To Do Tuesday: Not Long Before the Month Ends!

We are getting closer to Thanksgiving and the end of the year is already starting to feel like it's rushing to a close!  Heck, even Bonnie Hunter will be releasing the start of her annual Quiltville mystery a week early!!  So before the holidays step on the gas and I get run over, let me check in for another "To Do Tuesday" chat along with everyone gathering at Carol's over at "Quilt Schmilt"!  

I managed to stay mostly on track during the last week so moved a few of the things on my "To Do" list forward.  

So the plans from the last report were:  

1.  Continue stitching the "New York Skyline" cross stitch project.  I'm expecting it will take me until a little past next week's check-in to get through Page 4 of the pattern.  

It is moving along but in doing so I realized that "Houston, we have a problem"!  I am here on my fabric....

And like the year, the end is near!

... but I have this much more of the pattern left to do!

When I finish that building, I have a whole bridge still to stitch!

Oh no, what happened?  Well, what happened is that I am still a cross stitch-Noob and misread the pattern!  For some reason when I started this, I thought this was the last page and stitch count:  

So I started in the middle here:

But in fact the pattern is one page longer and the end stitch count is this:

As experienced (aka: not me) CS-ers know, most good cross stitch patterns have a marker that shows the midpoints (both horizontal and vertical of the pattern.  This one was no exception:

But of course I didn't look for that or even notice it until now, sigh!!  Needless to say I've already stitched too far to consider starting over and love it too much to abandon it.  

I actually think I may be able to save this by taking off some of the excess fabric I have on the left side and somehow attach it to the right side to extend it, even if it means I might have a visible seam on one side of the finished piece.  Another option is to leave off the bridge on the right side or stitch it split onto both sides.  I'm not sure I like either of those options.  

So I'm going to keep stitching and finish this page and then give some more thought to a potential solution before starting in on the last page.  Definitely a hard but very good lesson learned for future projects!!  

2.  Finish stitching the remaining three September "Alaska" BOM blocks.  If I can, I might also try to start the cutting for the October blocks but there's no pressure on getting to that.  

Done and Done!

September blocks completed.

Next up to bat!

I had some issues stitching the blocks this time around:  they were a lot harder to get flat in the center.   After stitching the second of the four blocks,  I went back to Marti's instructions and followed them closely like I did when I began this project.  The last two came out a little better but not as flat as my test block had been.  

One thing I did learn was that for these blocks with pieced triangles, it is actually better to piece the blocks a little differently than in Marti's instructions:

There are options when adding those corner triangles.

Marti instructs that you can add the last corners either to the corner triangles first (which she preferred) or add them after.  When using the plain triangles, adding them first works fine.  However, I found that for the pieced triangles, you had more flexibility on which way you can flip the seams to butt the intersections if you wait until the end to attach the corner triangles.  I also think that I was probably rushing to get these done so might have stretched some of the diamond points this time around which I didn't do to the test block.

Fortunately, the blocks I will be doing this week (technically the blocks I should have cut out and stitched up back in October) are also made with pieced triangles, so I will get another shot at improving my technique for making them.

In the course of sewing the BOM blocks, I also got a few more of the scrappy Kaleidoscope blocks I've been making done as leader/enders as well as another "Scrappity-Do" block too.

3.  Continue to think about plans for "fully finishing" the two Christmas-In-July cross stitch pieces. 

I'm thinking of continuing with the ribbon theme so now have to decide whether to go with a fabric strip to channel that or consider making another "pieced ribbon" to extend down from the bow.

4.  Start work on the new Fall wool wallhanging.  

The only thing done there was that I printed out all the applique templates onto freezer paper so now need to iron them onto the wool I'll be using and cut them out.

In addtion to the "To Do" list items, when I talked about the quilts I finished during Sept and Oct , I had mentioned a new project related to one of them.  I had made another quilt using Shelly Comisky's "I Love Sn'Gnomies" flannel fabric line for Henry Glass Fabrics and had discovered two rag pillow designs also using fabrics from that line.  I picked up a kit for one but when it came, I decided I wanted to incorporate more of the fabrics I had left over from the quilt just made since this pillow will reside with it.

Note the differences in the kit picture and the fabrics I've cut out.

When I realized I'd now have a bunch of the kit fabrics I wasn't going to use,  I also realized that the two Fat Quarters from the line sent for the pillow backing was another of the kit prints I'd like to preserve.  But then how to fill out the backing?  

Turns out it was not a problem as my flannel stash came to the rescue!  Actually in this case, it was once again leftovers from a long ago project in that stash that saved the day.  

I had used this fabric for the backing of my "Brrr!!" quilt back in 2013.  It was not only perfectly colored but also perfectly themed to fill the bill for this new project!  I did have to do a little "poverty piecing" so I could keep the integrity of the directional fabric to make the two pieces needed for the pillow back.

So everything for the pillow is now cut out.  I put the fabrics I took from the pillow kit with what I have left of one of the original fabrics and it looks like that will be the start of yet another stash of FQs for yet another "Sn'Gnomies" and/or 9FQ quilt!

And the FQ on the left will be added to my flannel stash.

So my plans moving forward for this week:  

1.  Continue stitching the "New York Skyline" cross stitch project.  The question is how will I resolve the issue of placing that last page?

2.  Stitching up the October "Alaska" BOM blocks.  If I can, I hope to also start the cutting for the next (November) blocks but like last week, there's no pressure on getting to that before next Tuesday.  

3.  Continue to think about plans for "fully finishing" the two holiday cross stitch pieces. 

4.  Start cutting the parts for the new Fall wool wallhanging.  Even though it already feels like winter, I'd love to get it made before the Fall season officially ends!  

I know that a lot of people have been busy working on projects in honor of Fall or to prepare for holiday decorating and gifting.  I'll bet we'll both find many of them over at "Quilt Schmilt" for this week's "To Do Tuesday"!