September goals

I always have mixed feelings about September.  On the one hand, I love fall weather because it's a mix of warm and cool without the extremes of temperature.  But on the other hand, I feel sad about summer ending.  For decades I've felt a "happy new year" vibe as we moved into September, because it meant a new school year with new office supplies for my classroom.  Is that weird?

After much thought about what I want to accomplish this month, here are my goals:

• Clean ONE AREA in my sewing room!!!
• Bind 1 quilt - either Quilt of Valor (Patriotic Stars) or the Rail Fence
• Cut out NEW QOV from kit (Daring Spirit) - see photo
• Quilt and bind the red/white/blue pinwheel table topper
• Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) color is red
• gingham blocks (2)
• Twinkle Star blocks (2)
• Ohio Star block (1)
• String block (1)
• Diamond Tile blocks
• Make the piano key border on Potting Shed (Kim Diehl)
• Cut out this month's Simple Whatnots project - Farmer's Market
• Make 4 pillowcases
• Finish the last 3 Bee Patriotic Sew Along blocks
• UFO - not determined yet which one I'll focus on
• Pick a PIG - Laundry Line (Kim Diehl) for Simple Whatnots

Now that I look at these goals I notice a theme running through a lot of my goals - RED.  Red is obviously a color that is in each of those patriotic projects.  And Kim Diehl's projects have a lot of darker reds in them.  In fact the border on Potting Shed is mostly red.  I may need to work on some other colors during the month or I'll get bored and set them all aside.  

August is done

 August goals - hindsight is 2020!  I was trying to keep my August goals easy to accomplish and I mostly did.  The cleaning didn't really happen, but I did get some sewing done in spite of my crazier than normal work schedule.  I think September hours may be back to more normal part time hours.  I hope!

• Clean up my sewing room!!! - NOPE, didn't happen!
• Finish binding quilt - All Roads Lead to the Middle - DONE
• Finish the masks for the grandkids - DONE, for now
• Make final 3 Saturday Sampler blocks - DONE
• sew the Saturday Sampler blocks into a flimsy - DONE, without the borders
• UFO focus - Big Rail Fence quilt - sew into a flimsy - top is DONE & at quilter
• finish applique on Potting Shed (Kim Diehl) - DONE
• add the piano key border to Potting Shed - NOPE, didn't happen!
• Make RSC blocks for month (PURPLE)
• Ohio Star - DONE
• Gingham (2) - DONE
• Twinkle Star (2) - DONE
• Rainbow String- DONE (1)
• Diamond Tile - NOPE

A few little things not on my goal list also happened.   

• Black Cats 60 degree runner
• Halloween (square) table topper
• Quick Strippee flimsy (pink sheep)
• Red/White/Blue Patriotic Pinwheels flimsy (pillow? table topper?) 
• Geranium 60 degree runner

Design Wall Monday - August 31

What's on your design wall today? Mine is full of projects.  Check out a few more at:
https://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/

Sunday sewing saw some progress on a few things and was so relaxing. I didn’t make a dent in the mess, but I sure enjoyed the sewing time.

Bringing Home the Tree (Lori Holt pattern) is a completed flimsy.  It's 37" wide and 24" high.  At this point I haven't decided for sure if it's going to be a pillow or a wall hanging. It would be cute as either.  Don't you love the green plaid border?  I was looking for a Christmas-y print, but the plaid really spoke to me at the shop. 

My scrappy Patriotic Pinwheels is done and paired up with a backing, ready to quilt.  This is 24" square and mad entirely from scraps left after making Quilts of Valor blocks.  The pinwheels were corners trimmed off of star blocks.  

And I finished the binding on the geranium table runner.  This is another of the 60 degree runners made from border prints that I've had in my stash.  I purchased this one as part of a kit in a shop in Iowa on the guild bus trip in 2019.  The quilting on this is a flower with lots of swirls - done in a variegated green thread on the front and a grey on the plain grey backing.  I love how it turned out.  

Now I still have those new border prints to turn into more runners.  I believe I'll need to give a few away as gifts because I've made quite a few table runners during the pandemic - and before.   

Small projects

 I've had a miserable end to the week - between allergies knocking me down, and missing my buddy Sammy.  So I was glad that Friday I had a couple of binding projects to work on so I didn't leave the house and breathe the outside pollen-laden air.  

Maybe binding a black cat table runner was a good tribute to Sammy.  This was a border print that was purchased a couple of years ago and had been languishing in a drawer.  I absolutely LOVE the spider web quilting design.  I added an orange binding and it has a light grey plain backing.  

The square Halloween table topper was a UFO, but the black cats are similar to the other.  Those cat eyes glow in the dark.  The center square was shared with us by a member of the Sew Vintage group and it was too cute to cut up.  This is a simple square-in-a-square in another square, then finished with a border.  Everything was from my stash and I quilted it myself.  Check off another UFO from the long, long list.  

Saturday morning sewing demanded something simple after a restless night.  My husband even got up and went into another bedroom to sleep.  A couple of months ago I kitted up 3 Quick Strippee children's quilts: flamingos, sheep, and Scottie dogs.  The pattern is a freebie from Mary and I've made several.

https://maryquilts.com/quick-strippie/

The sheep were calling to me!!  This quilt is so, so simple because it's just cut into width of fabric strips.  The only thing that was even slightly tricky - my sheep fabric needed to be turned so no sheep were standing on their woolly little heads.  Since the strips were all cut and ready in my kit, this took me less than 90 minutes to sew the whole top.  

On a side note, the station wagon/Christmas tree block is done, but I want to find a border and backing fabric for this to become a pillow top.  I am picturing something that has a vintage feel with plenty of red and green.  But we'll see what I find.  I think I have just enough left of that background to put a very narrow strip on each end, so the car "floats" in the block.   

Some fun quilting

 I stopped to pick up 2 table runners and a quilt from the long arm quilter.  Both table runners had this grey backing, and both show off the quilting design beautifully on the back especially.  

This is the Halloween 60 degree runner and the quilting does show up nicely on the front too.  I have some orange for binding for this one.  I made a good decision by sending these to be quilted professionally because both runners look so much better with fun quilting designs than they would have looked with my simple attempts.  

A very sad decision

 

I had to make one of the hardest decisions of my life on Wednesday morning and call the veterinarian to make an appointment to euthanize my buddy Sammy.  Sadly I feel that we waited too long anyway, because he was obviously suffering.  He was about a week short of turning 19 years old.  Needless to say we will certainly miss the old guy!  He was pampered and loved these many years.

Two steps forward, one step back

My station wagon/Christmas tree block is on the home stretch.  I have one more wheel area and the very back of the car to piece yet.  It's surprising what an hour in my sewing room can allow me to do.

However - what I am not doing in these short bursts of sewing is clean up my work space.  I just keep pushing the leftovers to the side on my cutting surface.  Some of the bottom stuff is from mask making a month ago.  Then you can see some purple scraps peeking out from under the reds.  Shame on me!!