Finishes, So Many Finishes!

Becky sent me this awesome snowman wall hanging for Christmas.  I love it!  

I had my Ocrevous infusion mid February.  Took Babel to read but was hit super hard by the Benadryl so I had to start it over that night.  Five stars, I really liked it!

I continued to do a row a week on my Sparkling New Year mystery quilt.

I got the first border on it.  It is a little wavy even though I did my usual measuring method.

Today I got the final border on it and I am happy with it!

I spent all day yesterday in bed...have been super extra fatigued lately but today I thought I would try to get in several finishes.  I sewed the backing for my Tea Party quilt which I am sending out to Andi to quilt.  I did a quick iron of the top too.

It took me a minute to realize when I stay stitch my string pieced borders it is MUCH easier if I do it from the top (like picture) instead of with the wrong side up where I have to fight the many seams.  Sometimes I surprise myself by how slow I am to catch on to stuff like this!

This Grassy Creek started out as Barb's.  She did not want to do the string piecing so she sent it on to me.  I have been working on it on and off ever since.  I accidently cut the string pieced borders at the wrong angle so I went with it and it looks fine.  

It is too big to actually get a full picture of.  I was so happy to finally get these final borders on!  Another one checked off my list!

The UFO for February is my Lori Holt quilt.  My daughter is pregnant with baby girl #2 so I plan on giving this quilt to her before August when the baby comes.  I laid this all out but am thinking it is too busy as it is.  I may redo the alternate blocks so it is cleaner.  What do you think?  Obviously not getting that done in February, but I did finish the quilts above (Grassy Creek was on the UFO list and hasn't been picked yet) but soon.

Barb also sent me all her Emerald Jubilee blocks since she did not like the final layout.  I am not sure if I will finish it as I did my Ruby Jubilee or if I will make several quilts with the blocks or what.  Barb said she enjoyed making the blocks but did not feel like she wanted to finish it.

This Amythyst Jubilee is Becky's.  She also copied Bonnie's layout for the most part and it turned out amazing.  We all had so much fun sewing these this year.

 

Valentine's Mini Mystery and More!

The reveal of the Modern Quilt Mystery for 2023 is out.  It is awesome.  We are to keep it mum until March 3rd. Here is my clue before the reveal...and you may notice that the next picture has my half circles changed around by direction and some of the colors too.  

I realized that I had some too similar colors on both halfs of the quilt blocks.  I may need to redo more as I lay it out, but have not had a chance to do anything with it since Friday.

I added another row to the Sparkling New Year mystery last week too.  Two to go.

                                            

Barb, Becky and I started another little valentine mini mystery from Kathleen Tracey too.

Mine is done and quilted and hung up!  Guess I can link this us with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge since it is in pink.  Barb did some cool hearts for the challenge, but was not happy with them so she decided to do a different block.

This is block two in the Quilting Life BOM.  

BJ finished her Tea Party!  She has really been doing great working on all four mysteries once clue at a time.  She has been rotating through after doing a clue in A, does a clue in B, etc.  

 

So Much Sewing Going On!

I made a mini goal to get a row on the Sparkling New Year Mystery each week.  Here is last week (and an error I just noticed today) and below is this week's and another error!  So there will be some unsewing happening later on.  Oops!  Bug had to pose too.

Hazel did a little painting at my house on a cool mat that uses water only.  She really liked it.  She is potty trained now, time is flying!  My daughter is pregnant again and due in August...it is another girl.  We cannot wait!

My honorary daughter Rachel (in Norway) is pregnant with her third boy and due soon.  And my son's stepdaughter is due in August as well.

Game night last Friday we played Doomlings which my brother gave us for Christmas.  Everyone really enjoyed it and we will be playing it again.

Last year I made the center of this (above) and this year I sewed it into a pillowcase for my living room pillow.  Finished it today.  It was a Kathleen Tracy mini.

I am working hard on my Modern Mystery Quilt.  The above is another block added to the OOPS group since I used a fabric from each pile on accident.  

Here is one of the clues.

Here is another clue.

And here is this week's clue.  No idea where this mystery is going!  We are making blocks in lights and darks (or warms and cools or something like that where fabrics are really distinguishable, and some blocks are cut with another part of another block added to it.  Sure will be different!

I trimmed up and made there more smaller blocks of Dakota Farmer for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge in blue.  Used up most of my HST's (made a total of eleven blocks) except for ones I would need to trim to 1.5 inches so they went back in a bag and I may send them out into the world!  Linking up with Angela!

 

More Sewing!

I worked on the Modern Quilt Mystery this week.  I had forgotten to label my blocks in part one so I went back to do that and realized I had not sewn all of two of the parts in the right quantities.  So I did that and picked back up with part two.

I then mixed up fabrics from my two sections so this block is a no go!

Here is the completed part two, stacked and labeled.

I also trimmed and sewed four smaller Dakota Farmer blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

And I finally trimmed and stacked the last hst from the Sparkling New Year mystery.  There are almost 500 hst s here!

 Two rows together!

More Mystery Progress!

I decided to participate in the Modern Quilt Studio's mystery quilt this year.  The fabric pull is very scrappy with two piles of fabrics in darks and lights....here are a few pictures of my pull.  I have already added more to this too but you get the idea.  If you are doing this and do not want to be spoiled for the first installment, skip this post.

Here the first clue..done but not photographed real well.

                                        

You can see some blocks are light and some are dark.  The second clue is out and so far I have not started it.

I also added two more plainer blocks to my Rainbow Scrap Challenge Dakota Star blocks.  I also have lots of smaller hst's I hope to make into more blocks.

Rainbow Scrap Challenge

I started A Quilting Life's BOM Mystery too.  I decided to do it in the smaller block size and to use my sewing themed fabrics.  Hoping it will be a cool wall hanging when it is done.  

Meanwhile, Becky completed her Sparkling New Year quilt top.  She is gifting this one to her daughter.  I love how it came out with the mushrooms!

BJ (above) and Barb (below) completed the inner part of the Merry Mayhem #176 mystery.  Barb does not plan to add more borders, not sure about BJ.

                    

Barb also completed her Tea Party quilt top.  It turned out great though she had to do some unsewing a few times (so did I) because it is a little tough to do this one without a huge design wall or floor to lay it out.  

 

More Mysteries than Ever!

New Year's sewing weekend was a lot of fun!  My health cooperated and I was able to sew two days in a row!  I put our usual Burgendy Beef in the crockpot (with organic soup which still gave me a bit of a migraine, darn).

 This pic is the start of BJ's Nuts and Bolts mystery.  While I was waiting for my mystery to start I worked on my Chilhowie blocks but once the mystery started there was not time to get back to them!

BJ started out with her Cuts and Bolts mystery (the rest of us did not cut that one out) and then switched over to the Sparking New Year mystery with me, Barb, and Becky sewing along.  Andrea joined us but worked on one of her Quiltville UFO's since she just moved and was still unpacking her stash.  

Mine have the strawberries and Becky's have the mushrooms.  

As you can see there are a zillion hst's in this quilt and they had us make them "eight at a time" which is not the easiest or most accurate for me.  I much prefer using Bonnie's Essential Triangle Tool.  I can make them with that and almost none need any size adjustment.  The way we did them for this mystery you had to use a scant seam (even though you had to draw lines) and so some where big and some were small.  I am still trimming them (almost 500 of them) and this clearly was not a one day mystery.  Many people complained, but I think Craftsy just did not explain well that this was not to be completed at the time.  It was frustrating how fast they seemed to think we could sew. I do love the pattern, but will not be attempting other one of their's in real time.  

                                                    

BJ's in progress above.

On Sunday Becky had other plans so she did not join us, but the rest of us were back at it.  Again I started out the day sewing Chilhowie while waiting for a clue and was able to make some good progress, I hit it every time there was a lull in the Merry Mayhem #176 mystery.  

This was a doable one day mystery.  I had it complete (sans borders) by the time the last mystery started at 2 PM.  

I used fall fabrics.  Barb used Scooby-Doo!

BJ's blocks so far.

I forgot to get a pic of us all sewing, but here are some of us!

My top.

I was able to get the borders on between clues of the last mystery and then I went back to Chilhowie between.  I pretty much tabled the Sparkling New Year other than Kathy helped me with trimming (still not done) and I ironed and stacked as much as I could.

                                        

One the Mystery Quilts Anon Tea Party started we were off and running on that.  Everyone set aside the other stuff for the most part and worked on this one.  The last clue did not come out til midnight my time or something so I knew it would not get completed on Sunday!

This pic is as far as I made it that day.

Below with the browns is Barb's.

BJ's blocks are these:

Yesterday I sewed the block below and then today Barb got hers done (above).  

The last clue got done today too.  

I also managed to sew some more Chilhowie yesterday and finished up the clue today.  I am ready for Friday's clue again!

Super fun so far.  Plenty more to go!