Monday, October 26, 2020

Lions, and Hexies and More, Oh My!

I have been hand sewing hexies in front of the TV again.  Kathy has to do passive arm exercises to help her shoulder heal so we watched two seasons of The Umbrella Academy and started Schitt's Creek.  Lots of stitching while sitting in my new recliner.  There is already another row on this quilt which has been sitting around getting no attention for several years.

I asked to visit the Tosa Quilters (though was too tired to go to the meeting) so I got on their mailing list and found out about a 35 minutes away fabric sale. Since Kathy is off work til later this week healing, we went on a little road trip with Sunshine and bought all of this fabric!  Also got an early Christmas gift the hexie Go! Cutter die.  

I also have spent some time the last few weeks using up all kinds of blocks and leftover parts so that I can make a Christmas stocking for the grands, step grands, honorary grands and my own kids.  

The red one with the star was leftover from years ago when I made stockings for an exchange.  The blue churn dash is the only one I made from scratch (for Hazel) since I saw my online quilty friend Nancy's a few year's ago and knew I needed to make one.  These are not done, they are waiting for the top of the stocking...hoping to get on that this week or next.  Goal was to have them done by early November so I can mail them out for use by start of December.

You may recognize in the two multi colored stockings the blocks from several years ago when I sewed two each of the Quiltmaker Bitty Blocks (they are still online free I think) but they did a row by row and I never figured out what to do with them.  I still have some left, but I went ahead and used them and am glad to have found a use for them!  
After I completed the ones in the first picture I decided to make a few more and cover my own kids too so I used leftover parts Barb gave me from a Bonnie quilt and made three more of these.  They turned out pretty nice from a simple leftover stack of blocks!
Many years ago I hand sewed these hexies with the strange intention of making a little baby quilt.  The colors are more for antique display or something and I decided to cut it into a stocking too.  LOVE it.  Not sure if I will give this one to Kathy or to my youngest son Jay as it sort of speaks to me for him.

Hannah gave me Hazel's lion quilt since it did not have any whiskers and I got them put on one night while watching TV.  Kitty is my daughter's--Willow.



Still playing lots of games--especially solo.  Spent some time this past weekend getting better at Palm Island.  It is kind of addicting.  Simple but not!  I started out with a horrible score of 13 and am now up to 29.  Improving each time!

BJ and I have been working on our mysteries too. I am pretty happy with how this one turned out!  It now has a light blue border on it and is waiting for the darker blue with flower border once it gets a pressing.  That is up next, then back to the stockings.

 

Monday, October 19, 2020

Dad's Quilt of Valor and More

I am really enjoying the Once Upon a Book Club boxes!  I read this one in a few days.  Normally I think Picoult is a bit to fluffy but this book had lots of info on Egypt, death dualas, etc.  I actually really enjoyed it and was not sure which couple to root for!
I am also really getting into solo gaming!  I have been playing Tiny Epic Zombies almost everyday.  I need to teach it to Kathy so we can play competitive or cooperatively, but so far I got my ten bucks out of this used game (which arrived with extra kickstarter stuff unbeknownst to me!) and it is my current favorite!
Last Wednesday Kathy had shoulder surgery.  I was her driver but could not hang at the hospital so I hung out with Hannah and Hazel!  So nice to have six hours with her and she was an angel the whole time.  Cannot get enough of this Gramala thing!  Kathy is doing well, I am more worn out than usual from helping her and being her left hand.  Oy!
I dug out my hand sewn hexies to go to the North Shore quilt guild's small socially distanced gathering a few weeks ago.  It was nice to meet five of the members in person.  I have been stitching on a few hexies here and there and am glad this thing is seeing some progress again!
My sister and I nominated our (step) Dad for a QOV almost a year ago.  The gals in Tucson finally were able to deliver (with masks of course) and he loves it!  He served many years in the Navy.

 My sister's ex roomie also got one the same day and he was pretty proud of it too!

Monday, October 5, 2020

Chunk Churn Dash, Easy Breezy and a Whole Lot of Other Stuff

I pulled out my leftover blocks to see what I could use to make a bunch of Christmas stockings for the step grands, honorary grands and grands.  I have lots of stockings in progress now but no pictures yet.

Found these churn dash blocks left over from I do not know what in my bins.  Could not find another project with this size churn dashes on my blog so no idea why I made them.  I need to make at least one more in order to complete a tiny top....or make more so I can have a baby size or something.  


I also made two more soft books and brought two (one is a duplicate) over to Hannah and Jeremy's house for Hazel.

We visited Hazel last Tuesday night and I held her for a long while.  I am going to see her tomorrow again.  Cannot get enough of this little face!


BJ and I have been doing a lot of sewing on camera.  I did the next clue for the Morewood Mystery and now have to wait for another month for the next clue!

Three of my four Chunky Churn Dash baby quilts are quilted (by me) and bound!  Pretty happy with how they turned out and the time quilting them went fast while chatting with quilting buddies online.  
We turned the heat on last Friday night...Wisconsin is in the 50's!  Arizona is still over 100.  CRAZY!  I made there Halloween bags from panels that Barb gave me.  Put them in a box with a bunch of other stuff and sent them off to the Ohio grands.


Speaking of cold...Kathy asked for handwarmers so I made us each a set.  We will be using them on the dog walks soon!

I also sewed up the Easy Breezy blocks until I ran out of friendship star blocks to go with them.  I will need to make more and then I can grow this one.
 As you can see I was all over the place in my sewing but I got a lot done!  I also made simple ornaments for the grands from the Scrabble tiles.  

Friends All Around!

I added twenty more blocks to Friends All Around.  It is now big enough to go on the back of the couch for a summer quilt.  I think the top ...