Chilhowie and More

I made a few more mini tissue holders mostly in rainbow fabric.  May gift them at a post Christmas exchange with our local lgbtq group.

Not the best photo since it is in a darkish living room, but here is Chilhowie back from Lora who does beautiful work!  I plan to keep this one at least for the time being.  I gave my sister the one I had (On Ringo Lake) and gave my brother and his wife the first Packer Bliss quilt (Lora quilted).  

Here is my nephew Bear with his patchwork ghost.  He likes it so much he took it to school!  My brother and Bear called me the other night so he could read part of his story to me.  He is growing so fast!  Sure miss being near my nephews!

I am caught up on the modern Matchmaker mystery!  Next clue comes out tomorrow.  These blocks were not the easiest for me to make.  

I also noticed that other people did them in different colors.  I may wind up redoing one of each set of these.  We shall see.

I pulled my fabrics for Bonnie's new mystery Lupine and Laughter.  It starts tomorrow (a week early) this picture does not have my neutrals and that black with flowers is the inspiration fabric so may wind up in a border or binding or something.

 

Indigo Way is a Flimsy, a Wedding, and my RSC!

I am all caught up on A Quilting Life's BOM and my Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2024.  I went back and made a second January block in green and then made two blocks in purple for March.  Loving these scrappy blocks!

For Christmas Becky sent me a Halloween table runner.  It arrived in early February I think, but accidentally went to our old Milwaukee address.  The people there took it in their house and their dog got to the package.  They thought it was not damaged, but one green square was ripped apart.  I did not want to mention it to Becky (I love this table runner) so I got a spider and sewed it over the top.  Looks even better!  I have one more smaller spider that I might just add to the other side!

Last weekend my goddaughter (and niece from ex hubby's side) got married nearby.  She lives in Milwaukee.  Kelsey and Tony have been together for ten years and finally decided to marry.  She was a beautiful bride and I predict many happy years for the two of them!  Hazel was the flower girl which was super cute.  

I held Indie for about ninety minutes (the whole ceremony and some of the dinner/reception) and as far as I know there are no pictures of it.  Kathy had her for five minutes, but I got a picture.  Indie is such a snuggler and a happy baby.  She has a helmet til April for a slightly wrongly shaped head.  It is pretty much fixed now.  She looks so cute with her helmet and when we take it off we barely recognize her.  She wears it 23 hours a day.

Here are Kelsey and Tony with Talkin Turkey which I gave them for their wedding.  It looks like they love it!  This was a hard one to part with, but I can see they appreciate it! 

                          

Now on to my big finish!  I had two days in a row of sewing this week!  Indie started daycare so I have the girls two days a week now (instead of a third day with Indie) so I am recovering a bit better and can sew more.

I had the top together the end of February and was putting off trimming it and getting the borders on. I did not follow the directions correctly as I thought I could take a shortcut, haha!  So I had to add a partial unit to the end of my border to make it work out.

My corners are not great and I am not sure this is perfectly square, but Indigo Way is done.  I love how the colors came out.
 

There is not enough room to lay this out in the living room.  I had to move furniture, and it is still on top of a chair leg.  So happy to have this one done!

Halloween and Indigo Way Fabric Picks!

Hazel wore my daughter's Little Red Riding Hood costume for some of her Halloween activities this year (she was Wonder Woman too).  So fun to see her in it.  Hannah wore this one when we lived in Maryland and she was almost three.  This year we stayed home and passed out leftover Halloween goodies from when I was teaching.  We had quite a few kids.  

I cleaned through a bunch of Kathy's sewing stuff and since she is not sewing much these days, I added the fabric to my sewing stuff and sewed up her partially done top.  This is made with terrible black fabric from before we knew what we were doing.  Likely to use it for the dogs or something because the black should have been tossed.  She already had it sewn on though so I finished putting it together.

Quilted and bound my little witch.

Did the November Quilting Life BOM too.

 Picked out my fabric for the Quiltville 2023 Mystery--Indigo Way. Fun that my granddaughter's name is in this year's mystery!  I am sure I am going to regret these colors since Bonnie has two shades of blue in her and I should go with two shades of something ( I am using brown and orange for that) and also will be confusing that I am using blue where she has red (since she also has blue).  The last time I tried that I made an entire clue in the wrong colors and I still have those parts since I had to redo them.  Really need to find a quilt to use them in!

Ghosts and Witches!

Here is the next BOM for A Quilting Life.  Keeping all caught up!

Hazel told me I needed more Halloween decorations so I whipped up a couple ghost pillows.  I will send one home with her.  

Then today I decided I needed one to match the little ghost who was a quilt quilt!  So I sewed with Becky and Barb and got this made today.

Last week I quilted and bound it and Hazel has been loving it.  Has napped with it, used it to play with her beans, etc.  

Today I also paper pieced this witch which has been on my list for many years!  I love how she came out and she will join the jack o lantern and black cat I did years ago.  All the patterns are free ones online.

Progress and Finishes!

Last week I had the worst stomach bug I can ever remember having.  Jeremy got it too, but Hannah and Kathy avoided it somehow.  I was feeling pretty good (for me) and the night before getting sick at 9 PM I said, I feel like I could go out and sew.  Strange I feel so good this time of night.  Two hours and fifteen minutes later I woke sick.  I have noticed this wow I feel good thing before getting sick several times in the past few years. It is like the new virus distracts the CFS/ME.  It does not last and the trade off is not really worth it, lol but it is something that I have noticed.  

Now on to sewing...

Barb and I finished up our Pat Sloan Christmastime mystery wall hangings.  This one is supposed to be gift cards.  

Here it is laid out, sideways.

And up and down.  I do not plan to put the border on it that she did as I think it is too busy.  Speaking of Christmas, the UFO number for this month had me doing this top.  Barb sent me most of these blocks (she got them from some unknown place) and I made a few more blocks and put them together.  I am not super nuts for it.  Some of the blocks needed an outside edge to get them to size, etc. but it is done and off my list!  May wind up donating it somewhere eventually.

This month's Rainbow Scrap Challenge has a few colors to choose from.  I decided on lime green.  Very excited to see this quilt come together soon.  These are Log Cabin Love blocks by Bonnie Hunter.  You can also see Butterfly Bush blocks.  Sideways, I know.  LOL.

I decided to put together one of the Butterfly Bush doll quilts.  I feel like the butterflies are a bit lost next to each other.  I have enough to make another and may play with turning them sideways or adding a small sashing.  This one looks okay in person...but may be taking it apart if I like the second version better.  

My New River longarmer, Melissa had a quick turnaround on Soul Mates and my Halloween quilt.  Just got this one trimmed this morning.  Super happy with how both turned out.

Close up so you can see some of the quilting.
 

I managed to trim and bind the little Boo Crew quilt yesterday.  I like how it looks with the Halloween basket I made twenty or so years ago with my Aunt Lisa and her neighbor.  We went to basket classes at her house many weekends and I really enjoyed it!

Fall Sewing Going On! And a Little Bit of Christmas too!

I have wanted to make this wreath for a long time so I finally did!

First you sew it into squares and then you cut it all up and resew.  I need to quilt it but not sure what to do for that.

I put together a bunch of hst's together to make a table runner and was trying to add the zig zag border but think it is too much without a resting strip I stopped working on this one and am trying to figure out what to do it finish it.  May wind up being two different table runners.  These hst's were given to me or in something I bought second hand and needed a home.

                                                

Had to remember how to paper piece again!  I made this Halloween Kitty.

Happy with how I quilted it.  Now it matches my Jack-o-lantern from a few years ago.

 I have also put the center together on the Grassy Creek quilt that Barb gave up on.  Have not taken a photo of it but here is one from when it was half together.  Working on attaching the borders...I still need to make the string border or choose a fabric to use in place of it.  

Barb and I started working on the mini schoolgirl sampler quilt.  We each picked out nine blocks to do and I have one left to go.  Here are a few of them.

Barb and Becky and I continue to sew on Thursdays--we started out every other week and now are pretty much weekly.  We started the Christmastime mystery by Pat Sloan and FatQuarterShop.  Patterns are free there and come out each Tuesday.  First block was a cup.

Second block was candy.

I also quilted and bound the table runner I made.  Pretty happy with how it came out.  May give it to my godaugheter Kelsey for her birthday (or I may pick something else out from my done stuff) as we are celebrating Hazel's second birthday this coming weekend and Kelsey should be there.