Whew, just made it under the deadline -- the New Year rings in a few minutes from now!
One last finish for 2025:
"Gathering A Garden Is A Snap" is now d-o-n-e! Details to follow tomorrow.
And finally another thing I can move out of the studio and call done: a long desired label!
Well it's prepped anyway. I'll attach it tomorrow and again, more details to follow. Now to go celebrate the ball drop!
On the way to New Year's, the days of cleaning up continue! On Day 3 yesterday, I got started on two more projects: an accessory I've long wanted to make and a project I had expected to complete back in the Fall.
The accessory: A little dresden spool pin pad!
This is my second mini dresden project in a little more than a week! I've been dying to make one of these ever since I saw it on the Singer Featherweight Shop site many, many, many years ago. So what took so long to make it? Well first of all, when I first put my machine in service back in 2016, I had purchased one of these:
Since I already had a cute spool pin pad, I admit I was in no rush to make it. Then it was deciding what fabrics to use for it. When I made another "Catchall Cutie" and a pop-up trash bin for my Featherweight travel set, I finally settled on going with a red and white color scheme. I then combed through my scraps for the blade and center fabrics and made up the plastic templates to make this up. However my little kit has still sat, moving from spot to spot in my quilt space waiting for a good time to make it.
So when I started compiling my "7 Days" list, I decided that this was one of the things that finally needed to get done! The other reason I was excited to make this is that it calls for something special: in the pattern, they use a Singer Buttonholer attachment to make the eyelet buttonhole for the center. This would be the maiden voyage for mine!
At the time that the Singer Featherweight shop debuted the pattern they had also started selling vintage refurbished buttonholers. They also sold the vintage eyelet cams which are hard to find and so very expensive (whew, I see they are even more expensive now than they were then!). They also had new custom molded eyelet cams manufactured which are more reasonably priced.
However, I found that buttonholers often came up for sale on eBay and eventually snagged a nice one for $20. However, while the one I got came with a lot of cams, it didn't come with the eyelet one. Eventually I found out on a vintage machine chat group that a company called Greist also made buttonholers around the same time that Singer made them and the cams they made were identical to the Singer ones. Not being as well known a company, there are also alot of those on the eBay market and of course are a lot cheaper which is how I eventually got one for my machine.
Now you may wonder how a straight stitch machine like the Featherweight makes the zigzag stitches needed for a buttonhole: in this case, the machine needle doesn't move side to side, the buttonholer moves the fabric!
That video is the test I ran on the unit yesterday. The manual for it says you should oil and lubricate it "for each day of use" so I had to take the unit apart to do that. Hmmm, if people really did all that back in the day, no wonder these things last forever!
If you are interested in the pattern or a kit to make the Dresden spool pin pad, you can purchase them from the Singer Featherweight Shop here. For details about the buttonholer and how to also use it for monogramming (!), check out their blog post about the attachment (that also has a detailed video of it in use) here.
The WIP: "Gathering A Garden" wallhanging
Over the Summer and Fall, I had finally got this long over due project moved off of the UFO list and onto the WIP - Flimsies list.
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| The top and pieced backing. |
I had even given some thought to how I wanted to quilt it and came up with a simple plan for that. However, a busy Fall meant that I never moved forward on that until now. Another reason why it has taken a bit to get to that is that I had planned to make up a "Frankenbatt" for it to use up a bunch of batting scraps. I finally got that done yesterday.
Okay, not the smoothest assembly of batting but hopefully it will quilt okay. So today's task was to get it all layered -- Done!
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| I could barely see all the pins in the picture..... |
For the past few year's I've taken a cue from various "countdown to the day" blog hops and quilt-a-thons and embarked on my own during the after-Christmas period. I've found it is usually easier than normal to chill out, check out and put in extra time in my quilt space while I await the start of the New Year.
As far back as October, I had started making a list of the things I wanted to try to tackle during this period. Needless to say the impetus as I roll towards the end of the year is to also try and clear out a few things so as not to carry them into the New Year.
There Was Some Christmas Gift Quilting Done
Speaking of clearing out, I did do a little prior to Christmas as well. Since the biggest Christmas gift I had to give was this one finished back in October.....
....I only had to wrap it along with a few other treats I was sending with it. My husband and I took it over to its recipient on Christmas Eve where it was well received!
I also made three bowl cozies. One was for my MIL which arrived in North Carolina yesterday. When we had visited her back in October she had been frantically looking for the "Yellowstone" one I had made her last year and that she had misplaced. I found her frenzy about it funny since she's a quilter and can make her own. She even has access through her guild to the Accuquilt die for cutting them out, LOL!
Even though she has since located it (hidden between some stored fabric as I had suspected), I made and sent her a new backup one along with the Peanut Butter cookies I bake for her this time of year. We are going to be working on curved ruler quilting on her longarm when I go back down to visit her in February and I took the opportunity to do a little of that on it with my domestic machine. Unfortunately, in my rush to get it packed up and out in the mail last weekend, I forgot to take a picture of it which seems to be a theme as you will see.
I made the other two for a friend of mine who I share a love of certain TV shows with. I finally made good on at least some of the plans I've had for a while to make ones for us for a bunch of shows. This week I got one done for "Call the Midwife" so we'd have them just in time for the airing of their annual Christmas Day special. I also made a (long over due) "Game of Thrones" one which can now serve in honor of the "Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (Dunk & Egg)" GOT prequel coming out on January 18th. Since these were also rushed into production and packaging to get the gift out in time, I forgot to take pictures of those too! However, yesterday for Day 1 of the "7 Days" projects, I got to work on two of the same for myself.
I had actually miscut by a 1/2" the fabric squares for the two for my friend so had to cut new squares to complete hers. I then planned to use the miscut squares to make cozies for myself and to see if it actually made a big difference in how they'd come out. One of the reasons I had opted to re-cut the fabric for hers was that I used these precut batting squares for them to save some prep time:
Having cut the fabric squares to be used with them the wrong size, I didn't want to have to cut down batting that was already prepped. For the mis-cut squares for my cozies, I cut new batting squares and trimmed them with this:
I had purchased this template back when I first embarked on the project of making multiple bowl cozies. While it is primarily designed to be used for cutting the corners when you make bags, Carolina Moore who designed it also has a pattern (available in print or digital) for using it to trim the parts for bowl cozies. I had used the template to cut the rounded corners on the fabric squares I used with the pre-cut batting pieces but also love that it has notches to cut the side darts for squares cut from my own batting.
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| Inside and Outside of the finished cozies (although they are also reversible). |
Ta Da! They are not quite as wide and deep as they should be even though I thought I adjusted the length of the dart on the smaller pieces of batting enough to make them so. However, they still work fine with a soup bowl. It's actually good timing to get them done since DH and I didn't get to watch the "Midwife" special yet, so I can use mine when we watch the recording of it this weekend. I still have plans for cozies for at least one more show that my friend and I both like but since it doesn't come on again until the summer, that can wait.
The last of the Christmas gifts I worked on this week was for another friend of mine who I've made a lot of things for before. She is a big fan of Gnomes so I am often on the lookout for things with that theme for her. Two years ago while doing the All Carolina's Shop Hop (and note they are changing the regions and dates for next year), I came across a cute little Fall themed applique mini quilt kit in one of the shops. Hanging near it was one of those Ackfeld hangers just the right size for it. So of course I bought both!
Back in November when I planned to work on a wool applique wallhanging for my home, I also pulled out her kit and figured I could make it up along with it and get a Christmas gift done too. Well, while I only got as far as tracing the templates out for my wallhanging, I did sit down this week and make up her mini quilt!
Ironically, plans for us to get together for Christmas fell through but we are going to do a meet-up in January and exchange Christmas gifts then so now I'm all ready for that!
Catching Up on the December To Do List
Unfortunately, all of the actual plans I had for December quilting and cross stitch fell by the wayside this past month. After having an incredibly productive Fall, it looks like I had burned myself out since I didn't even sit down to stitch anything until the week before Christmas! So the "7 Days" task for Day 2 today was to do some catch-up which first and foremost was to cut out my "Alaska" BOM blocks for this month.
Originally my plans for December had been to make these blocks which would have continued the "pieced triangle" journey I had been on for the last few months.
However, I needed to make eight of those so rather than stress myself out with just a few days of the month that I have left, I decided to pivot to making a block that has the simpler plain triangles and for which I only needed four blocks. However as I gathered the stash I needed to make the blocks I thought I was going to make, I happened to glance at the bag where I've stored the blocks finished to date and saw these:
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| This picture was taken right after I made them back in November. |
Turns out I had actually made these up the day before Thanksgiving and totally forgot I had done so! Guess that means they must have been pretty easy to make huh?!? Fortunately there was another set of "easy" blocks that needed to be made up. So now these are the blocks I made today for my December BOM blocks:
Now that they are finished, I can put this project away until I'm ready to start the blocks for January. I am also thrilled that I've managed to stay on track on this project!
So the plans for Day 3 tomorrow is to work on a couple more "clean-up projects". I also realize that one of the projects on my list -- a "to be quilted" project -- I may actually save to take with me to finish at my MIL's in February. Hmmm, that means I'd need to find something else for that spot. Well, I certainly have plenty of candidates around for that so we'll see what happens!
This video popped up in my YouTube feed yesterday:
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| Watch the video here: |
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| Their discussion starts in the video at about 23:00 minutes in. |
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.
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| And like the year, the end is near! |
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| When I finish that building, I have a whole bridge still to stitch! |
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!
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| September blocks completed. |
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| 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 Michell's instructions for making these Kaleidoscope blocks and followed them closely like I did when I began this project. The last two came out a little better but still 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:
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| 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.
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| Note the differences in the kit picture and the fabrics I've cut out. |
Then 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 set of fabrics I purchased and it looks like that will be the start of yet another stash of FQs for yet another "Sn'Gnomies" and/or 9FQ quilt!
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| And the FQ on the left will be added to my flannel stash. |
So my plans moving forward for this week:
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!
5. Construct the Sn'Gnomies rag pillow.
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"!
It's time to take a look at the week ahead by joining Carol at Quilt Schmilt for another "To Do Tuesday" linkup:
So last week's plans were:
1. Once again resume stitching on my "New York Skyline" cross stitch project and finish Page 3 of the pattern. I may also work on my "Open Your Heart" project if I feel up to it or am so inclined.
Page 3 of "Skyline" did get finished on Saturday....
...and I've already started on Page 4.
With the start of this new page, I've also finished up another skein of the floss I am using for this project: three pages done and three skeins down! No worries there as I had purchased extra skeins when I started this. I still have three more and only two more pages to stitch so think I will safely make it to the end.
I also decided that it would be best to do "NY Skyline" as a "monogamous stitch" for now. If I can finish it up by the end of the month, then I could do the same for my "Open Your Heart" project during December and maybe get that one finished by year's end.
2. Cut out the "Alaska" BOM blocks for October and November. I will try to also start stitching up the September blocks and plan to try to finish the blocks for all three months by the end of this month.
I quickly realized that was too much to try to do in one week especially since I spent all of last week writing and editing all of the "two-month-catch-up" blog-posts. I still have three weeks left to this month so I decided that it was better (as Miaismine who blogs at Faith Trust and Breast Cancer says) to do a more forgiving "soft focus" plan. So now for this "DIY BOM", I will work on the September blocks this week, the October blocks next week and finish the month with the November blocks during the last week.
To that end, I did try piecing one of the September blocks to see how it would go.
Not that hard but definitely a lot of pieces to work with! As I noted when I started this project, I am using Marti Michell's Kaleido-rulers to make all the blocks for it. As I am making the project blocks, I have also been taking this opportunity to fully explore using the rulers to make a variety of different Kaleidoscope blocks and designs as I make the different styles of blocks that I need for the project. Marti discussed the different styles of this type of block in her book "Kaleidoscope ABCs":
I am now very glad I had picked this up back when I first purchased one of her rulers! One of the things I learned as I went through her book is that I could use her rulers to make "Morning Star" Kaleidoscope blocks.
This excited me for a very good reason: I have an Accuquilt die cutter and have long been a fan of their "BOB" dies (Block On Board). These are dies that cut all the parts for a particular block. One of the dies that has long been on my wish list is their "Morning Star" die:
The great thing about "BOB" dies for a complex block or one that has a lot of pieces like this one is that it will cut all the pieces for a block with one pass through the die cutter (or sometimes two depending on how you plan to color the block). However, given the cost of these dies, I always carefully consider which ones to get since most "BOB" dies only make the particular block in one specific size (one of the few exceptions to this is their Log Cabin die).
So before committing to buying one, I will consider how often I am likely to use that block in that size. Until now this was one of the things holding me back from getting this one. As always Accuquilt offers more than a few lovely (and free!) designs that make use of the die, like these:
However, I didn't necessarily see myself making more than one or two of them. Realizing now that I could make that block with Marti's rulers, I was excited because it meant I could make it any size I wanted, albeit with a little more effort to cut it out than if I was using a die.
So I pulled more scraps out of the giant box I have sitting in my space and tried a couple of different layouts based on the block used in Accuquilt's "Morning Star Tricolor Quilt" pattern:
With the final choice made, I've put together a block:
The Accuquilt die cuts a 12" finished block but I made mine to be 8" finished with plans to use (or possibly give away) it as a mug rug. What was also good was that I sewed it up as a leader/ender along with the first September "Alaska" block.
3. Sketch out some plans for "fully finishing" the two Christmas-In-July cross stitch pieces.
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| Displayed here with the "Patchwork Bow" made for a blog hop. |
Nothing done there yet except hang them on the design wall to employ the "stare at it until an idea comes" design method, LOL!
4. Something new I'd like to work on this week is that I haven't put out my Fall decorations yet:
I did finally get a few of those up yesterday:
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| Pat Sloan's "Thankful" wall hanging, "Give Thanks"cross stitch and "Apple Crisp" quilt. |
After hanging up the Thanksgiving cross stitch piece I "fully finished" in 2024, I had the idea to add more pieces around it to help fill the space on the wall and hide some of the 3M hangers already in that spot for hanging other things I've made.
When Joann's had gone out of business earlier this year, I had picked up a few mini "hoop hanger frames" in the hopes of making some "smalls" to add around the circular piece. I love the idea of these and recently 123Stitch did a video on them on their YouTube channel. I'm also thinking that I might like to make a flat finished word banner to hang below the little floral basket that says something like "It's Fall 'Yall" or "Pumkin Season". We'll see if I get anywhere with those new squirrels, LOL!
I also said I had a new Fall piece I wanted to start working on:
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| The supplies for a wallhanging called "Midnight Garden" |
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.
3. Continue to think about plans for "fully finishing" the two Christmas-In-July cross stitch pieces.
4. Start work on the new Fall wool wallhanging.
Trying to keep the plans light this week! Wondering what others crossed off their "To Do lists from last week? If so, head over to Carol's blog Quilt Schmilt for "To Do Tuesday" and find out!
