WINTER FABRIC SHOPPING

I really have not done much of anything this week other than make zipper pouches.  Taking down Christmas and trying to get all that put away has taken up more time.  I did discover that while I have loads of wall hangings and table runners in spring, summer, and fall prints and colors winter themes are zero.  So why not take a bit of a trip to my local quilt stores.

So, time to make a couple of winter table runners.  I think this red print is my favorite.  I did realize that winter colors are not easy to find anything though.  Not much out there to work with.

Now these are not winter prints.  But I love this type of fabric and have often used this for backgrounds on some of my appliqué projects.  Not sure what I plan to do with these, but I do see a quilt in the future with them.  

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AND WE ARE OFF INTO THE NEW YEAR

 Time to roll into a new year.  This past week has been so nice and with all the craziness of Christmas over I could just relax and slowly get back to a normal schedule.  Sometimes though not sure there is such a thing as normal.  

Right after New Year's Day I decided to treat myself to some new fabric.  I have no idea what I plan to do with it, other than the top left fabric with the old pickups and the blue matching fabric.  My husband was shopping with me and liked it, so it will become some placemats for our table.  We use placemats for daily dining, I suspect others may end up getting used for that purpose too or a table runner for us or as gifts.  

I have three rows of my scrap quilt finished, and the final row ready to add.

The layout has become interesting.  I just had a picture of a block off Facebook, so no real idea how to lay it out and fabric scrap pieces were limited.   I am pleased with it.  It will probably go to my charity group with a prepared binding and they will quilt it and finish it off.  

Other than that just continuing to work on some zipper pouches for my guild's upcoming quilt show boutique.  The plan was to clean out my stash of zippers, which has not worked.  Once I started these pouches they have become a bit addictive and I have had to purchase zippers to match the scrap fabrics and left over mesh I had.  Thank goodness for Hobby Lobby's 99 cent zippers.

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ENCHANTED GARDEN FINISH AND A FRESH IDEA TO START OF THE COMING NEW YEAR

 Yes I finished Enchanted Garden and it is going off the quilter in January.  Still making some zipper pouches too. Christmas is over but Hanukkah in full swing, with four more days to go, and a new year ahead for us all.  

Enchanted Garden is finally done!  Just one more tiny chore to do on it.  A few of the vines on the ends need a bit of fabric glue to get them to stay down well.  I fuse my vines and sometimes the folded over bottoms come a bit loose.  So they need a little extra glue to keep them down. 

I saw this quilt block on a Facebook site and thought it looked interesting.  I have a drawer full of left overs and thought they might look nice in this block pattern.

I did adjust the block size and lay the four pieced block parts differently.

Selected fabrics and ran with the idea.

And row one started.  Just one more block to add to it, which will be a repeat of the first block on the left side.  The blocks will finish at 12" and I am thinking I would like to finish the quilt top at 60" by 72".  It may end up at just 60" square depending on enough of the tan fabric which I hopefully have enough for that extra row.  

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WILLIAM MORRIS WONKY QUILT FINISH AND ZIPPER STASH REDUCTION PLAN

With Christmas this week and also Hanukkah as well, life is pretty crazy around here.  Between baking, getting shopping done and a meal plan together and the tree up we have been super busy.  When life is this hectic I still try to get into the sewing room a bit in the afternoons just to escape the mayhem of the season.

I finished the William Morris wonky block quilt top.  This piece was so much fun. I was successful in doing a good deal of clean out of my fabric stash.  These blocks do seem to produce a good deal of waste, but the idea was to eliminate some of that stash of fabric and it did do that and I am very happy with the results.  So off to the quilter next month. 

I finished up all the table runners I plan to do for my guild's quilt show boutique, which left me with a good deal of leftover fabric.  I decided to take those and make these little 11" by 11" zipper pouches.  I had a drawer full of zippers from a project years ago, and this was a great way to use them and the scraps left over from the table runners.  Not sure how many of them I will end up with in the end, I just keep making them as long as I have fabric scraps and a zipper to match.  

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WONDY BLOCKS AND BAKING

 This week has been pretty productive.  My Christmas shopping is done, most of the Christmas decorations are up except for the tree.  Just waiting for the pecan harvesting to be done, so I can clean up the house.  We have had a pretty good rain and windy storm come through so what ever nuts are up in those two trees are down now and we are done with that mess.

Last week I happened onto a blog with a post showing a wonky block quilt and thought it might be a great way to finally rid myself of a bin full of scraps and bits and pieces of my William Morris fabric stash.  Several of those fabrics had birds and other animals on them.  Appliqué projects leave one with a lot of bits and pieces cut into the yardage.  This was a great way to utilize them.  

These are the last 2 blocks to finish off this quilt.  I do plan on some borders as well.  These blocks will be 10" finished and with a 4 or 6 inch border will make a nice size quilt.

We got our baklava baked earlier last week.  It is a rather lengthy process but well worth the effort.  Still have Pizzelles to do this week.

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THE WEEK OF THIS AND THAT

This past week has been full of family events.  We enjoyed a week's  visit with our oldest daughter, a grandson's birthday and husband's and my 60th wedding anniversary.  My daughter and I did get into my sewing room and I was able to send her off home with a great load of scrap fabrics, some patterns and quilt books I was no longer using or interested in.  

My quilt guild has a Warm Wrapping charity unit that makes about 350 quilts a year that are given to 5 different local agencies.  About 20 of us make the quilt tops with kits that are made up by us with donated fabric, others quilt them and bind them and yet another take them home and sew the finishing of the binding down.  I am in the group that makes up kits, sews quilt tops together, and does the finishing binding.  I just finished 3 quilts with hand binding them this past month.  This particular quilt I fell in love with.  Very difficult not to keep it and exchange it for a couple of finished quilts I have made and willing to give up for this one.

I just love this quilt.

I had a goal of 60 table runners for our upcoming guild's January 26 quilt show's boutique.  I wrapped that project up this past couple weeks.  Yes, 61 table runners all at 13" by 28".  

I ended up with a good deal of leftover fabrics and happened to have a stash of zippers and decided that these little zipper pouches might be a good addition to the boutique.  They measure about 10" by 10" or 10" by 11" depending on the scrap leftovers.

Simple quilting fronts and backs.  I  will fiddle with these for a few months and see what I come up with.  I find these little projects like the runners and these pouches as good relief sewing from more complicated appliqué projects I am working on for myself.

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QUILTS TIMES FOUR

Well Thanksgiving is over and we have Christmas coming fast.  Time to get out some Christmas runners and wall hanging over the next week or so.  My daughter has come for a week from Colorado for a brief visit bringing 4 wonderful quilts that she has made for 4 mens in her family.  So thought I would share them.  She is a new quilter with just about 2 years now under her belt.  But she has really taken off with it and loves it.  

These first two quilts were made as gifts for her brother in laws that live here locally.  They were made with batiks and are just beautiful. 

Lovely quilting done on those two.  

This one was made for her godson.

The quilting is really outstanding.  Her quilter is just fabulous.  

This one is for her step son, the kid's tall so it is pictured sideways.  I love the unusual pattern on this one.

Again some really great quilting.  I think I need to talk to my quilters and see what I am missing.  

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ATLAS ZIPPER CASE

I took a break for a few days this past week and got involved with Kristina Brinkerhoff's Center Street Quilts, Atlas Zipper Case pattern.  Just needed a break from table runners, and my appliqué project.

Have to admit the pattern took a good deal of reading and study.  Kristina did provide 5 mini lessons on her blog site which were somewhat helpful too.

I chose to use mesh rather than vinyl for the pockets.

I had a minimal supply for matching fabrics to work on with the floral print I selected as well.  I had a stash of zippers in various colors so worked with what I had.

I did get it done.  I did not put the zipper on that closure of the case.  It required a 30 inch zipper, and I was not interested in running out and buying one.  Lots of storage as the areas behind the zipper pouches are open and one can slip a pattern under them or fabric and the blue pouch extends under the floral one and the floral one is just a small pouch.

All finished just folds in half like a book at 8 by 10 inches and open at 16 by 10.   I think if I were to make it again I would do the zipper closure.  Especially now that I have the directions all figured out.

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CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS AND A LITTLE BIT OF OTHER STUFF

 I don't think I have managed to get a great deal done this past week in the sewing room.  Harvesting pecans has taken up a good deal of my sewing time.  Plus some out of town company, birthday shopping for a grandson and early Christmas shopping.

We have some good friends that we have coffee with every Tuesday.  Stan and Barbara invited us along with 2 other couples that we meet with each week to their home for coffee last Thursday.  Barbara decorates her home for Christmas.  Oh yes, at least 30 trees and as you can see lots of other decorations.  She starts in September.  Unbelievable!

Barbara's husband Stan is not to be under done by his wife with his beautiful garden.

 

I am hoping to finish up the last Garden Patch Cats pattern this coming week for my daughter's Cat Network fundraiser.  I have had such fun making these.

I did manage to get another William Morris block done on Enchanted Garden.  Still needs to be stitched down, but making good progress to getting the piece finished.  

I think I will be moving it down from its center top to the bottom center, right now placement is a bit up in the air.  Besides I have to make 2 more large blocks.  I am waiting until those are done to finalize their placement.  

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WISTERIA AND PECANS

Feeling somewhat in a rut these last few weeks.  Thinking about doing something different for a bit of a change.  Maybe time to pull out a couple quilt books and do something different. 

I have another Enchanted Garden block in the works.  Not going to deal with the butterfly. 

It is time to finish this project.  I have been working on it for years.  The goal is to finish by the January 2026 quilt show.

The hang up has been the quilting on the blossoms.  I am not a free motion quilter. Never have been able to get the hang of it  This is done by twisting and turning the piece under the machine to get the nice curved quilting done. So doing this quilting on the project is a monumental chore for me.

I have four more of them to accomplish and it is finally time to get myself together and do it.  

I have kept all the thread colors together so best to just grit my teeth and get busy.

I have been a bit busy on this project with husband.  We have two large pecan trees on our side yard and it is harvest time.  He is busy knocking the hulls out of the trees, then once hulled they go in the oven for a couple hours, then shelled, then dried again and into the freezer.  I think we are on gallon bag number 7 about 4 or 5 pounds of shelled nuts a bag.  My contribution is picking the hulls off the ground and putting them into the buckets and vacuuming up the shells off the dining room floor after he finishes shelling them.  And oh yes, the Christmas baklava!