To Do Tuesday: Now Really Starting the November Projects!

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. 

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:

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: 

The supplies for a wallhanging called "Midnight Garden"

Nope, didn't have time to get to that one yet either!

So the plans for this week are not much different than last week:  

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.  

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!