Up for a Challenge

First off .... this is where I spent my Xmas holidays ..... sick with a cold and sleeping in this chair.  Xmas Eve, my sister picked up fruit from me and made the fruit salad for the morning festivities.  I was supposed to make it, but was in no condition to do the work.  Then, Xmas morning she picked up all of our gifts for the family and later dropped off hubby's and my gifts to us.  A niece sent us videos, so we were able to see some of what went on.  I'm feeling much better now, but still coughing and nose blowing.

 Well ..... I usually don't participate in challenges, but felt with a bit of thought, I would keep up the challenge for the next 10 months.

Lately, I have found that about 5-6 UFO's get completed each year ..... along with some new starts.  

Overall, my UFO list is going down, just not as quickly as hoped for.

Now, for the challenge, this is what I've signed up for:

If you blog and want to join in, then contact Deanna at this link:  https://dreamworthyquilts.blogspot.com/2023/12/chookshed-stitchers-2024-challenge.html  The challenge runs from January to October 2024.

Now for the challenge .... what has been chosen?  Anyone knowing me, knows that I always do things differently.  If I don't then I simply lose interest and that would be unfortunate.

So, without further ado, this is what I'm going to work on.  These UFO's involve a lot of hand work and if I can work on them for more than one month ..... the better to get them finished!

#1- Just Leafing Around

#3 - Almost Amish

#5 - Star

#7 -  Got Circles

#9 -Rail Fence Delight

What about #2, #4, #6, #8 and #10?  The challenge does run for 10 months!!  Here is the twist.   The UFO's shown above will take more than one month to complete.  I just don't want to work on them for a month and then bin them up again for the next month's number.  I want to finish them to top stage.  So, for the even number months, this is what will be worked on with the possibility of still working on one of the above UFO's.

No numbers are being assigned, just listed and depending on the month, something will be chosen and it will be talked about then.

NICU baby blankets

gift or donation quilts

adult bibs

adding hanging sleeves onto quilts

frankenpiecing batting

QAYG Log Cabin

Why am I not putting a number to any of these?  For donation quilts, there are two drop off dates and I want to be able to meet each of those dates and thus pick up those projects suddenly.  

Will I be at the cottage or at home?  No electricity at the cottage but hand work can be done there instead.  In the odd numbers and even numbers, there are hand work projects, so I'm covered for both.

For frankenpiecing batting ..... there are bins and bins and bins still remaining even though a wee dent has been made this year:

Once I get some of the pieces sewn together, they can be used for the NICU baby blankets and also for my QAYG Log Cabin or for one of the donation quilts.  See, thinking ahead!

For adding hangings sleeves onto quilts ..... well, in this pile there are eight quilts and that should keep me busy for a while.  I keep procrastinating doing this job and need a push.

In this bowl are felt tabs that get pinned onto the back of a quilt and then hung up for display.  This work is tedious and once the hanging sleeve is added, then this work gets eliminated.  Not to mention all the pin pricks that happen during the process of pinning, hanging up and then unpinning.

So, that is my wish list to work on for the year.  I will be quite happy to achieve most of them.  My choices will give me the flexibility to work on and finish some projects.

In closing, this is a project that was started at the beginning of this month.  It just needs borders and it would be most welcome to finish before year end.

So, that is where I'm at ..... can't believe another year has flown by.  I always like to have a clean house and freshly made beds for the new year ..... so, must get busy and do a bit here and there.

Bring on 2024!  Do you think we can have some peace in this world for all?

Cherish your day, cherish your life!

Collection for a Cause - Friendship

I've been working on this UFO whenever I had a moment to just sit and sew.  Slowly, but surely, it is starting to come together.

Cornerstone fabric was selected, but it needed something.

Circles in the cornerstones!  Yes, that did the trick and so I started to applique the circles onto the fabric.

You can see that I did a mish mash of sashings and I love the look!

My original plan was to use white in the side setting triangles, but found this red printed fabric that suited better.  Major problem .... the beige cornerstones looked blah against the printed fabric.  So, all the cornerstones were pulled .... any circles that were appliqued were ripped out and white fabric was used instead of the beige.  Much, much better.  The fabric looks pink, but is a red print.

I'm pretty close to finishing the center of this top.  Just one more section needs to be sewn onto the top and bottom sections and then borders can be added and I will be happy to call this UFO done.

The stars aligned in my favour this week and ..... viola ..... we have a completed top!  Backing is ready.  Just need batting and I will probably be using scraps that will get frankenpieced.  This UFO is done.

Binding was sewn onto my log cabin quilt.

Sewing down the binding happened and before I knew it, 1-1/2 sides were done.  I'll putter away at the remaining sides and finish it before year end.

I've been noticing that my hubby has been having difficulty eating his dinner.  We like to watch recorded t.v. programs and sit in our comfy chairs while eating.  So, I got handy in the garage and made him a tray that would sit onto the arms of his chair and sit higher so that he can eat better.  His food now doesn't end up on the floor from his shaking hands.  I've been doing more and more work that my hubby would normally take on and I'm becoming quite handy with tools ..... which is quite fun to work with!  LOL  When I told my sister what I made, she laughed because she never knows what I will end of making these days.

Yesterday, a friend sent us this photo that she had taken of us just before we moved from Toronto to North Bay.  How much we both have changed in 11 yrs.; especially my hubby.

Life is getting busy right now.  I'll be back in the new year with a recap of all that got accomplished this year.

Whatever you celebrate, happy holidays and a Happy New Year.

Cherish your day, cherish your life!

November Binding Challenge

Well, both no-blog Mary and I met our monthly challenge.

Mary hand quilted her small piece and then bound it.  You can see the before and after.

Then, she outdid herself and made a diaper changing pad and bound that one too!  Bravo Mary!

For me, both these quilts were done and donated.  These were shown in this November 6th post with more details.

Life is busy for both of us right now and we may just skip the December challenge.  If by chance, I do find time, then this is the quilt that I will bind.

Cherish your day, cherish your life!

Oh hexie, hexie, hexie

The left hand side of this section has been added .... now onto the right side.

.... and, before I knew it ..... just like that ..... this section is done.  Three rows added to the top and bottom!  Just need to do the remaining three sections.

I needed to clear up my design wall to get this UFO up and running.  More on this for a later post.

In order to clear the design wall, all my hexies for the other sections were carefully removed and pinned and labelled onto this fabric.  Don't these hexies look wonderful on that dark fabric?  This is giving me ideas for my next EPP project .... because after this one is done, there are no EPP projects to do.  Mind you, I do have a quilt-as-you-go hexie project .... but why not have another one to fall back on?!  LOL

My sister and I went back to the cottage to set up a bucket mouse trap.  No photos taken, but we are hoping that this will work.  We also caught a mouse in the garage a few weeks ago.  They are looking for warmth and food and any opportunity they come in.  We have had mice in our garage and also our home, but a simple mouse trap is easy to set up and maintain and check on.  Our cottage is closed until next May and if mice do get in, they make a bit of a mess and smell.  So, that bucket is our next option to try out.  In the past, we have set up mouse seed and they do work somewhat, but the mice still make a mess.

Of course, we stopped at the bridge again to take a look at the dam.  What a difference a few days make.  The ice has really taken hold and doesn't the fall of water look interesting with the ice forming at the base.  

The lake has now frozen over with a layer of snow on top.  The ice is not safe to venture onto until we have had a few weeks of very cold temps.

I've been busy making pillowcases for toddler pillows.  No photos.  I just made them and passed them on.

My two grandnieces wanted stockings for their hamsters for Xmas.  One is called 'cow' and the other is 'hammy'.  What do you think of their drawings so far?  I just drew the stocking outline onto the fabric and told them not to draw beyond the solid lines.

Here are the finished stockings.  They had tremendous fun drawing and colouring their designs onto the fronts of the stockings.  The hamster names will be written at the top onto the headers.  They are so thrilled with their stockings and I'm quite proud of them!

On my hubby front .... he is getting help with his speech.  His stuttering is what twigged me to get him diagnosed for Parkinson's.  He does have frozen moments and words just can't come out of him.  I'm glad he will get some help.  It must be so frustrating for him, but he deals with it best he can.

So, that was my life during these past few days!

Cherish your day, cherish your life!

Just a hexing away!

Not much got done on this UFO ..... busy doing more chores for the winter here at home and at the cottage.

As you can see, just a few hexies were added to the left side of this section with the right hand side still to be done.  This is a good take along project for this winter and I will work on it here and there.

These are the bits that will be added and they are grouped in sections so that I don't get confused.  They are just pinned onto an old machine quilting mat that I've hung onto just for this purpose.  Doesn't my quilting look good?  That was way back when I was going to do my own quilting on my domestic sewing machine.  Scrap that idea but hang onto the mats to be used for whatever.

This past weekend, members of the family went back to the cottage to do a burn of brush that were in piles along our cottage road.  No photos were taken, but a good deed has been taken care of.  A burning permit was obtained and the fire dept. called for permission before starting the burn.  The pile burned into the night but snow fell to help keep the embers contained.

A few of us stayed the night and once the temperature gets below freezing, it is a quilt and a blanket kind of sleep.

My sister and I stopped at the bridge to see the progress of the be.a.v.er dam.  This dam has been flowing like this for over three weeks now and it is still flowing.  It is times like this when we wish we had a drone to fly back to the beyond to see what and how many dams are back there.

Ice is starting to form along the edges of the pond.

While looking down at the footing of the bridge, I spied a fish skeleton.

Here is a closer look.  Odd place for that and we wondered what animal had a meal.  We did see an eagle this summer, so maybe it caught the fish and ate it at the bridge.  Who knows.  Just a wonder of nature.

There is a slight depression just at the entrance to the bridge and water that accumulated there has frozen.  Our tires broke up the ice as we drove over it.

At the cottage, ice is starting to form on the lake.  Here you can see the ice at the lake shore and also out towards the center of the lake.  Wherever you don't see any ripples on the surface of the water, that is where ice is forming.

I could hear a motor running and what sounded like ice being broken up in a bucket.  What in the world?  I walked to the edge of the lake and took this photo of a boat (that blob in the water) breaking up the ice in the bay.

My sister and I need to take one more run to the cottage.  We seem to have a mice problem and want to try a bucket trap.  We have heard it is quite effective.

As I write this post, it is snowing outside.  Will it stay or melt?  

Cherish your day, cherish your life!

UFO Time

This old UFO got pinned onto the design wall in hopes for some inspiration to suddenly come to light ..... and I figured out what to do.

First off,  my star was going to be at the centre and then go with circles.  No, that won't do.   The circles were just not enough. ... as in .... blah!

How about alternating one of the circles with leaves.  Yes, this works for me.  

Then, I decided to lengthen the top by adding 3 rows to the top and bottom of each section.  While pulling fabrics, I found that quite a number of fabrics used are not around anymore (they got all used up) and I had to put in new fabrics along with any of the older fabrics so that the new rows would not look too different.  Below is one section almost complete and ready for assembly.  There will be some ripping out to do first, but it will not be too much of a problem.

This week, four more quilts were picked up from the LAer.  That will probably be it until the spring as I just don't like driving the highway during winter.  I mentioned that tidbit to the LAer and she had thought the same thing.  The older we get, the less comfortable we are about winter driving.

So, this winter will see me working away on my UFO list and that is always a good thing!

Hubby and I have just finished our chores in readiness for winter.  A list has been made so that nothing will be forgotten for next year.

Cherish your day, cherish your life!

Promise of Spring or Serendipity

Either title is perfect.  This is a Kim Diehl ..... or, rather, my version of her pattern.  

In the magazine that I used, it is known as "Promise of Spring" but in her book "Simple Comforts", it is known as "Serendipity Sampler".

You can read all about how this quilt differs so much from her original pattern.  Just go to the label at the bottom of this post and click onto Kim Diehl and you will be able to read about all her quilts that I have made in the years gone by.  Going and looking at all those posts, it was a refresher for me too and was quite enjoyable to read them all.

How lovely my quilt looks resting on fallen leaves.

I had to put my initials and date when this was finished.  It took me a long time .... as in years ..... to pluck up the courage to send this out to be machine quilted.  So, so glad that I did because now it can be fully enjoyed and used.  

Bins of my stash of  plaid/striped charms, yardage and thrift store shirts were pulled out and used .... and I really, really need to make more quilts with these fabrics along with applique.  There is just something about the whole look and I just want to take lots and lots of photos of my quilt ..... but don't want to bore you either!  LOL

This, by far, has to be my favourite quilt!  

Quilt Details:

Source:  "Promise of Spring" in American Patchwork & Quilting, February 2007 issue.  Also, in Kim Diehl's book  Simple Comforts (pattern name changed to "Serendipity").  I have both but bought the magazine first and that is what I worked from.

Started:  June 2013

Top Finished:  March 2014 .... but then added additional borders in 2023 to make it bigger before sending it out to the LAer.

Quilt Finished:  October 2023

Quilt Size:  99-1/2" x 100-1/4" (top size before quilting, washing & drying:  101-1/2" x 101-3/4")

Batting:  Hobbs poly

This was such a pleasure to work on and I still amaze myself how it changed from Kim Diehl's original pattern.  I loved it so much that it just had to be bigger to fit my queen size bed.

Machine quilted by:  Kathy Wareham using Edgewood #1 design by Christy Dillion of My Creative Stitches.

A few final photos of this quilt on the wall in our foyer.   I hope you enjoyed reading about this project as I worked on it.

All I can say is "amen"!  LOL

Cherish your day, cherish your life!