Em & Renaissance with Nathaniel after his band concert! (Rachel was at her own rehearsal and had to miss it.)
Last week was a doozy! Nathaniel had his first band concert and Rachel was in four showings of our school district’s drama production, complete with rehearsals from 4:00-7:30 pm on the days leading up to the shows, and then she had to be at the theatre from 5:30-10:00 pm Thursday and Friday for their first two shows, and from 12:30-10:00 pm on Saturday because they did a matinee and evening show. I drove back and forth from the school 3-5 times each day! But she had a blast and it was a great show, and hey, that’s parenting.
Which meant not a lot of crafty times, but I did finish the Fresh Cut Pines quilt, label and all. I don’t have pictures of it yet because it’s been really rainy and a disc in my upper back went out Saturday morning, which incapacitated me for the entire weekend. Sigh. I have plans to take the quilt’s beauty shots over Thanksgiving Break while I have helpers available during the day.
I pulled out the Yuletide Botanica orange peel quilt this morning to start working on it, and after having a bit of a lazy crafter hesitation, decided to go forward with attaching a border because it will look better with a border, even though I didn’t want to take the time to do it. (And yes, I’m glad I did…it really does look better with the border…) I also basted this bad boy and now have the aching back to prove it. I’m hoping to get going on the quilting tomorrow, as long as everything goes as it should during the day.
I am so ready for the Thanksgiving holiday. Hopefully I don’t have to go anywhere Friday and Saturday so I can just plough through all my wonderful Christmas prep activities! I just want to be at home, sewing all the Christmas things!
Alright, then, crafty friends, we’re at the end of the first week of reinstituting crafty goals and WOW did I get stuff done this week. All hail the power of setting goals!
I had to rip and re-sew on the top border of the Fresh Cut Pines quilt because I originally sewed it on upside down, and then it needed one more solid border all the way around. I basted the quilt sandwich on Tuesday, and would have started quilting it too, but the power went out at my kids’ school and I had to go pick them up and deal with the aftermath of all that.
So I started quilting it Thursday while my kids baked and giggled downstairs, and it was a great, warm and fuzzy kind of day. I’m shaking my head over how fast this quilting is going now that I finally just started doing it. You ever just psych yourself out about even starting a task? Quilting is one of those things for me. Sewing in sleeves is another. And then one day you just start doing the work and voila, you’re done in a fraction of the time that you thought it was going to take to do it all. Sigh. Oh, Anxiety, you relentless liar.
Nathaniel is really excited about his Christmas quilt! Despite telling him quite a few times that I’m making it for him, he keeps forgetting that it’s for him, so I’ve been able to witness him go through “initial” excitement over this quilt a number of times, which is very heartwarming. It’s going to look so great in his room during the Christmas season!
The secret knitting is coming along nicely as well. (I totally want to keep this project for myself.) I finished up the first half of the project and am starting work on the second half today. This project/gift should be done by the middle of next week, easy. Yay!
I’ve got more secret knitting to do after that, and I’m trying to decide if I use a stash yarn that…will suffice, or order new yarn that will elicit feelings of perfection. I’m leaning towards sufficing because I’m apparently super jazzed over finishing UFOs and using up stash right now, and it’s probably best to capitalize on that feeling. The new yarn I want to order will probably happen eventually anyway (like for next year’s version of this project), so it’s not like I’d miss out on that yarn in the long run. I’m strung out on the feeling of being responsible, y’all…it’s been a long time since I felt like I was on top of things and it’s nice to experience this again!
I’m resurrecting the idea of monthly crafty goals because ever since I stopped making them, my crafting performance has plummeted. Let’s hope this little bit of effort gets me back on track. (Although, to be fair, the last couple of years have been kind of crazy and full of obstacles that massively hampered consistent ANYTHING.)
Alright friends, it’s November, and the Christmas bug is biting hard. For years I’ve outlawed Christmas sewing this late in the year because of how stressful it can be, but I’m throwing that out the window this year because…I’m a grown woman and I can do what I want.
With all the slowdowns in shipping happening, I made the decision to not wait for Black Friday sales to order my kids’ gifts, which meant I needed to access my gift list that I update throughout the year. Whenever a gift idea pops into my head, I just jot it down in my little gift app, and come holiday gifting season I have a ton of ideas. And, shocker, there’s a lot of handmade gift ideas on that list. Many of those handmade gifts are already in-progress but living in some “time-out” pile in a shadowy corner of the craft room.
Well…the more I read through my gift lists, the more I liked the idea of checking some of those projects off, which has stoked the fires of Mt. Mojo and has me pretty excited to start working on them again.
November’s list is big, but most of these things are almost done, so I’m hoping they’ll go quickly?
Fresh Cut Pines quilt: One of my Blank Quilting projects from last year, it just needs to be quilted and bound. I keep hoping that I can send out my quilts to be long-arm quilted, but they’ve now been sitting for over a year. That means it’s time to just suck it up and quilt them myself, even if it’s just straight line or serpentine quilting. Done is better than perfect. This is Nathaniel’s Christmas quilt for his bed, and I still haven’t made him a regular day-to-day quilt, so his Christmas quilt is the first on the list so that he can have some sort of quilt to his name!
Yuletide Botanica Orange Peel quilt: Another Blank Quilting project, needs borders, quilting and binding. This is Emms’ Christmas quilt, and seeing how the kid is a senior in high school, it’d be nice for them to have their Christmas quilt done before they graduate.
Some secret Christmas knitting: A little gift for a special someone, and that’s all I can tell you at the moment.
If I’m going to limit myself to “practical goals,” I think I can feasibly get those three done this month. However, we all know I like to plan big, so there is hope that I’ll…somehow…magically…also be able to finish:
Patchwork Forest quilt: aka The “Hipster Christmas Tree Quilt.” I can’t believe I made this two years ago. Remember life before COVID-19? Those were the days. Anyway, I was going to hand quilt this one, but I really disliked the process and ripped out the hand quilting. It’s got a beautifully thick Mammoth flannel backing that makes it an incredibly heavy quilt that I cannot wait to snuggle under…the quilting is going to have to be extremely simple on this one because it’s a beefy blanket! I think I added borders to it to make it twin-sized, but none of my kids has claimed it for their own. It might live on Renaissance’s or Rachel’s bed until I finish up their requested Christmas quilts. And if not, it will make an excellent living room quilt.
Sew Many Stars Christmas quilt: Remember how I designed a whole quilt along last year? Geez, I kept myself busy! (Probably too busy, though…hence the almost zero amount of quiltiness that happened this year…oi.) It needs quilting and binding, too.
So yeah, it’s a big list, and I’ve still got to be careful to not overdo stuff with my healing foot. I’ve got the Fresh Cut Pines quilt up on my quilt wall as I type, and I’m already lamenting the supremely simple quilting I’m going to have to do to get it done. BUT…I wanna use this quilt, and if I wait for perfect conditions to finally get it sent out, I’ll be waiting a long time. There will be time for better-looking quilting in the future, but there’s not a lot of years left with my kids being at home and it’s important to me for them to have Christmas quilts on their beds. I don’t know why, but it is. Straight-line quilting will accomplish that, and someday, when I have my own long-arm quilting machine, I’ll do fancier quilting and we’ll wax poetic about the early quilts and their simple quilting designs.
Onwards!
What are your crafty goals for November? Are you doing any holiday crafting, too? Let me know and we can cheer each other on!
I love how this one turned out! Fat Quarter Shop is releasing a new pattern called the Mini Charm Chiffon Quilt and it is PERFECT for quick little baby quilts. Just four Mini Charm packs and some background fabric and you’re good to go!
I chose to use the “Flowers for Freya” fabric collection by Linzee McCray because I absolutely love the color palette that she uses in her collections. It was a few little sewing sessions and then it was done! It finishes at 36.5 inches square, which is a great size for a new baby quilt. Excellent for baby shower gifting!
Thank you, Fat Quarter Shop, for inviting me to participate in this little sew along! You can subscribe to receive a notification when the quilt kit becomes available–shipping delays have impacted when the sample fabric will be available. (Also, they sent me the fabric to sew up in exchange for my time and posts–transparency and all.)
And thank you to Rachel for being my quilt model on this one:
We made it to the end of the sew along! We’ve made it to the end of 2020! When I volunteered to take on this task at the beginning of the year, I didn’t imagine in my wildest dreams how this would end up going this year. But I’m glad we at least had this little block of the month to keep us connected. Thanks for going on this journey with me, and thanks for the little texts and Facebook messages with pictures of your blocks! I love seeing them!
So here it is, the finishing instructions for this quilt:
I hope your quilts come together with ease and I look forward to seeing them in actual real life AT SOME POINT when all this craziness has passed us. Pat yourself on the back for finishing this up! Good job!
As always, if you’re posting your block to Instagram, please make sure to tag it with the #crystalquiltersbom (If you’re a member of the guild) and #sewmanystarsquilt hashtags so we can find your blocks!
When I volunteered to do this Block of the Month, I don’t even think I’d heard of COVID-19, and we got a late start on it because of quarantine and not knowing what the heck was going on. But here we are, nearing the end of a very long year, and I’m so glad to have been able to offer this little spark of light to you throughout it. Hopefully your quilts are looking good, and I hope that the time when we can finally gather in-person to see each others’ blocks arrives sooner than later.
I left this block until to the end because I didn’t know how I was going to be able to “draw” it in the PDF. I gave up and just threw in some actual photos on the second page of the pattern. If the directions are a little unclear, this block has a lot of pattern explanations all over the internet…I did my best.
You can download the instructions for the Martha Washington Star block here:
Fat Quarter Shop contacted me a while ago about sewing up one of their new patterns, the Half Yard Jam Quilt. Seeing that I’d like to redecorate my bedroom, and the quilt is queen-sized, I jumped at the opportunity.
It’s an easy pattern–simple seams and BIG blocks. I got it done really fast once I got through the headache of starching my fabrics.
The pattern uses eighteen half yard cuts and I decided to make mine out of two boxes of those beautiful Art Gallery Color Master collections that always get me dreaming whenever I scroll past them on Fat Quarter Shop’s website. I decided to use the Fresh Waters and Coraline collections.
I think this will be a GREAT pattern for wedding and gift quilts–fast, modern, and you can definitely showcase the personalities of recipients. And, obviously, it will work well for indulging one’s desire to redecorate without going overboard with an overly-complicated new quilt.
Thank you, Fat Quarter Shop, for inviting me to join you on this new pattern’s release! I really love this quilt and can’t wait to finish redecorating so I can start using it!
OK, let’s see if my blog is finally going to let me publish an actual post…it’s being weird this week, and coupled with how lousy I was feeling yesterday, I decided to just wait out the bug. A few hours late shouldn’t hurt anyone’s plans, I hope…
We are getting so close to the end, you all! How exciting!
If you’re posting your block to Instagram, please make sure to tag it with the #crystalquiltersbom (If you’re a member of the guild) and #sewmanystarsquilt hashtags so we can find your blocks!
We’re starting to get close to the end of our sew along! School has started, and hopefully that means a little extra time in your sewing rooms! Alright, this month’s block is the Shoofly Star Block:
If you’re posting your block to Instagram, please make sure to tag it with the #crystalquiltersbom (If you’re a member of the guild) and #sewmanystarsquilt hashtags so we can find your blocks!
Welcome back for the sixth block of our sew along! [insert confetti here]
This month’s block is pretty easy, which I find I need during the summer months because there’s not a lot of time for indoor sewing when the kiddos are quarantined at home with no distance learning to keep them entertained. (Oh my word, this year…)
Friendship Star within a Star:
PLEASE NOTE: If you’re following the original pattern’s color choices, the star points have been red up until now, but as of this block they are now the lime green color.
If you’re posting your block to Instagram, please make sure to tag it with the #crystalquiltersbom (If you’re a member of the guild) and #sewmanystarsquilt hashtags so we can find your blocks!
That Crafty Cara 