Tag: Fresh Cut Pines Quilt

2021 Project Round-up

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Because it’s fun to see everything in ONE BIG POST!

January: Was busy with the kids returning to in-person hybrid school. Which meant I sewed up A LOT of face masks.

We had a power outage, and during that time I crocheted some little hearts to go on my Christmas tree, which I decided to keep up through February as a Valentine’s Tree because it is so freaking’ dark here in January and February that I’ve decided to keep up all the white Christmas lights for the extra light.

I also started knitting a sweater for myself at the end of the month.

February: I finished up a Kindness KAL shawl for Em, and I got through both sleeves of my sweater. I also sewed up a few more face masks.

March: I finally finished my Echo Flowers Shawl!

Denise and I decided to do a “Bestie Sewing Challenge,” where we both bought yardage of the same fabric and made stuff from it, just because we were bored out of our skulls with the dragging on of the pandemic and needed something to be excited about. I made myself a skirt from McCall’s 1369.

I picked the Peacock Feathers Stole back up and started working a few rows a day.

We also finally did some Pysanky, which was the real creative highlight of the month for my kids.

April: I made a pencil skirt for Em (McCall’s 5523) out of the leftover Bestie Challenge fabric, and I started working on my McCall’s 6696 (M6696) Birthday Dress for myself. Worked some more rows of the Peacock Feathers Stole.

May: I finished my Lavender Birthday Dress. There wasn’t a lot of crafting going on because I was super busy in the garden, and M6696 is a surprisingly hand-stitching heavy garment. Kept chugging away on the Peacock Feathers Stole.

June: I made a big, swirly skirt for Rachel because she was suddenly obsessed with big, swirly skirts. I also started working on my Violet Chambray M6696. Very busy in the garden, and we started doing a lot of cooking from scratch, which took up a lot of our time. I also kept putting in time on the Peacock Feathers Stole.

July: So much gardening. So much cooking zucchini. I embroidered the lavender wreath wall hanging and started on the “Un Alfabeto a Fiori” wreath. I started stitching an EPP couch cushion, which still isn’t complete because I don’t know how I want to do the borders. I also started working on the Mini Charm Chiffon Baby Quilt for Fat Quarter Shop. FINISHED the Peacock Feathers Stole!

August: I got a parasite after forgetting to wash my hands after cleaning bird feeders, and spent most of August being excruciatingly ill. My foot was also a big, painful mess and it was decided we’d do surgery on it in September.

September: Finished up the Mini Charm Chiffon Baby Quilt top and my corded petticoat right before my surgery. Spent the rest of the month working on the Un Alfabeto a Fiori wreath embroidery.

October: Finished embroidering the wreath, started embroidering my historical pocket. Started work on my flounced petticoat. Also appliqued pumpkins to a purchased black circle skirt for Renaissance’s “1950s Witch” Halloween costume.

November: Cheered by the excellent healing progress in my foot, I kind of went nuts with the idea that I’d do some epic Christmas crafting prep. I finished Nathaniel’s Fresh Cut Pines quilt and Em’s Yuletide Botanica Orange Peel quilt. I also finished Rachel’s Ombre Heart Mitts. I started quilting the Hipster Christmas Trees quilt.

December: The Great December Sickness hit and took. me. out. I did, however, squeak through with finishing the Hipster Christmas Tree quilt. All other projects saw virtually no time put in on them, but I did do some really great thinking about crafty organization and the like, and came up with an excellent game plan for 2022, which I will share with you tomorrow!

Are you one of those people who just always thinks they aren’t doing enough? I am. That’s why I do these round-up posts and crafty goals things–they make me aware of how much I do actually do, which makes that Perfectionistic Taskmaster Voice in my head quiet down a bit and give me a little peace. It was a busy year; it had a lot of weirdness going on with the pandemic and trying for some semblance of normalcy, and I had a lot going on with injuries and illnesses, but still managed to get a decent amount of projects finished. I like that.

And yes, I have way too much planned for 2022. ‘Cuz that’s how I roll….

Thanks for cheering me on this year, I’ve appreciated it very much. Hopefully you’re all sitting back and thinking through your own 2021s and realizing that you did good, too. And hopefully you’ve got some exciting plans for 2022. Because we have all definitely earned some of that. Good job making it through 2021, y’all. Here’s to a better 2022…

#craftygoals: December 2021

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A new month means some new goals!

I’m hoping to finish the Holiday Patchwork Forest quilt, the Christmas Sew Many Stars quilt, and three secret knitting projects this month, which I will lovingly refer to as “Secret Knitting No. 2: Stripes,” “Secret Knitting No. 3: The Pattern I Don’t Like,” and “Secret Knitting No. 4: Fair Isle.” I probably can’t even show you the yarn for Nos. 2 and 3 because the intended recipients would probably figure them out, but I think I can get away with showing you mystery shots of No. 4 once I get going on it.

November’s #craftygoals were a success! I finished the Fresh Cut Pines quilt for Nathaniel’s bed, finished the Yuletide Botanica orange peel quilt for Emms’ bed (but haven’t done the photo shoot yet, so no finished pictures just yet), and finished up Secret Knitting No. 1: “Rainbow Ombre”.

Whew! Christmas season is always a whirlwind of projects, and I’m thankful for the focus they’re giving me this year while things still feel a little unsettled. It’s good to have projects and it’s good to have goals. I hope you have great success with your goals this month!

Finished: Fresh Cut Pines Quilt

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You guys, I finished a thing! Like, completely finished it all on my own! I made a plan to finish a thing and it WORKED. No crazy injury to derail the plans, no pie-in-the-sky wishful scheduling that was impossible to maintain…just realistic, practical planning and showing up to do the work and it made me actually finish a thing. That is a big freakin’ deal to me because finishing things has not been something I’ve excelled at for the past year.

And it’s a Christmas quilt! For my kid! And he loves it! And it’s for Christmas! I love Christmas quilts! I finished a Christmas thing!

The details:
Pattern: “Fresh Cut Pines” from the book, Winter Wonderland, by Sherri Falls of This and That Patterns.
Fabric Collection: “December Magic,” by Emma Leach for Blank Quilting (from my brand ambassador days), paired with some random greens from my stash.
Background Fabric: “Fog” Bella Solids by Moda
Backing Fabric: A fantastic one-inch red buffalo plaid 108″ wide backing made by Windham Fabrics, Style #51462
Quilting: Aurifil 40 wt in Natural White in the needle, and Aurifil 40 wt Red in the bobbin. I quilted straight vertical lines, 2.5″ apart. I now wish I’d done a little more, but I was nervous about quilting my first twin-size quilt and wanted to keep it super simple.
Dates: I pieced this during May & June of 2020 and quilted it this November.

I’ve mentioned before that it is my dream to someday have a Christmas quilt on every bed in my house during the holiday season, and this is the first such quilt towards making that dream a reality. I am extremely, extremely pleased with its completion!

Sew little time…

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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!

Quilting the Fresh Cut Pines quilt

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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!

How are your holiday crafting goals coming along?

Crafty Goals: November 2021

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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!