Chilhowie and More!

 I hope you have all had Happy Holidays!  Despite coming down with Covid for the first time (pretty sure my granddaughter brought it to her dad, then me, then her mom) we went to my folks--barely making they cut off for quarantine.  The kids have had it before.  Kathy somehow did not get it--despite being exposed to her and to me all week.  I took Paxlovid since I am immuno-compromised.  I actually felt better than normal from the time I was exposed until the time the Paxlovid ended.  This seems to happen to me...my fatigue lifts decently when my body is fighting something else.  I had lots of headaches, body aches, and metal taste in my mouth, but overall I had it easy.

The night before Christmas Eve we went to Hannah and Jeremy's and did our Christmas.  We got some amazing presents--a long weekend in Door Country with them in June and a wrapped up pregnancy test!  The next day, my mom and Dad were super thrilled we worked it all out and went to Marshfield Christmas Eve day.  Hazel had lots of gifts and wore a shirt that said "Big Sister." We waited for my parents to notice and they were as overjoyed as we are!  She is due in August after my birthday and before my Mom's so the countdown begins!  

Hazel also picked me out some fabric with these charm packs!  I happen to have the green pin print in yardage so that is fun too.

Hazel is enamored with The Nightmare Before Christmas.  She was Sally for Halloween and can listen to the music and tell you what she "sees" happening in the movie.  She is 27 months old.  I am astounded at her memory as I cannot tell you what is happening in a movie based on the music as accurately as she can!  I used up my scraps to make her a big bag and two small bag to hold the doorables that I (and her mom at home) got her.

I had to throw a scrap of purple in there as I seriously was out of fabric.  This is front and back of the same bag.

I also made her another apron to keep at my house.  She loves to bake with me and we are trying to bake something every Friday together.  I sent a lot of it home with her (brought some to Christmas at my parents too).  I made a larger one for Lily in Ohio (my oldest's daughter) too.

I made Jay a pillow with mushroom fabric too since he loves them.  I saw he had several mushroom pillows on his Amazon wish list and realized I had everything to make him one!  He is stopping by after work to do Christmas since he could not make early Christmas and went to Eau Claire (with no stop in Marshfield) and we have not seen him yet.

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 treated myself to 12 Days of Book-Club-Mas again this year.  There were so many fun gifts in it but my favorite might be this TBR jar.  I cut up a list of all my books on the shelf as of November and put them in the jar in the hopes that I might pull from it and read off my shelf.  Goal for the first half of this year is to buy less books because we hope to move this Spring.  I have plenty of books here to read and access the library so I should not bring more in to move!

I finally learned how to make microwave cozy bowls.  Barb and I worked on these together.  I gave my mom the sock monkey ones and she loved them.  Jay will get the mushroom one, Hannah (for bday) will get the cows.  I think I may make more of these for gifts next year.  

I made one last yellow block (and deleted the picture) and put my Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt (Log Cabin Love) together.  Super happy with how it came out.  Linking up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge!

I have been working on Chilhowie--the current Quiltville mystery.  Here are clues two, three, four and five!

                                        

Behind on the Blogging!

I am behind on the blogging!  I have been sewing so let's catch you up!  I made seven of these paper pieced books from Etsy for my Up to No Good Book Club group members.  This fabric reminds me of "The Luminaries" which was one of the first books I read with the group.  

                                        

I also sewed up the second to last Log Cabin Love block awhile back.  One to go.

Here are all the blocks so far.  Linking up with Angela!

I finished an Eye Spy quilt and got it tied and bound and off to Norway.  This is for my honorary daughter's baby boy #3.

I also made a stack of simple bags which is a favorite pattern of mine.  Some of these may be gifts for next year since I went a bit crazy making them with no one in mind!

I quilted and bound both of the Butterfly Bush quilts.  One is for Lily and one is for Hazel at my house since I gave one of the H quilts to Harper (my best friend's granddaughter).

                                        

For Thanksgiving we went to my daughter's house.  It happened to be my youngest son Jay's birthday as well.  The year he was born was a few days before Thanksgiving and I cooked soon after getting home from the hospital.  I about fell over at the table and barely ate.  My hubby offered to clean up and put everything away--he did and put the leftover wine gravy down the garbage disposal.  I was hormonal and cried and cried.  Anyway, he was at the Thanksgiving (been an ex for 22 years now) and we reminisced about this--I think he forgot about it!

Hard to believe my baby is thirty!  

On black Friday I was lucky enough to sew with Barb, Becky, Dr. Kathy, and BJ!  I love this group of ladies and our tradition of Bonnie mystery quilting!

Here is Clue One of Chilhowie.  I never even showed a fabric pull as I literally decided to do Packer colors and brown the day the clue came out.  I am still working on clue two.

Barb sent me a good sized box of fabrics too!  Many of them will be going into a New Year's mystery quilt which I have already cut too.

In that box were some blocks and rows so I whipped them into this pretty little quilt.

I also tried my hand at making some book sleeves. One of these is for me and one is for Becky.  I will be making more soon.

 

Four Finishes, Progress on More, and a Trip to Ohio!

The rainbow scrap challenge color for July is purple.  I love making both these blocks.  Log Cabin Love above and Butterfly Bush below.  Both patterns from Quiltmaker's "Addicted to Scraps" column by Bonnie Hunter.

I sent three of my quilts to New River to be quilted by Melissa.  She does a great job and has a quick turnaround time.  Kathy made this top but I bound it.  Was hoping to surprise her for her birthday but she busted me binding it!  She is the Patriots fan in this house.

This is my modern medallion.  I designed this one myself a few years ago but got stumped and decided it was done and was a wall hanging.  Got lots of compliments on it on facebook which surprised me.  

This one was the mystery from New Year's--Merry Mayhem's Ups and Downs with my own border copied from Bonnie's Scrappy Mountain Majesties.  The quilting is beautiful.  This one will be gifted to my best friend Monica and her husband Bob. They already have one large and one mini quilt from me both in blues and browns but this one is a Christmas quilt.  

I also quilted a baptist fan on my free little mini quilt from Kathleen Tracy's page.  Love a small project and pretty happy with how it came out.  

                                        

We took a quick weekend trip to Ohio last weekend.  It about did me in since travelling and not being able to control how much I lay down makes me so much more fatigued.  Even just sitting takes it out of me.  We do not plan to do it again unless I improve significantly, but we had not seen our oldest son and his wife and six kids, and two grandkids.  We spent time with them bowling and them swimming and eating together.  We were so glad to meet the two newest members of the family and see the rest.  Here is the whole crew (Kathy is taking the picture).

 

Rainbow Scrap Challenge for February and More!

My daughter got me this book for Christmas after I watched a documentary on an octopus.  The book was good and Hazel liked the cover so I had to teach her the sign for octopus and show her the one from the documentary.

                                            

I finished up R Trail!  And took a photo of the Attic Stars mystery...all wrinkled already!

Read and listened to "The Storyteller." And read and skim read the PPMS book.

The UFO number for this month was 7.  So I am adding another row onto my Wild and Goosey!  Honk honk!

The color for Febrary is aqua I think...sure hope so since I got right on it!  Here are my Butterfly Bush blocks.

And this picture is sideways, but I labeled and put the log cabin love parts in order of which they are sewn.  This made it SEW much easier to do them.  I left all the labels and the lights so it will be even easier next month!

I am now joining in on two (and maybe three) online book clubs.  The Eclectic Book Club is reading this one in February.  I started it this morning.  I am also judging the Booktube Prize and have been assigned six books to read.  I reserved some electronically and then put it to pick some up at the local library too.