Hello 2019!!

Happy New Year!

Winter is in full swing in Madison as of New Year's Eve.  We had a pretty good snow storm for most of yesterday afternoon and evening.  It coated the trees with a beautiful heavy, wet snow.

I wish I could be in my sewing room and enjoy the calm outside the windows, but alas, today is my holiday to work. I can at least fit some blogging in during my downtime!

Recently, I've picked back up something I started 1 year ago.  I'm calling it Black X-String --> for now.  This is the 'group project' I'm leading with my Lutherdale January Quilters.  We meet for 5 days every January and work on our own projects.  Two years ago, I thought-- why don't we do something together that we can donate to their August Auction?  Lutherdale gives so much to us, why not give back?  This pattern has always intrigued me, so I roped in all my fellow sewists to help out.  We had about 50 (?) blocks at the end of retreat.  I've sewn about another 15-ish.  The plan is to make it 8 x 10 and have it quilted before this year's retreat... in 15 days!!  Can I do it?  I sure hope so!

Also under my needle this week is my Scrap Happy Sampler.  I wanted to finish the top by today and I got mighty close.  I worked on it at Late Night Sew Night at Blue Bar Quilts and finished my troublesome spinny square block.  It now fits into the spot to which it belongs.  It needed 4 extra rings, so I'm calling this block "So Extra".  

The borders are ready to go on.  I did one at Late Night and decided this would be easier to do with my set in table.  Less wrestling and more support under the weight of the top.  I'm so close!! Can't wait!

And now for the big winner of my first ever give away......drum roll please....AMY!  Amy is a friend from Mad Mod Quilt Guild and a co-hostess with the mostest of Late Night Sew Night.  I did a bit of 'promoting' of my blog at this month's get together.  Here is the grand prize:

And look at my cool new letter board thingy!  What fun! Santa brought it  (and by Santa, I mean I picked it up at TJ Maxx while shopping)  😜

One last thing to share before signing off... I made another pincushion with Amanda Jean/Crazy Mom Quilt's pattern.  She is 'retiring' from her blog and the pattern writing business.  Her style really inspired me and I made all kinds of projects based off her patterns and tutorials.  I will miss her beautiful creations.  

xoxo,

Kristin

ps

Linking up with: Oh Scrap! and Let's Bee Sewcial

I'm in the blogosphere!

After lurking around the Quilt Mavericks blog ring for over a year, I've decided to join in the fun! Plus, I thought this would be good way to journal my progress on all of my quilts. Now that winter is officially in full force, I've been doing a lot of sewing. Just this week I've worked on:

Woodpile

This is a quilt that's been in the works for years. It's a group exchange that I participated in while taking a class through MATC. The exchanged strips had been sitting around for about 7 years before I had the inspiration to put them together into a twin sized quilt for the rollaway bed in my sewing room. Once I had that idea, I determined that I needed twice as many blocks as what I had. No problem! I whipped them up, laid them out and put them all together. Then it would be on to borders and the top was done. I started with a vision for the borders (scrappy 4 patches all in a row). After losing steam, I set this project down. Last week, I decided to open up the rollaway and check the size. Good thing! I need 2 more rows! What was I thinking before? So this week I added the requisite 2 rows and am back where I was before. Needing borders.

After fiddling around some, I am leaning toward making a scrappy checkerboard 4 wide (separated from the center by a 2" white strip). I like the checkerboard on it's own. I don't know if I like it with the woodpile. And I don't know if I like how much work it's going to be. =(

Leaders/Enders

Meanwhile, during all the woodpile extra 2 rows of block making, I turned my leader/enders into a center for a baby quilt. I have a baby in mind, but haven't 100% decided who the recipient is yet.

This picture isn't the most recent one. I have added white squares in between the nine patches. Again--I'm stuck at the border stage. I have a few ideas. One option is to do a piano key type rainbow. I have a bunch of strips already sewn together that I could use.

They don't look that wobbly in real life. It's gotta be the picture! =O

Benjamin Smiles Pillowcases

On Tuesday, I was able to finish a project that I started earlier this year (mid-summer?) with my friend, Amy. We have been working on making pillowcases for the Benjamin Smiles charity.

They are for travel size pillows and benefit the kids at the Ronald McDonald House. It was a lot of fun working together, picking out the fabrics and they were easy-peasy to sew. We have about 20 cases done, but only 12 pillows. They don't seem to stock these pillows in the store during this time of year. So, we'll drop the first 12 off soon and when I run across the pillows again, I'll get more and then we can deliver another shipment. I'm looking forward to taking them in and seeing the Ronald McDonald House.

Pincushions

Mixed in with all of my other sewing, I've been making pincushions. The pattern is from May Britt and I found it through Lucy's blog.

This is first one I made:

Not bad! I thought this was fun and might make a great kid's pillow, so I blew the pattern up and made a BIG one (sorry, I don't have a picture of that one right now--maybe later). Then I made one for my mom (no picture right now). I had been on a quest to find a loose wool batting to stuff it with and had no success. Instead, I experimented with cutting up the scraps from the wool batt I used for my Bear Paw Throw.

It work marvelously! The addiction is in full force now! The directions call for this to be pieced by hand, but so far, I was making them on the machine. For some reason, I felt motivated to try one out by hand. After some wonderful guidance from Dianne and the other ladies in the UFO club of Millhouse Quilts , I learned English paper piecing. This is an "in-progress" pic of it:

Right now, it's completely pieced and turned inside out. My handiwork won't be winning a blue ribbon at the fair, but I'm ready to do more English paper piecing. Maybe even start a Flower Garden Quilt??!!??

On Thursday I was going to sew with patients at the American Family Children's Hospital, but

because I was barely able to talk, I missed out. I felt well enough to go to lunch with the three other ladies that also volunteer. It was Debbie's birthday and wanted to give her a small present. Hmmmm. What could it be? A pincushion, of course! This one is my best, yet! Unfortunately, prior to this one I made a goof on one. Instead of matching the points of the top up with the points of the middle, I tucked the top points into the "innies" of the middle. It's still cute, just not star shaped. =O I'll take a pic of it soon.

Whew! I think that about wraps up my week. I got a lot done!