Happy Fall! ! !

I can't believe the last post I did was July 4! ! !  No excuses for not writing something, just didn't feel motivated to write a blog post.  

 Our temps are cooling and really cold weather is coming this week. We had some strong winds a few weeks ago that destroyed my flowers so I pulled them all out and put the pots and beds to sleep until Spring.  That gives me a lot less watering to do.  I did a small landscape project next to the house.  On the North side of the house is a walkway about three feet wide that is all gravel.  The edge of it that is next to the patio had nothing to keep the gravel from migrating out onto the patio so I put some edging stones along there, added a bit of new gravel, raked up all the pine needles and it looks great.  Took me all of about an hour, don't know why I kept putting it off for so long!

We have gone fishing but it was a week after the lake had opened up again and it was super crowded.  We did bring four fish home and it was a nice day, even with so many people there.  Last week we took a drive up Sandia Peak.  No photo but with all the smoke from wildfires in neighboring states, there was a layer of smoke over the city.  It was kinda neat to see it from above.

Here are some quilting projects that have been keeping me busy.  First are HST made from the corners left over from the quilt made a while back that used all those circles I stitched.  Each square had four corners trimmed off when the circles were cut out.  I didn't want to just throw all those corners away.  I trimmed each set and made about 96 pinwheel blocks.  They will finish at 3" I think.

They are all pressed nice and flat by "spinning the seams".

I still haven't decided how they will go together but there are enough pinwheels to make a nice sized little quilt.  Maybe a doll quilt or if I add alternate blocks, a baby quilt.  The blocks haven't told me what they want to be yet!

Another project was these little pocket prayer quilts.  They measure two inches square and were really fun to make.  These are simple four patches, fabrics cut at 1 1/2" .  They are layered with a 2 1/2" piece of muslin inside and a 2 1/2" backing fabric square.  I stitched around each quilt, leaving an opening to turn them right side out.  I ordered some tiny crosses on Etsy and placed a cross inside between the muslin and backing fabric.  Then topstitch all the way around and I used embroidery floss to tie the center of each little quilt.  

This little poem was pinned to each square.

My original plan was to use these as hostess gifts when it was my turn to host out Bunco games but that was suppose to be July and our governor didn't allow groups larger than six, so that didn't work out.  We did finally get to have Bunco for October so I took the prayer quilts and handed them out then.  Everyone loved them and it was so much fun being able to get together again.  

All the Christmas sewing if finally finished.  That kept me busy for a long time but I can't show the table runners I made until I get them gifted to the kids.  I will take one to my son in a couple weeks when we go to my DGD's birthday party.  I am so excited to see the Grands again.  I got the birthday girl a new baby doll, went to a local resale shop and bought two newborn size sleepers so she can change the dolly's clothes and Grandma can't give a baby doll without a little quilt, so here it is.

I found this panel in my stash.  It is trimmed to about 30" square, I machine stitched top to bottom and side to side through the center them hand stitched around some of the shapes printed on the panel.  Add a binding and it was a quick little quilt and pretty cute, too.  

This next project has been brewing for a while.  The pattern is from a Fon's and Porter Love of Quilting magazine from January 2019.  I had to wait until I found just the right background fabric for it.  I was able to use lots of leftover scraps in there, too.  I raided my bags of small leftover bits, anything I could cut a 1 1/2" square from went into the nine patches.  The pattern called for strip piecing but to clean out all the scraps and get lots of variety some of the nine patches were pieced from 1 1/2" squares.  There was lots of cutting and sewing but the variety was worth it.  At least I can say that now.  They were sewn over several weeks and it did get a bit tedious at times.  Some were strip pieced but lots were not.  Then, I tried to just grab and stitch but I am a bit of a control freak at times trying to mix all the colors and prints up really well.  Now that it is a top, I love it.        

I got the backing fabric last week and will start hand quilting it after I finish what is in the next photo.  I wanted to do a baptist fan design but maybe not.

It has been almost three years since my Mom passed away and my sister gave me some of Mom's UFO's to do something with.  This is one of those projects. 

 

This quilt is made up of twelve 16" blocks, each a different print with the white background.  I wasn't sure how to quilt it so it sat.  I got the fan stencil and decided it would work for Mom's UFO.  I have been working on it for a couple weeks in the evenings.  I do like the design but maybe doing two quilts in a row with the fan design will be too much.  I love the stitching but I hate the marking! ! !  Another issue I had was some of the fabrics in this top are cotton but I think the white fabric is a poly cotton mix.  I don't know how many years ago Mom made the top but it has lots of issues.  I started trying to fix some things but it would take forever.  I finally decided to just leave things the way they are and quilt it as is.  That's the way Mom made it and it will stay.  The top looks good on the right side, the wrong side is something else.  There are a few crooked seams that I think will quilt out.   Once this is finished I will pass it along to my oldest daughter.  Maybe I can have it finished before Christmas.  

These two quilt tops leave me with a lot of hand stitching and it is going to take a while.  I want to start another project but I better make progress with these first.  

Tomorrow is a big day here.  Our dishwasher broke about the middle of August.  The new one was ordered and suppose to be in by the end of September but no.  They just called today, said it is in and will be delivered tomorrow!   It has been a long time.  It was just another thing to go wrong in 2020.  Washing dishes by hand really dries my hands so much.  I have been using rubber gloves and using lots of lotion buy my fingers get so dry handling fabric and my skin cracks and hurts.  I am so excited to know it will get here tomorrow.

Well that's about all, I will try to do better with writing and answering comments.  I do read everyone's blog each day, sometimes it is just hard to write a comment.  I will do better, I promise!

2020 has gotten to be so hard.  With the election commercials, the medicare commercials, the scouting abuse lawyers commercials, our governors inconsistent rules concerning the virus, the dishwasher breaking and who knows what else, 2021 will hopefully be better!

Take care everyone, stay safe and healthy and enjoy your quilting, you all sure have some pretty things you have been working on!