Four Month Catch Up!

Where does the time go?  My last post was in January!  I have not been sewing as much as usual, but I have been sewing.  

It took me until April, but I got the flimsy finished for Old Town.

Old Town 2024

Finally did a little baking with Indigo.  We forgot to put her apron on.  We have passed Hazel's apron on to her and I found a cute apron (and hat) on Etsy for Hazel since she is too tall for her old one!

I finally found a local longarmer and took three of my quilts to her.  She got the first two smaller ones done quickly.  Her name is Lora and is has a fabulous studio and is super talented!  She designed I love you hands to put on this quilt for Kelsey and Tony's baby boy (baby shower in ten ish days).  I hope she loves it.  Kelsey is also a sign language interpreter so hopefully this is extra special to her.

                       
Lora also quilted my wall hanging for my sewing room.  I had her put sewing stuff on it and it turned out so cool!  i have it rigged up on the closet with velcro and I hope it holds!

My sewing machine faces this way so now I have something pretty to look at!  When I look to the left I can see through the door of the room and since there is a half wall where the stairs are, I can see through the stair area, dining area, and in through the living room out the front window of the house.  Love that since I really miss sewing in the living room in the Milwaukee house!

For Easter we just did a small brunch over at Hannah and Jeremy's.  We did not even get organized enough to see if Jay was available.  Fail!  The kids really enjoyed coloring eggs with this cool spinner.

                                                    
Hazel had us take eggs home.  I watched her for a few hours on Monday and she brough the spinner and colored all the hard boiled eggs in my fridge too!  We started doing some science experiments with her (bought a kit) and she loves it.  

Barb and I also worked on two consecutive civil war mini quiltalongs.  One was Kathleen Tracy's Civil War Mini Quilt Sew Along 2025.  

The other one was Kim Diehl's Midnight Snack.

I also finally finished the New Year's Mystery Quilt that Debi Montgomery did.  I did not like all the white space in the center of her mystery quilt so Barb (via camera) and I figured out a different layout using the blocks I had done and making a few more.  I wound up with this small quilt and pillow topper.  Likely to be donated somewhere along the way.  

The last mystery from New Years was the Stitchin Heaven one.  Since I had it all cut out I decided to put together a block of each to see if I liked it.  Not too bad, I may go ahead and finish it.  My sister in law loves Halloween so this one is intended for her one day.  

I think that catches us up to present.  I will redouble my efforts to blog my timely!  I hate having to try to remember back four months and get the pictures in order!  

New Year's Mysteries!

On New Year's Eve Day I sewed with Barb, Becky, BJ, and Dr. Kathy.  Not everyone was sewing this mystery quilt, but I was. (I wrote these two days backwards and mixed up which quilt was which day so they are out of order because I did not want to move all the pictures!)  So NYD's mystery was Merry Mayhem.  The gal that does this is planning one more mystery this year and then retiring.  I love her mysteries, so I am bummed they are about over.  

Here are a few of the pictures from that. It is Merry Mayhem #149 (from New Year's Day)

                                            
The first clues went well and I was having a good time.  We had pork roast in the crock pot (since Burgundy Beef turns out to give me a migraine) and it was a fun morning!  When I put the initial blocks together I had no issues.  THEN you combine four of the blocks to make the big block.  As you can see from the picture I had issues with this--as did half the people posting on the group.  Turns out you cannot just look at the edge pieces to match up the block as they will look right, but the middle will not.  You need a square of square brights (in my case) in the center of each block.  So there was much unsewing.
                                        
Then after getting that squared away (I think this is actually the next day) I sewed the blocks together and managed to jack that up too.  Low and behold it mattered which way the blocks went.

Below is the square I was after.

So I sewed the entire thing together.  Thought it was fabulous, took a picture and whoops the top row is wrong.  And after that I discovered a turned triangle, which I fixed.  

There is still a turned triangle in here (someone else pointed out) but I shall leave it as a reminder of all the ripping that happened with this quilt.  I love how it turned out but am unlikely to make another one of there!

Here is Barb's block.  Also not a square.  LOL. I even helped explain to her what she needed to do to make it match. It was tricky!

                                     

In the end, Barb got hers figured out.  It looks great!  I think she already donated the top to Nimble Thimbles.  

On New Year's Day Stitchin' Heaven presented their mystery quilt.  They had technical difficulties, and they give out all but the layout in their "clue" and as always it is way more than can be done in a day.  We do not plan to attempt this one again next year.  I cut mine from Halloween fabric and have not even started it.  This has never happened before on mystery day, but I was too busy ripping the first mystery and overwhelmed by the pattern given in the second mystery (instead of one simple clue).  Barb has been working on hers in batiks in the days since.  I may never make mine as I do not think it works with Halloween fabric.

So NYE we worked on this one.  It is called Game Day and was designed by Sherri at Cuts and Bolts.  Not sure that my clues are in order, but here they are.

                                        

                                                    
                                                    
 Here is Becky's so far.

                                                              
Here is BJ's block.  She also planned to make all four quilts (as I did, Becky picked two and Barb three I think).  She is taking turns working on all four plus Bonnie's Old Town mystery so she is making good progress on all of them!

                                                            
On New Year's Day, I wound up sewing on my own until after noon since Becky did not sleep well, Barb slept in, and BJ was chatting with her cousin.  I was really disappointed that our plans fell apart and had a pretty bad day.  It did not really improve until evening when Kathy played me a few games.  I am still crazy solo gaming too.  The amount of ripping and struggle I had with the Merry Mayhem quilt was frustrating.  I was even confused about which colors I did for what since I did it scrappy and it took me about thirty minutes to figure that out and start the first clue.  Each clue took as long as the time allotted and I felt behind all day.  It sucked!

At 2 PM my time Debbie from Mystery Quilts Anon posted clues to her quilt.  She gave us tons of presewing this year (unexpectedly) and this quilt was another doozy.

I love my fabrics for this quilt, and love the snail's trail blocks too.

I did not love the final quilt top and stopped making blocks and started doing my own thing.  I just do not love the square center thing in many of her quilts.  So I made some blocks using my cut parts (turns out the last page of her PDF was not in the cutting instructions so I did not even have the entire quilt cut on the day, ugh.  Also, she gave a surprise pre sewing clue the day or two days before which I did not even see so this mystery year just bit the big one!)  I played around with the blocks (on my small sewing room floor) and came up with a layout I like.  Made a few more blocks for the corners and just need to sew this one together.  It is called Through the Looking Glass.

Now on to Bonnie's Out Town.  She threw the final clue at us on New Year's Eve when I was not quite done with the clue before.  ACK!  I did finish the flying geese at some point.  I then when on to start the final clue which is (as always) a doozy.

I now have fifteen of my twenty-five blocks made.  Ten to go (and I plan to work on it today).  Liking it so far, her design is gorgous!

This one is BJ's.

This one is Becky's.

Barb skipped Old Town this year.

Becky, Barb and I are now planning to start Kim Diehl's Simple Whatnots Mystery Stitchalong  Midnight Snack this week too!  We love mystery quilting!

Old Town Mystery is Coming Along!

Old Town clues are getting done each week.

This clue is in progress.  After making the yellow hst's above Bonnie's way I decided to use my Thangles to make the next ones in purple and neutral. 

Here is an earlier clue.

I made two baby quilts with my Rainbow Scrap Challenge BOM blocks made from A Quilting Life's BOM patterns.  Not the best picture since it is winter and the sun goes down early!

 I also decided to whip up this ugly sweater wall hanging too. I need to quilt it, but I love it!  This was from the Missouri Star box last year.