A Weekend of Projects

This weekend was going to start with me working on Bonnie Hunter's mystery "Good Fortune", but it was derailed by other sewing things until Sunday.  I still have more four patches to make, and I plan to have that finished before the next clue comes out on Friday.

I love reds.... and I love spinning the seams so that will nest properly when it all goes together.

I need to sort through some current scrappy strips from Madame Rouge to finish up with the four patches:


I haven't decided yet if I will just do a half-quilt or the full mystery quilt.  At least four patches can be used in anything so they won't go to waste.

The day after Thanksgiving is always the Boy Scouts tree lot setup day, and usually I put our tree up on that day.  I haven't done that yet this year, perhaps next week.  Before Kevin left, he showed me a fleece beanie cap that he had bought for Darrin and himself (but Daniel ended up claiming one leaving Dad with none) and asked if this would be an easy item to make.  I put aside my first mystery clue sew to play with a beanie pattern.  It was pretty easy to make and then I learned how to do a blind hem stitch on my serger.  I had to play around with it so I had the fabrics going the right way for the hem, but what a great feature.  I think it is also called a flatlock stitch, but in the fleece that is hard to tell.

Here is the sewing I started the weekend with (Madame Rouge in the background):




I ended up sewing the troop patch onto the grey beanie. I wore the pink one for our tree lot shift last night and it was warm enough. I may choose a thicker fleece beanie for our next shift in two weekends.

This coming Wednesday is Darrin's first band concert and I had totally forgotten about finding a white shirt, black pants and shoes!  I decided to try out the thrift shop first and we lucked out!  The pants will only be good for this year (length), but the shirt and shoes should be able to see a couple of years of concerts.  If I had hit the shop on 1/2 price day, the cost would have been even better but I'm not complaining about $23 for these items.

Daniel was thrilled to find a guitar with an American flag on it :)  We also did our annual ornament hunt at the Hallmark shop.  Our local shop was suppose to close, but they were able to renegotiate the lease.  I am really glad because I'm not sure where the next closest one is.  Our original shop that we started our tradition with closed down when Darrin was 3, so we've been going to this one for the past 8yrs.

It's been a full weekend!

Link up day!
http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2018/11/mystery-monday-link-up-and-cyber-monday.html

Catching up with a couple of finishes

I am not sure what has happened to my quilting bug.  It has waned on and off over the years, but it seems like the past 5yrs it has really taken a nosedive.  I am trying to keep it fresh--or as fresh as I can... and boy I can find some great projects that really excite me... however, the doing part!

After finishing up Daniel's Eagle Scout quilt, I was drained.  I joined in on the Humble Quilts doll quilt exchange, I enjoy that one with hopes it would spark something.  And I think it did get me going to work on Stitch Happens.  I started two of these, one (pic below) is a quilt I gave as a birthday gift to a dear friend.  I had planned to give her the other one however (still not finished), but I wasn't happy with the quilting (I admit I am too critical of myself) so I went with straight line quilting on this one--and it still wasn't the way I wanted.  Shift Happened vs Stitch Happens.  It's still a great pattern though.


Here is the little quilt (18" square) that I created for the Teal Mini Swap which is an Ovarian Cancer fundraiser:


My partner likes cats, The Broncos, orange, rabbits.  Perfect.. I love using orange, and I planned right away to create something with a cat.

Here is the transition I went through as I created this quilt:
I first sketched out an idea with flying geese and a cat under a tree.  My tree in the sketch was larger and this just wasn't working for me.


The next step involved looking for a paper pieced cat pattern, and craftsy has some great ones in silhouette.  Adding the butterfly was needed.


Overall I am pleased with how it turned out.  My quilting wasn't perfect, but it was ok.


Here is the quilt I received from my partner:

I love how it turned out.  For a first time experience with this exchange, I had a good time with it and I may do it again in the future.

My current project:
I am currently working on a new quilt called Madame Rouge by French General.  It's a very simple string quilt (though the strings are suppose to match up, so not quite so freewheeling).  I finished the top on Saturday and will show that one in the near future.  I have an idea in mind for quilting already--that rarely happens!  Looking at the sidebar of how many quilts I have started this year, I am surely lacking in creativity!  I do plan to do Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt this year--how can I not?  She has orange in it :)   Here's to hoping that the new year I get some sparks of creativity lit under me again.