Cuteness Overload

I hope all my readers had a salubrious Christmas.  We spent Christmas Eve with the Nashville family and the Brooklyn grands.  The almost 4-YO great-grand waited patiently for her turn to open a gift from Gigi and Great-Grandpa.

Her mother is an incredibly-talented crafter who usually works with paper.  Take a look at these sweet felt ornaments she made for me.  The smiles make me giggle.

She taught herself to embroider making them.  Talk about talent!  They look so cute on my little tree that will probably move to my sewing nook after Christmas.  

Best Wishes to all for a Happy New Year!

Taking a Hiatus

In spite of my best intentions to stay up with Bonnie's mystery, holiday preparations have taken precedence this week.  At least I made a decision to proceed with my substitute color for her coral.  I wasn't sure how purple would look next to turquoise so I made one unit.  I opted to use a light turquoise and I think it works!

I tried to imagine how the square-in-a-square would be used -- my guess -- ant it's not too bad!

Though I will pay more attention to the shades of purple that might go into the same block next time.  I did manage to make six units before I had to wrap gifts and clean up the house for company coming.

I have some last-minute stitches to make on some gifts and packing to do before we head to Nashville to celebrate with the great-grand's family.  In case I'm not able to get back on line amidst the hustle and bustle, I'll take this opportunity to wish you all a Very Merry Christmas!

Beating the Clock

Whew!  I whipped up another batch of  half-square triangles today, just in time for Bonnie Hunter's mystery Clue 5 tomorrow.  They need to be trimmed, but I'm now to my goal of half-done to this point.

This week has been so full of appointments and Christmas gift wrapping/mailing that I really doubted I would have any time to sew.  I still have gifts to wrap for the locals, but I have until the 23rd to accomplish that.

Guess what arrived today?  The new Baby Lock foot pedal!!!  

I had ordered a new one from a sewing machine parts place, but it was on back order from their supplier.  So I finally cancelled that order and went straight to Baby Lock.  You may have been wondering 1) why didn't she think of that in the first place? DUH ... and 2) how could she "break" her foot pedal? ...

Can you see what's missing?  There used to be a spikey connector thing (technical term) that broke off when I was raising the machine out of it's hole in the table.  In the meantime I've been making do with a Janome pedal that barely functioned, but if I put my foot in the "right" place (not always the "same" place) I could make the needle go up and down.

Time to wine down for the day.

Decisions Decisions

I made sure I finished the last checkerboard for Bear Country II on Thursday so that I was ready for Clue 4 of Bonnie Hunter's mystery when it was released on Friday.

I think this is the final layout, but I'll have to complete Christmas prep before I can begin the assembly process.

Hmm, Clue 4 -- Remember, I said that I had not selected a third color ... I suspected this clue would include it and so it happened.  Time for decisions.

A little back story:  I went with Bonnie's turquoise and I was drawn in by what she calls "coral"  and my "soft orange" fills that bill -- except I've been using it where she used red!  Now, with Clue 4, I'm faced with making a decision for the third color.

My husband favored going with the red but the one we felt might work was a little too bold for my taste.  I looked at the inspiration fabric Fairy Dust and saw some lime green in there, but it was a little bland with the background fabrics.  Then I noticed a lot of purple in Fairy Dust and that's what I went with.  After all, purple is Kona's Color of the Year for 2025!

I managed to cut 8 sets with fabrics from my scrap bin.  I put a scrap between each set as I ran them under the needle.

Look at how neatly they piled up behind my machine ...

My problem is a shortage of that color/shade in my scrap bucket.  Time to send husband downstairs to find something on my fabric shelves.  Stay tuned ...

OTM Update and Other Things

After a binge of quarter-squares at the end of last week,

I'm happy to report I am now over halfway on all three mystery clues!  I'm running short of my soft oranges so I may have to shop.  Also, I have no plan on what I'll use in place of Bonnie's other red ....

I have a busy week coming up so I'm glad I won't be stressing over the mystery.  I worked on my second Bear Country quilt (formerly known as Shadow of the Bear) over the weekend.  

I threw in the towel on the last shadow block as I didn't have enough of the background fabric to finish it.  So instead of 13 shadow blocks and 12 checkerboards, I'll make one more checkerboard to complete 25 blocks.  I will need to work on the layout to balance the lights and darks, plus I have used a variety of background fabrics so I will attempt to have some logic in my block placement.

But first, it's time to get out the holiday decor!

I've Been Doing It Wrong!

My least favorite unit/block to make may be flying geese.  No matter what method/ruler I use -- and I've tried them all -- they still come out wonky. 

Another least favorite activity is reading long instructions.  I've been quilting for at least 25 years and in that time I've just about done it all.  So when I see a familiar unit/block in Bonnie Hunter's mystery, I just forge ahead and do it the way I've always done it.  Clue One is a bunch of flying geese. I've always pressed the "goose" up to the "wings."

After making almost half of the required geese, I happened to notice that Bonnie recommends pressing the first wing down, and the second one up. 

I tried it!  And it does reduce the bulk at the intersection, just as she says.  But mine are still wonky ...

Old Town Mystery

Yes, I'm fully committed this time -- well, half-committed.  I am going small initially until I see where this is going.

Like I said earlier, Bonnie's colors really spoke to me.  So I went searching in the new "sewing annex" in the bedroom for possible fabrics, trying to avoid asking DH to bring piles up from the fabric shelves downstairs.  Indeed, I had a collection of fabric that I had pulled for another project that I have decided not to pursue.

Tula Pink's Fairy Dust is my focus/inspiration fabric.  I don't have enough of it to be the overall background fabric so I will supplement it with a solid light gray.  Aquamarine and soft orange will be my other two colors.

Clue 1 - I have most of the "wings" cut for half of the flying geese and four sets complete.  My goal is to finish one set each day.

Clue 2 - I toiled most of this morning and, amazingly, I am only 30 short of half the tiny 4-patches.  

You can see that my pieces will be scrappy.  I've had to dig deep to get enough soft orange.  I might need to go shopping!

Holiday Update

Normally we alternate Thanksgiving and Christmas between our sons' homes in Nashville (Son-1) and Conway, Arkansas (Son-2).  But this year we were able to have everyone join us at a state park halfway in between!  All contributed to the festivities with food, games, and lots of good humor.

Son-2 with family on the left, Son-1 with his bride on the right, SIL in between.  The other two grands are married and living in the Northeast.  We'll see them at Christmas time.

I think there's something sexy about men in the kitchen ...

Ash. the artist, helped me with an art project from a picture I saw on Facebook.  

Safely home now and ready to get back to Bonnie's mystery, Clue 2.  Hope y'all had a safe and festive holiday.