Futile. I am really trying not to get any more projects to do. My to-do list is very long, and there is my list of to-do for shop quilts too. The personal quilts I want to make, that list changes and most of the projects don’t get past the “buy the pattern” stage. Some get to the buy some fabric, some get to buy all the fabric, some even get started. I don’t consider these UFO’s though. They are in a separate category, sort of a current or new-ish list. I like to keep them written on my white board, so they don’t get forgotten. Anyway, back to the resistance part. I was perusing Shabby Fabrics the other day and saw the Halloween pattern I have liked for a few years, Merrie Halloween, was available as a BOM. It starts in January 2026, so by then I’ll have finished the Blooming Beauty BOM. I did sign up, too quickly, as when I re-read the listing, I realized it was laser cut. I was thinking hand appliqué, but now that I am really thinking about it, the laser cut will be fine. I can concentrate on the machine stitching, and not have to trace and cut out all the pieces. Also it uses the Moda collection Home Sweet Haunt, which I just used for a different quilt. Oh yeah, I also got a Christmas quilt kit from Tilda, called Winter birds. I really liked making the Anniversary quilt from Tilda, the fabrics are so nice, a good weight and hand to them.

Speaking of Blooming Beauty, I got the next installment in the mail on Friday. Another star block, month eight, of eleven. These large stars are for the four corners, then there are a few borders and it’s done. I am feeling good about the progress on this quilt, because I have been keeping up and I have the whole center put together. It is a large quilt, 98″ x 98″, and I am making it for my own use.

I quilted a whole quilt yesterday. I free-hand quilted the Lollipops and Licorice top. I tried to find a suitable digital pattern, but ended up copying Krista Moser’s design, straight lines in the diamonds and starts. It was a bit boring, but I got it done. I want to get it bound today, and part of the up coming photo shoot I am planning this week. Today is another rainy/overcast day, great lighting for outdoor photos, not so good for indoor ones. Happy’s place got its iron on appliqués attached. It looks pretty cute, I have to leave the moon off until I get the borders on.

I am still waiting on fabric I re-ordered for the small woodland quilt. I ordered the pearl bracelets fabric in the 108″ width, thinking it would be plenty to work with, and I would have some left over as it matches the Love Letters line of fabrics too. I was a little dismayed to open the package and realize that the bracelets were 5 times larger than the ones on the 42″ wide. Live and learn. The good thing is that I used it as part of the backing for the L&L quilt. I really want to finish this little quilt this week, and get it out the door, the customer needs it by the 18th. I re-ordered the correct fabric Friday, and it is supposed to be here by the end of this week. I have half of the blocks made and all of the pieces cut, except for the 44 white ones I need of the pearl bracelet print. I blogged about this pattern/quilt, Marching into April I adapted the Pumpkin Patch pattern to use 6 ½ ” blocks in stead of 10 ½” ones. I did this to be able to use the small left over animal face prints from the woodland friends prints. I was happy that I made some notes and had an extra block and photos to look at.

My goals for this week are to get the Woodland friends quilt done, start quilting the Tilda Anniversary quilt and finish the borders for Happy’s Place.

Be Kind.

This week I have been working on putting together the eigth Halloween quilt of 2025. I think I am done with orange and black for a while. The Happy’s Place quilt is all jewel tones, so it’s nice not to have to do O&B. I did manage to mess up the 25 “B” blocks and had to re-make them all. I persevered and didn’t make any errors on the “A” and “B” border blocks. I am hoping to get the main part of this quilt together and work on the borders this weekend. I am still not sure I like the wonky stars and geese. It is hard for me to do wonky on purpose, I like precision in all things pointy. Maybe I should look at it as a challenge, or would that be an anti-challenge?

I received another custom order for a baby quilt. This will be a copy of the one I sold this week, using the Woodland Friends fabric line. Luckily I had one set of the animal faces left and enough scraps to make “just one more”. I did have to order more of the same backing, as the customer specifically liked the toile/watercolor animal print. It is getting harder to find, mostly the red version is left, I managed to find the gray, phew. My three other custom quilts are in stall-mode, waiting on client to pick backings and pantos. He said he isn’t in a hurry, I feel like telling him I am. I have a custom tee-shirt quilt (in pieces) that has been in my work room for 6(?) years. The client is a friend of my DH, and she just can’t decide on what she wants to do with the college tee shirts. She hasn’t contacted me this year, the exchanges always end on her response never coming back. I don’t feel too bad, maybe I should just mail them back.

The Lilies have gotten a bit more stitching, I moved on to the next page. The bird is pretty, but it is facing a dreaded brick house. I forgot that this piece had one, bricks and mortar, three different color bricks. Eye-roll. I swore off houses after the Heaven and Nature sampler. Well, I did do the twelve houses of the fabulous House series, but those were different. The 10,000 stitch brick houses are just no fun.

I got fabric delivered today, some more Thomas the Tank engine prints and some more Peter Rabbit prints for baby quilts. Also a few Bella solids to fix the peacock panel quilt that has been languishing since 10/24. I want to give the border a bit more color and structure, right now they look blurred to me. The center panel just pops out at you and then the borders are sort of wishy-washy. Looking at the old photo, I see one block is turned the wrong way – sigh.

Be Kind.

Dollars spent and dollars earned. The shop has been busy since I posted nine new quilts. A lot of interest in the halloween quilts and the Woodland friends series. I had a learning experience with a scammer last weekend. I won the game, with a little aggravation. The buyer purchased a quilt, and sent along a message about changing the address, due to it being a PO Box and rural. Okay, I can do that, but Etsy took a while processing that order and then canceled it. I get no reason as to why, so when the buyer messaged me about the cancellation, I told him to try again, it worked. However, now the address change request was to a different town, far from the first, his buyer name was changed, and he was checking out as a guest. I canceled the sale with a note saying I didn’t think he was a legitimate buyer, there was no response. I re-listed the quilt and he tried to buy it again, but Etsy refused/canceled the transaction. Again no message from buyer about the quilt “he loved and was going to give to his GF for her birthday”. It was either a stolen CC number scam, or some crooks try to get a refund for non-delivery. Etsy only covers/insures purchases up to 250.00, so if your item is more than that, you have refund the money to the customer. I do have the ability to insure purchases, which I will be using in the future. Thankfully I am not penalized for all the canceling, just angry that this scammer wasted my time. On a happier note, I did have a legitimate sale of the purple pumpkin patch quilt.

I got the Spooks and Spells top done (left picture), not without a few rip sessions. There are three directional prints in this quilt. Two need to be paid attention too, the orange newsprint looks okay anyway it goes, the Cats and Graveyard scenes don’t. I was so careful, cutting and marking in erasable pen which parts were which. I still ended up having to undo three blocks and recut a few pieces after I put it all together. I started the last (really) Halloween quilt yesterday, it’s called Happy’s Place, and a free pattern from Quilt Boss Designs . I made my own kit from the fabric list, all Hoffman batiks. I am putting all the main blocks together, there are fifty, 25 right facing and 25 left facing. I might keep this one for myself, as a wall hanging. I have three ready for LA quilting, but I need to get two backings together. I may use the black and gray fireworks wide back I bought for the Quandary quilt. I will measure and see if I can get two on it.

I am back to stitching the Lillies. I have made some more visible progress in the lower left corner. The little fox is cute, the border is getting boring to stitch though.

I’m making a big pot of red beans and rice today, a good beginning of fall meal.

Be Kind.

Blog titles are tough some days. I want to come up with the title first and then the talk-y part. Anyway, it seemed like this week was productive. I got three quilts done, two sent out and one for the Shop. I finished the Hocus Pocus top, and the backing for it. Got the customer’s Candy Corn quilt on the frame, just waiting on him to choose a panto. I am quite proud of my pattern matching on the back of this one. I had to sew two widths together and match the flowers. I used a little school glue to help and had success.

I am still waiting on the last few yards of fabric to get here so I can finish the last Halloween quilt for the shop. I thought I had a good substitute, but when I got all the fabrics together for “Spooks and Spells” I wasn’t liking the mix. I started a table runner last night, it was a kit from Connecting Threads, using the Art Haus collection from them. I originally thought it was 2 ½ inch squares, but after reading through (good habit) the instructions I “discovered” they were 1 ½ squares, finishing at 1 inch. I used my handy Accuquilt strip cutter and quickly cut a million or so squares and enough strips. I think I have enough to make another runner or two. I will have to add some more Amish black, or maybe a different color background. I think I needed something mindless simple after all those cut corner squares and rectangles of the last three tops.

Lillies of the field has gotten a few more stitches. I worked on the peacock last night, this corner needs a few more motifs and the border. I should work on bringing the border around the corner. Looking back, I started this project in August 2023, after completing the Heaven and Nature sampler. In between, I finished the Fabulous Houses, the Manor, and a Baby Sampler. I really want to finish this, and start a smaller piece. I enjoy being a monogamis-tic cross stitcher, but I do have a back log of kitted up projects.

Be Kind.

In the last four days I managed to finish another top, for a customer. It wasn’t a particularly large quilt top, just lots of steps. This pattern uses the wasted triangles method of piecing, which is not one of my favorite methods. I really tried to get the pieces cut at angles and sewed with triangles. The CutCorners rulers are very helpful, using them saves a lot of fabric and I have a few less tiny cut off triangles. I guess if you’re into crumb blocks these are a windfall. I think I will add them to the recycle bin this week.

I am stitching away on the latest custom long arm project. It is all batik, the backing too, and it is causing me grief. I can’t seem to get even tension, the bobbin thread comes through, or it railroads on the back. The top thread shreds, or shows on the back, or everything looks lovely for about a hundred stitches. I have tried every trick I know to make the stitching consistent. This one has me stumped. I am seriously considering giving this one back with a discount, as it doesn’t represent my true skills. Since it is batik. there can be no ripping out and redoing. Plus this panto has a lot of backtracking and it is pretty dense. I have noted this and will not use this panto again without some modifications. I am so glad I am using 80 wt thread, otherwise it really would have been a disaster. I really need to finish this, because the custom quilt I am doing for a baby shower, just got pushed to the front of the line. The baby was 4.5 weeks early, so now I’m late. He’s healthy and everything is going to work out. I just need to hurry it up.

I did get all the new Etsy listings listed and sold one yesterday. So rewarding! I will be tweeking them over the next few days, but they are up and “live”. I have two more Halloween quilts to make, and one Christmas themed custom. I will be busy for the next few weeks.

Be Kind.