn store and came away with some wonderful colorful yarns. both to make gifts and to make things for me. 

But when I got home and started putting the yarns away, I uncovered some other bits and bobs of yarn that I wanted to use up first, so I put the new projects on hold to knit up some leaf washcloths to take as a hostess gift when I go to dinner at a friend's house later this week.

Other bits and bobs will go into my Excavation Blanket, my go-to easy knit project as I travel and attend meetings these days.

Making puts me right in my happy place!

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

November

Oh, how I love November!  No, not for the cooler temperatures, not even for Thanksgiving (which is my favorite holiday).  I love November because it means the soul-crushing grind of October is over!

So far this month,

I have napped...aaahhhh!

I have read multiple books...cozy mystery lover that I am, I read Thread & Gone by Lea Wait - A Mainely Needlepoint Mystery, Close Knit Killer by Maggie Sefton - A Knitting Mystery, and am currently reading Murder, Handcrafted by Isabella Alan - An Amish Quilt Shop Mystery.

And I finished piecing this quilt top.

All basted and ready to quilt!

I originally thought to give it to a friend who is adopting a toddler, but at 41 x 36, it feels like a baby quilt, not a toddler quilt, so I am giving it to my good friend's daughter instead as she expects her first baby.  For the toddler and her older sister, both of whom will be adopted together - yay! - I'm going to make something bigger, maybe quilts with their names on them.  We'll see.

And now that I'm not spending every evening reading essays and writing recommendation letters, I think I'm going to knit and watch an episode of something on Netflix.  Aaahhh, November!

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

New Life

There's a new baby soon to arrive in the life of one of my friends, so we all know what that means?  Time to make a baby quilt!  But time is scarce these days - in the world of college advising, we generally call October Suck-tober because it is such a grind of writing recommendation letters, proofreading essays, and generally just hand-holding our seniors through a stressful time.  So instead of starting from scratch, I went digging through my UFOs.

When I came across the color words made from 1.5" squares that I started back in August 2010 (how embarrassing to have a UFO that old!), I decided that one more color word, Purple,

would round out a rainbow of words.  Since some words are shorter than others, I'm making some wonky stars with four-patch centers to fill space. 

This should go together rather quickly, I think. 

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

Life goes on

My heart quilt made it to my friend last Saturday.  She called me on Sunday to tell me how much she loved it, and how much she loved me.  She died on Wednesday morning.

My heart is broken.

I cried and cried some more.  I talked to friends and hugged my family.  And finally, yesterday, I went back to what always gets me through hard times.  I fired up my sewing machine and started a new quilt.

I've been wanting to make a quilt for my step-father for years now.  I've started several, but never finished one.  Yesterday, I started another one.  Here's hoping I stick with this one and get it to him sooner, rather than later.  He's one of those people I don't see nearly enough, don't tell that I love him nearly enough.  I want him to have a quilt from me so he knows I love him even when I'm not there to say it.

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

Better late than never

My heart quilt is done - I finished the binding while sitting outside in the autumn sunshine this afternoon. 

Tomorrow, I goes to its new home with my dear friend to provide comfort in her final days.  So much love went into this quilt.  So many tears.  So many memories revisited.  So much love.

Par for the course

It seems I can't sew a quilt together without making a mistake these days.  On my last finish, it was sewing a border on upside down.  On my heart quilt, I forgot a whole row altogether!  Remember my sketch?

I was so excited to finish on Saturday, an August finish as planned.

Do you see how I forgot to piece the row that includes the bottom tip of the heart?  I pinned a spare neutral 9-patch on to see if it made much of a difference...

Yup, it makes a significant difference to me.  Back to piecing 9-patches.  Out with the seam ripper to take off those bottom 4 rows.  An easy fix, but I'm annoyed with myself. 

The goal is to machine quilt it and bind it by the middle of the month, doable, but the kids start coming back to school today, so my time is no longer my own to use as I wish.  Gonna make this a priority.

I'm linking with Oh Scrap and Monday Making.