This week was a handwork week, although I did turn on the machine a few times. I worked on the Message in a Bottle BOM, completed month two and set up month three. I got the fabric kit for month seven in the mail yesterday, I am very behind. Each monthly section has a main appliqué block and a few 3 ½ inch blocks for fillers. Month two and three have large pieced backgrounds behind the appliqué. I am glad that the finished size is 52″ square, as there are so many pieces, and anything larger would be too much.

Stitching on the Pilgrim has been taking most of my sewing room time. In my last post I was considering starting another large sampler, Heaven and Nature (a Teresa Kogurt design). I got it all kitted up and had sat down to stitch, as I was removing the hoop from Pilgrim, I thought to myself, maybe just finish up this motif…then it became this section, then page. I have less than two pages left to finish, I want to do that more than start a new piece. In the photos below, the one on the left is from October 2022, and todays is on the right. My ulterior motive is that once pilgrim is done, then H&N can become my new “big” project, and I can start a new small(er) one too. Win-Win!

The HST poinsettia quilt is still on my design wall, but I have made a digital copy of it in EQ8. Moving pieces around on screen is much easier than on the wall, plus the dogs can’t help. One swipe of the tail, and hours of placement are lost.

Off to sew.

Be Kind.

I finished stitching the “Silent Night” (I have been calling it Winter) cross stitch piece I started late last month. I am going to start “Heaven and Nature” a Teresa Kogut pattern. I am pretty sure I have all the flosses and linen together with the pattern. I feel like I should work a bit on The Pilgrim, as I really want to finish it soon. Perhaps I should alternate daily, but start-i-tis is is motivating me this day.

I made an apron this week. My mom was asking for one, and since her Bday is approaching, I thought I would fill that request. I ordered some pretty pinstriped canvas from Michigan last weekend, but it didn’t get here yet. I needed to go to the Spa and hot tub store to get a special filter last Monday, and wouldn’t you know, there was a Joann’s on the same street. I shopped a bit and found this cute coffee print canvas and got a few yards. There are hundreds of free apron patterns on-line, I choose this one, Two-Tone Light Weight Canvas Apron from Sew4Home. I made a few alterations, I didn’t use the decorative stitches, and used quilters weight cotton for the accent pieces and ties. I also reinforced the cotton with fusible interfacing. I want to make another different style one out of the pinstripe, using this pattern, Cross Back Apron from Purl Soho. I like that it is easy to put on and remove, I may even make one for myself out of some extra Essex Linen I have.

Another new start is a knitted Cardigan for my oldest son. I made him a dark green one a few years ago, and he asked me for a dark blue one. I am working on it during daylight hours, as it is hard to see the dark yarn stitches a night. Maybe I should eat more carrots… I am getting the rhythm of the pattern down, cables and honeycombs.

There was an interesting Essay/Opinion piece about knitting in the NYT today. “The Revolutionary Power of a Skein of Yarn” by Peggy Orenstein. She is also the author of “Unraveling: What I Learned About Life While Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wool and Making the World’s Ugliest Sweater.” I can’t link it here, as one has to subscribe to read it. I thought her comments were poignant, particularly this part.

Not long ago, Michelle Obama posted a black-and-white photo of herself on Instagram, cozy in an armchair, a nearby side table displaying an adorable baby pic of Malia and Sasha. She is barefoot, dressed in wide-legged jeans and a satin shirt, smiling widely as she looks down … at her knitting. “Every time I tell people how much I love to knit,” she writes in the caption, “They seem so surprised!”

And I thought, why?

I suspect it’s because knitters, unlike Mrs. Obama, are presumed to be aging ungracefully: prim, elderly (probably white) ladies rocking away on the porch in cultural irrelevance. Before I refute that — yarn lovers come in all ages, genders, sexualities and races — I want to ask, even if it were true, so what? The dismissal, the reflexive derision of women from midlife onward — especially if we stop chasing social media standards of beauty — is a nasty form of ageist sexism. ~ Peggy Orenstein

I worked a bit on more HST’s for the Poinsettia flower that is blooming on my design wall. I cut a bunch more, treated myself to a new blade in my cutter too. Why do I wait so long in between changing it out? I keep thinking that this would be easier to design on EQ8, maybe this weekend I’ll try, so many HSTs to rotate.

Be Kind.

I feel very productive today, because it has been a productive week, so far.

I finished the Chilhowie mystery quilt top. WhooHoo! I ended up changing the sewing rectangles a bit. I added a strip of purple to the ends. This makes the four patches join together, and forms a secondary block. When I was laying the blocks out on the floor, I realized that there was too much white. I had used a bunch of white on white prints for the sashing and it was too stark. It made the main blocks look small and uninteresting, they were receding and making the quilt uninteresting. One would think that purple, orange, and turquoise would be in your face interesting – lol. All that piecing not to be seen? No, not for this quilt. I dug through the stash and found some prints on white and recut most of the sash rectangles and added the stripe. I like it much better now. I noticed that a few fellow mystery makers added triangles to the ends of their rectangles, to make a star around the four patch. I wish I had seen that before my version, but I like mine as well.

I worked on the Simple pleasures BOM, I started this in February 2021. I have all the blocks sewn and marked for embroidery and appliqué. This is the third finished of nine, lots of stitching to go.

My other BOM, the Message in a Bottle wall hanging, saw the light of day this week too. I thought I was on block/month three, but sadly, only two. I just got the sixth part a few days ago, got some catching up to do with this too.

With the rain falling, there is nothing I like better than to sit in my sewing chair with an audio book, a cup of hot tea and a project. I have been making lots of X’s on the Winter piece, and thinking about my next “start” for 2023 – “Heaven and Nature”. This photo makes it look very dark, but it’s not.

About half way through this month and I have reached my goals for it. To have the three quilt tops done seemed like a lot, but when there’s really nothing else to do when it’s raining, things get done.

Be Kind.

After finishing the flying geese border for the Forest Whimsy quilt, I felt like I needed to use up the rest of the red scraps. The Accuquilt die cuts the goose part out of a 3 3/4 inch rectangle, so the scraps can easily be cut down into 2 ½ inch triangles. I had a little over 200 red ones, I cut all the white ones with another die that cuts 12 hsts at a time. I thought about doing a hst sampler, or something, then remembered the SuperNova quilt tutorial that Sarah over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict has. I laid out all the triangles and added an additional three rows to finish it off. Now it is an odd size, I’m thinking of adding some green hsts to it, because I think it looks a little like a poinsettia flower. I’m going to leave it up on the wall for a bit longer and think on it.

Yesterday I started cutting the sashing and inner border pieces for my Chilhowie quilt. I got the big pieces done, and today I am hoping that I will get to the aqua and flying geese section. I also need to lay it out to do the sashings, which will be on the floor in the guest room. I can close the door to this room, which is a plus when ones has large dogs about.

My “Winter” cross stitch is progressing, I am almost finished with the house. Probably should work the border a bit more.

We lost power early this morning, our generator is doing its job. The electric company is saying we may not get our power back until Thursday. This is due to them being stretched a bit thin during these relentless storms. I’m surprised that it had stayed on this long, as many trees have fallen, and the wind has been fierce at times.

Be Kind.

The first week of 2023 went very well. I managed to keep damage to my home and property from the first major storm system to a minimum. Filling and placing sandbags is not a job I would like to do regularly. We lost a tree, thankfully it didn’t crush anything as it slowly uprooted and lay down next to my house. Mostly what I did was stay inside stitching and putting tops together, laundry and eating chocolate. I put the borders on The Reunion quilt top for a finish, you may remember that I had to give it a time out after wrestling with turned blocks and such. The borders were simple solid ones which after cutting and measuring went together with no issues. The next finish was the Ribbon Runs Through It BOM. This one required sashing and careful placement too, not to the extent of Reunion though. RRTit is set on point with half log cabin setting triangles, I started in the upper left hand corner and worked to the middle, longest row. Then started on the lower right hand corner and worked to the center. Then I put the two halves together, one thing I was thankful for was that the sashing pieces had one inch borders on them. These straight of grain strips definitely helped to keep the stretching on the bias in check. Otherwise this quilt top could have turned into a hot mess quickly. This top also had two plain borders, thank fully the instructions included a way to cut it to make the flowers stay in the same orientation for each side. This is something that I often notice after the fact when constructing other tops, by which time it is either too late to fix or there isn’t enough fabric.

Getting those two tops done was a good feeling. I started to look around and figure out what I wanted to do next. Then I looked at the Forest top, it just didn’t look finished to me. I think that after the two other finishes with their sashing and borders, changed the way I was looking at it. This top was too simple, and it was asking for some borders to keep those trees together. I thought about doing a simple white one and having a green binding, nah. Then I thought about all the red Christmas print batik strips I still had. I have been toying with the idea to make a red and white batik quilt with them. Red and white flying geese around the trees, yes, that could work. Even better I have an Accuquilt die to cut all of them to the correct size. I got a bunch of them put together yesterday, I think I need about 96.

The final reveal for the Chilhowie mystery quilt was reveled this morning. More sashing work, but thankfully the main block construction was last week. Also one of the early clues had us make all the pieces for the outer border, so no ducking out on that. I like the layout, but I think I want to be a bit more careful with the neutrals in the sashings, trying not to use any fabrics that will look too dense. Keeping them crisp looking, seems to work better for my vision of this quilt. The below photo is from her web site. She will keep the mystery up for a few more weeks, so if you want the pattern PDF, download it soon.

My cross stitch start from last week is progressing, I got the reindeer done last night. This is turning into a a fun project, maybe I’ll finish by the end of winter.

Today I am linking up with Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict for “Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?” It’s been a while since I have linked to any linky parties, but I still click through lots of them. I may even make it a habit for 2023.

Be Kind.