Frustration has won

 

I spent a LOT of time on Saturday afternoon trying to embroider my grandchildren's names on their stocking cuffs. 

 

First up I cleaned out the bobbin casing area of my machine and put in a brand new embroidery needle with the exact specs my machine's guidebook suggested.  I bought embroidery thread and bobbin thread.  I worked on a practice piece first. The practice piece had lots of skipped stitches and broken threads. But I finally managed to get 2 letters "kind of" embroidered. 

 

But then I hooped up one of the cuff fabrics and things went downhill from there.  My thread broke every dozen or stitches.  I changed needles again, rethreaded everything, re-hooped the fabric and stabilizer.  But the whole process just kept getting worse.  After nearly 3 hours of frustration, I gave up and went to the movies with my husband. 

 

Today I just worked on piecing a few triangle-in-a-square units for the Bonnie Hunter mystery, mended my granddaughter's pants, mended my daughter's shirt pocket, and finished up the casserole hot pads I started earlier in the week as Christmas gifts. And I grumbled and growled over those stocking that are so close to being done - but yet are not. 

 

 

Progress on the Christmas stockings

I have all 4 stockings (requested by my daughter) quilted and put together with the backing.  All 4 linings are cut out and ready to sew. And the cuffs and hangers are cut and ready. What this really means is that the scary part is left - using my embroidery machine to add some names to the cuffs.  I plan to use white thread and do a practice one first. 

 

 

This one is going to be for Jonah.  I used a simple chevron design and decided to buy a teal Grunge fabric for the backing and cuff to match the teal chevron. Wish I had enough of the teal print to do the cuff, but the colors match nicely.

 

Mason will get the pinwheel stocking. I used up the remaining stash fabric from Jonah's stocking in this one. And I had just enough of the red in the stash to do the back and the cuff.

 

Olivia gets the Dresden Plate stocking.  I had a fat quarter of the candy cane fabric in my stash and enough of the dark red for the backing and cuff.  I may add a little touch of lace to the edge of the cuff to make it a bit more girly.  And maybe just a few red beads.

 

And this one is for my son-in-law Darin. These are all bits of a sparkly blue fat quarter pack that I used in a wintery quilt for myself a few years ago. I liked all the different shades of blue and the sparkles make it look like it's frosted over.

 

So I should have plenty of time over the weekend to sew since we are getting a winter storm and expect -25 below zero lows on Saturday night.  Thinking we aren't going anywhere, unless it's to a movie a mile away.  If I get them completely done before Tuesday morning I can drop them off after taking my husband for an injection in his neck. 

Christmas stockings

This is the first of 4 new Christmas stockings I'm working on for one of my daughters.

 

 

She has a quilted Christmas stocking I made for her as a baby with her name cross-stitched on the cuff.  And she decided last week that she would really like for me to make her husband and 3 kiddos stockings too.  And to make sure I put a label on them to say "Made by Grandma Fridley".

 

She didn't really indicate a desire to have them for THIS year, but I'm trying to do that since I have lots of Christmas fabrics in the stash.  I did stop at my LQS this morning for some muslin to use as lining for them. 

 

I think this one will be for my son-in-law. It's all made from leftovers from a frosty winter quilt I made several years ago. I don't have his name on the cuff yet or the lining made so the cuff is just laying on top. But I think it will work.  I've pieced 2 others from other fabrics and quilted 1 of them. So I still have 1 more to start.  The kid ones will all be different patterns. One has pinwheels and the other has chevrons. I'm thinking the last one may be star blocks or maybe a Dresden plate block.

 

And I already know that embroidering their names on the cuffs will be the most time consuming thing because I'm still afraid of my embroidery machine.  Maybe I'll just applique an initial on them. 

More than just a mug rug

 

When a person signs up for an online swap you just never know what you'll end up getting from a partner you've never met. Well, I think I did really well on this swap.

 

This was a mug rug swap with a Facebook group that I joined, and I just received a box from Michigan with not just 1, but 2 matching mug rugs, a fun snowman mug, candy, and some yummy smelling soap.  It's so much fun to open up because the contents are a surprise.

 

Thank you so much Patti. I will enjoy it all.

Sewing Christmas gifts

 

Yesterday was a fun sewing day with an emphasis on making a couple of small Christmas gifts for granddaughter Olivia.  She is a twin and has twin baby dolls that she loves to play "mom and dad" with. So I made her 2 sleeping bags for those dolls. I'm wishing I had added 1 more set of ribbon ties to these but didn't want to take anything apart to add more. Plus I had used up all of that ribbon.

 

Then I made her a purple pillowcase.  Each of the 5 grandkids is getting a new pillowcase and she requested purple. I think she's like the Kaffe print with the dots.  I already had the other 4 pillowcases done.  The boys are all getting the alligator ones I made a couple of weeks ago, and Sophia's is pink with pastel deer silhouettes.  She loves animals so I think that will be a winner.

Mystery quilt progress

 

I was only going to make a half sized mystery quilt, but since I have plenty of fabric I decided to go ahead and do it full sized.  No one is surprised, right?  I am loving the colors that Bonnie Hunter chose for En Provence. And so far the units have been very simple ones. I just need to catch up a bit on the sewing part. The pieces are all cut and ready to go.

 

If you haven't checked out her latest mystery quilt, here is the link. One clue is released each week on Friday and so far we've seen two of them.  Clue 1 is the 4-patch unit done with neutrals. Clue 2 is the magenta and neutral unit using the tri-recs ruler. Wonder what color or colors she will have us play with next? Purple, yellow, green, or lavender?

 

http://quiltville.blogspot.com/p/en-provence-mystery.html

It's December already?

 

As always, December has come way before I was ready for it. On Saturday our guild had our Christmas party and the committee did a wonderful job putting together a fun afternoon. They made these darling little gift baskets for everyone. They contained a Corn Palace popcorn ball and a Christmas cookie. Those Corn Palace popcorn balls are a gooey and yummy local treat. I had eaten my cookie already when I took this photo.

 

I didn't remember to do a stash report yesterday so figured I would add my November report here. I added a LOT of fabric to my stash this month, partly due to a little road trip shopping. But I bought plenty locally too. Luckily most of it had a purpose.

 

In this month:  31 yds

In this year:  164.75 yds

Out this month: 15.5 yds

Out this year: 151 yds

 

The stash has taken over once again, but now that I'm not working as much I'm optimistic that I can make some dents in the volume.