Finished (or NOT) Friday

Today I have ONE thing finished, and ONE thing not finished.

The 5th and final pillowcase for the grandkids is finished.  It's tucked into Jack's Christmas stocking now.  Each grandchild gets a new pillowcase every year in their stocking.  Can't fight tradition, right!! 

The Not finished item does have forward progress.  This is the snowman themed 3-yard quilt I've been working on.  It doesn't have a deadline, so hasn't been a high priority.  The blocks were all made and sashing cut, so now that the pillowcases are finished I can get back to working on it again.

This morning the 4th clue will be released for the Lupines and Laugher mystery quilt by Bonnie Hunter.  I've made some units for each of the first 3 clues and plan to spend a little time today playing with Clue #4, whatever it might be. 

I've been plugging along with some binding this week.  So maybe by next Friday there will be another finish to show.   

Check out more finishes at
https://alyciaquilts.blogspot.com/

One more pillowcase

 

The solar system pillowcase is finished and in a Christmas stocking.  Now I just have one left to finish for the grandkids. 

Tomorrow morning, the 4th clue will be posted for Bonnie Hunter's mystery.  I've been using her first clues to use up a lot of scraps of light blue, pink, purple and neutrals.  Wonder which of those colors we'll play with next. 

Keeping busy

One more pillowcase is finished, and tucked into a Christmas stocking.

The other 2 pillowcases for grandsons are pinned and ready to sew.  Today may not yield much sewing time, if any at all.  But I should be able to finish them by the end of the week.

I've had the scraps out for neutrals, light blue, pink and purple this past couple of weeks, so that I could pull some options for the Bonnie Hunter mystery as the clues are posted.  A few more units for Clues #1-3 were added yesterday.  But there were a lot of purple scraps too small for the mystery units.  So I used some of the skinnier purple strips to make some string blocks, to add to the stack that I worked on at various times for RSC during the year.  These string blocks are only 6.5" square, with some being all purple and others being half purple with the other half neutral.  I think I have a plan for some of these.  

Lots of progress

Both of the pillowcases for the granddaughters are done, and tucked into their Christmas stockings.  The swimmer print used on the cuffs was something I ordered from Spoonflower.  The rose colored fabric for the main part of the pillowcase was purchased last week to go with that print.  It really picks up on the rosy pink in the print.  

The pillowcases for the 3 boys are all cut and kitted up.  One is even pinned into the "sausage roll" and ready for that first seam.  I love this technique because there are zero raw edges anywhere in the pillowcase.  

A few more units for the mystery quilt have been added.  These are units for Clues 2 and 3.  I really enjoy working on these in between other projects, and don't feel any pressure to "keep up" with the mystery.  There is no rush, so I'll just keep adding a few here and there.  

One more Christmas "goody" has been made - Rosemary Spiced Nuts.  It's a recipe I found on Pinterest years ago, and I only make them around the holiday season.  Our Sew Vintage group has our Christmas party next Saturday, so these are all ready to take to the party.  

It's a good thing that we went to see Olivia's orchestra concert last week, because she broke her right wrist in 2 places on Sunday while sledding with friends.  That will put a damper on both swim team and orchestra while it heals.  I feel so bad for her.    
 

I wonder if the orthopedic clinic offers a group rate for families.  Her twin brother isn't quite healed up from his broken ankle yet.  He's now in a walking boot after several weeks in a cast and one of those knee scooters.  

Design Wall Monday - December 8

What a difference a week makes!  We've had lots more snow.  Snow days are perfect for sewing.  The guild Christmas party was Saturday morning, and we broke up early because several inches of snow had fallen in 2 hours.  We got about 5" total here.  Plus a little more came on Sunday afternoon. I'm pretty sure we've already had more snow than we saw all of last winter.  

The Countdown to Christmas box from Missouri Star has yielded some fun and interesting things so far.  There is a charm pack with a pattern for cat and dog shaped mug rugs, and the acrylic templates were included  There is a coffee mug - already added to the 3 I've already collected.  A small binder with storage sleeves inside will hold charm packs and applique temples.  

There is a pillow pattern along with the plastic alphabet templates needed to applique the WELCOME or any other word onto the pillow.  There is even a package of fusible to use.  The charm pack from earlier in the week could be used for the pillow too.  So that covers the first week of surprises.

All of the blocks for the snowman 3-yard quilt are finally sewn, pressed, and trimmed.  Now I can just focus on getting them into rows - and in the correct order.  The goal is for this to be a flimsy by the end of the month.  

I'm getting a late start on the grandkids' pillowcases this year.  The math/science print has been in the stash for awhile.  The NASA prints are newly purchased.  These will be good for 2 of the boys I think.  

The solar system fabric has also been in the stash for a couple of years.  It's time to use it up.  The black print and the tan one are some options for cuff colors.  I haven't decided yet which one I'm going to use.  

The swimmer print will work for cuffs for both of the girls because both are swimmers. 

One other plan for the week is to continue working on the clues for the Bonnie Hunter mystery.  We've seen 3 clues so far, and I have a good start on them.  The colors really make me think spring.  And it's a nice change up from red, white, blue or some of the darker colors I've been sewing with lately.  

I'm linking up today with:

https://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/ 

https://songbirddesigns.blog

RSC25 - Week #49

Do you panic this time of year?  I don't even have a ton of holiday events to attend, but I'm feeling a little panicky about how close we are to the end of the year.  Maybe I was feeling extra "behind" since I was sick a couple of days this week and felt like I had gotten nothing accomplished at all. Friday was finally a good day for sewing with few interruptions. 

The only RSC sewing that happened this week was putting 8 of the 4-Patch Fun blocks together into a zig zag layout.  I started thinking that the zig zag would show up better if I put a neutral strip between each vertical row.  That required digging into the neutral strings bin. 

So I partially opened some seams yesterday and inserted a 1.5" x 6.5" strip next to each block.  Another row of blocks on the left was added too.  Now I'm seeing the zig zag emerging.  I don't have enough blocks yet for a whole quilt, so these will continue well into 2026 for RSC.  I'm happy to have a plan now.

The scrap bin with all of the odds and ends from Quilts of Valor was overflowing, and I worked hard last month to use up enough of those scraps to at least fit into the bin.  Yesterday I dug back into it for this block.  It's called God's  Eye and was a free download from www.patchworksquare.com that I used in a recently finished project.  Now I remember why I thought it was a pain in the butt to make.  The instructions were fine, but putting it together and getting it to lay flat was a bit frustrating.  If I ever make this again I think I would press all of the seams open to reduce that bulk more.  It's now in the QOV "sampler" stack of blocks so it will get used in a quilt eventually.  But it will NOT have any twin siblings any time soon. 

The neutral, pink, purple, and blue scrap bins are stirred up now too.  That is because I'm playing along with the current Bonnie Hunter mystery.  I don't plan to make mine full sized, but it's always fun to play along and see how it goes.  Clue #3 dropped yesterday morning, and it really only took me about half an hour to make 1 set of each size HST in the clue.  I'll do more over the weekend most likely.  I'm aiming for roughly half the quantity of each clue. 

Let's go see what else is happening with scraps this week . . .

https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/ 

Catching up

Wow - I just lost a whole day and a half.  Tuesday morning I did some laundry and baked gingersnap cookies in the morning.  By noon I felt so tired and sat down in the recliner for awhile before going downstairs to sew.  I ended up sleeping off and on most of the afternoon and evening.  Wednesday was mostly lost as well. The only reason I had a blog post on Wednesday was because I wrote it while baking cookies Tuesday morning.  I had a fever, couldn't get warm and ached all over.  Thursday I woke up feeling mostly normal again, although still very low energy.  I'm still catching up.  

My new Ford Escape was ready to pick up Wednesday afternoon, and my husband was a good sport and went to get it.  Yesterday morning I was thinking that I kind of hate to take it anywhere right now because I don't want it to get dirty. Since the snow our streets are a mess.  And then - my husband took it and went to the gym yesterday, and to run errands.  We also took it to Sioux Falls last night to go to granddaughter Olivia's orchestra concert.  So much for keeping it clean.  LOL

A quick update on Wednesday's post . . .  The correct name for that center block is "God's Eye", and I downloaded it from www.patchworksquare.com .  The pattern has instructions for 3 block sizes - 16", 12" and 8".  Now I really really want to make that center block again - but in red, white and blue in the 12" size.  

The last time I was in my sewing room was Monday.  Hopefully today I'll finally get back down there to sew.  I'm feeling the withdrawal.