My cross stitch project for this year is the Fabulous House Series by Cottage Garden Samplings . I have been mentioning complaining about it in just about every post this year. Keeping up with it is taxing to me, it’s not a race, or even a contest, it has become a personal goal. I feel like I am never going to finish this piece, is the “thrill” gone? This year is the first in a long time that I have not done a BOM quilt, I do have two to finish from previous years and the reunion quilt has yet to be quilted, I digress. Anyway, what is my problem here? I am stubborn, I signed up for this cross stitch SAL and even belong to a Facebook group. There is not much going on there though, 1.6K members, and only one has posted a finish of the most recent house. Not shaming any one either, but if I were the designer of these houses, I think I’d be sad, because everyone starts these SALs with such enthusiasm, then reality and life happens. Squirrels too, don’t forget the squirrels. I am stubbornly refusing to quit this one, even if it takes me four more months to finish.

In quilt making news, I was able to quilt up the latest customer quilt. It was a quick project, I didn’t even take any photos. The maker is like 9 ½ months pregnant and trying to finish it up for a wedding present. It was a modern landscape top, very pretty, with a simple diamond and circle panto called Diamond fields. She is going to bind it and send me a picture when she’s finished. This is what it looked like before quilting, and after.

Getting back to my Halloween quilting is easier now. I popped the Chill Cabin top on and need one more row to get this one finished. I am hoping to get it in the store and sold in the next week or so. I managed to get the other one in earlier this week, might be a little late. The two pumpkin quilts I made earlier this season sold and had over 150 views. Probably the most ever for one of my quilts. I will admit that these Mad Masquerade fabric quilts aren’t as mainstream, but there are J Wecker Frisch fans out there, besides me (I hope).

Speaking of Etsy, I had a nice message from a former client asking for 2 – 4 custom Christmas quilts. She found some pretty fabrics from Robin Pickens called Winterly.

There will be lots of this in my future, I hope. Last year I made a bunch of quilts from the Nocturnal fabric line from Gingiber. By the end of those quilts I was ready to do something different. Looking back, it seems I went on to do a few Christmas tops and some bright dog and cat quilts. Variety is the spice of life ( see above rant lol) and quilting.

I really should get moving on the Tilda appliqué quilt. Time is growing short, and before I know it the recipient will be here. Next week my DH is out of town, so I’ll have a few days to do some catching up and moving that project along. I am working on the second Peacock quilt, it has become more of a design as you go type of top. The panel is printed horizontally, so that changes a lot for the placement of the borders and blocks. I am looking at this pattern on the left, and modifying it.

The diamond shapes are actually four Kitty cornered blocks with a folded triangle on them. Not the easiest blocks, but the Creative grids Kitty Cornered ruler helps a lot. The finished size of them its 5 ½ inches, I had to work out the size most conducive to the panel size. Some working backwards and math was involved. I need to find just the right blue to make those skinny borders.

Be Kind.