Finish #36 and Christmas Progress

 I know it's Halloween today, but I've never been a Halloween fan. For those of you that love the spooky holiday, I hope you enjoy it!

For me, this week has been all about Christmas! I really love Thanksgiving too, but DD#2 is planning to host Thanksgiving, so it's not really on my radar. I am determined to get the gifts I want to make done for Christmas this year, instead of giving up like I often do. I've made huge progress this week, and I'm now completely done with seven of the grandkids gifts. I've even got some of them wrapped. 

This I don't mind showing on the blog, because the grands are getting these early! I made them all a Christmas pillowcase, and they need them early so they can have a little bit of Christmas decor in their rooms for the holiday season. Next year they'll be getting Christmas pillowcases too, but the fabrics will be reversed, with the candy canes as the main fabric, and the sloths on the cuff! I've already got those done as well. I bought two bolts of Christmas fabrics for about $1 per yard, and I had the red and white stripe in stash. I thought pillowcases were a fun way to use the fabric, and give the grandkids some Christmas cheer in their bedrooms. If you like this idea, check the after Christmas sales and get some fabric at really low prices for next year.

This quilt had been a UFO for way too long. I think I started it in 2017 or maybe 2018. It's now finished and I'm really happy with it. My sister thought I should make one with Christmas fabrics, and it would make a spectacular Christmas quilt. I think this one will hang on my quilt rack in the living room for a bit so I can enjoy it a while before passing it on. 

Next up in the FMQ queue is my Viking murder mystery quilt from last year! I'm going to be taking a year off of mystery quilts, in hopes of finishing up the ones I haven't finished yet, and next year my sewing focus won't be on quilts. Don't get me wrong, I'll still be quilting next year, my FMQ an hour per day will still be the first thing I do each day, and I already have some deadline quilts lined up for next year. The thing is, I have a lot of things I'd like to sew that don't result in a quilt, and that will be a main focus next year. 

And The Last Shall Be First

 When I was figuring Christmas projects, I knew I needed to finish the projects to be mailed earlier, and the local stuff could wait, if needed. Per usual, life happened and that's not the way things worked out. 

Since I've got lots of non-quilting related Christmas gifts to make, I knew I'd be taking a break from piecing for quite a while. I still FMQ an hour per day, as quilting and binding only get done on my Janome, while most non-quilt related projects get done on my Bernina. Christmas is coming up faster than I'd like to think about, so I'm just not piecing at all right now. I do have some smaller quilted projects planned for Christmas, but they aren't my main focus yet. 

Two of my grandsons just asked for Minecraft quilts, when I had just made them both new bed-sized quilts for their last birthdays. I'm not making a new bed-sized quilt every time they ask for one, but I figured I could make them throw-sized quilts for Christmas. They live locally, so I knew if I didn't start them until December, it would be tight, but I'd probably finish in time. 

Life is funny sometimes, and since I've been cutting in the evenings, I decided I'd just go ahead and cut those quilts. Then, since I kept having grandkids for multiple days at a time, with only a couple days between, I couldn't get knee deep in Christmas projects, but I could do a little piecing on those off days.

I had picked an easy pattern for the Minecraft quilts, then, since they were smaller, I snagged the time to baste them, and before I knew it, they were finished!

And that's how the Christmas presents I thought I'd be making last minute, ended up being the first finished! 

The Minecraft quilts are also finishes #34 and #35 for the year. I happen to have five more quilts basted, so can I make my goal of 40 finishes this year??? Two of the basted quilts are king sized, so we'll have to see. I did a quick count in the quilt closet this morning, and I have just over 40 quilt tops hanging in there, but a few of those need borders, so some are not quite finished. I already have a list of deadline quilts for next year started, so I'll be making some quilt tops too, though I have a lot of non-quilt sewing planned for next year. Could I hit 40 finishes two years in a row??? That would be awesome, and definitely help me lower my number of UFO's. DH retires the end of this year though, and I have no idea what that will do to my sewing time. I guess time will tell, but I'm really hoping to hit 40 finishes this year, 10 more weeks left this year for 5 finishes? I think I can!

I did start some of my other Christmas sewing this week. Most of my Christmas sewing I won't be showing on the blog, but I know the grands getting the Minecraft quilts won't see my blog, so those are safely shown. 

Last weekend, DH and I took a drive to Bisbee, AZ, and hit up one of our favorite shops to buy balsamic vinegar. I bought several bottles of balsamic, but we also hit several thrift stores on our way back. DD#2 has me searching for yarn for her, as she's started a crochet business. I did find her some yarn, but I also snagged some fabric, like I needed any more.

One of the thrift shops in Sierra Vista, AZ had at least a dozen bolts of cotton fabric. All of the bolts were at least half full, and each bolt was priced at $20. The bolts were originally 15 yards, and I bought three of them. The two bolts of batiks in the red/orange colorway each have about 8 yards of fabric on them. The bolt of Asian Inspired fabric has about 12 yards. At one point in my life, I likely would have come home with all the bolts. I kept debating if I should buy any of them at all, great price or not. I decided to think about the quilts I have plans to finish in the next 12 months. Since there was quite a bit of yardage on these bolts I could use the fabric for backings. I have at least four quilts, if not five, in a red/orange colorway that need to be basted. Those all need backings, and the two bolts of batiks won't even be enough to back them all, so those were my first choices. I have an Asian Inspired quilt that needs assembling, and it will be king-sized, so that bolt of black? I'll need ten yards of it for the backing on one quilt. I can't even buy the 118" wide backing I'd need for that quilt for $20. 108" wide backing won't be big enough, so it's either the extra wide 118" quilt backing or three lengths of regular quilting cotton sewn with two seams. All of the bolts had really pretty fabrics, and I can't complain about the price. If you saw that deal in a thrift shop, would you have bought any of the bolts, all of them, or only your favorites? I've been trying to be good, but that was too tempting for me to pass completely. 

Christmas is all I've been thinking about lately, trying to make a game plan to get everything done in time for mailing. I'm already thinking about Christmas 2025 too, because next year will be a huge transition year for us. We do have a couple of trips planned, one of them being a bucket list trip, but aside from those trips, we are going to try to keep our expenses way down, so that we aren't stressing on our trips, or having to withdraw more money than we've planned for. I'm feeling pretty comfortable with our plans, and getting excited for the retirement adventure! My stash is really going to come into play for gifts next year! I'm so thankful to have it! 

Finish #33, Comets, and Scrap Processing

 Finish #33 of 2024 is complete! If it looks familiar, there is a good reason for that. Last year, I got a bundle of 20 solid fat quarters in soft rainbow colors. I added 20 floral fat quarters from stash, matching each of the solids as closely as I could. I needed a quilt really quickly for someone on hospice, so I cut all 40 fat quarters into 8.5" strips, 6.5" strips, and 2" strips. I used my large EZ Angle ruler to cut the 8.5" and 6.5" strips into HST's. I used the 8" HST's for the quilt I needed for the woman in hospice. I laid her quilt our just like I did this one, it was just a bit bigger. I finished that quilt in just a couple of days. When it was finished, I made this quilt top from the 6" HST's, but it was put into the quilt closet, because I had no immediate need for it. I cut all the scraps into 2x3.5" pieces and made a simple rail fence quilt, I had just enough to make a baby quilt, which I have already finished. Those three quilts busted all of the 40 fat quarters. 

DH and I went on an evening drive this week, about halfway up the mountain our house faces. We stopped at a rest area that has a great view of the city, and is one of our favorite places to watch the sunset. 

The sunset had a very layered look that night. I didn't alter the color on this photo at all. A sunset wasn't all we were looking for that night though. We were hoping to see Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, a comet that won't come around again in our lifetime. 

I'm not much of a photographer, and these pics were just taken with my iPhone, but I was sure blessed to be able to see it! Sometimes remembering to take the time to wonder at the universe we live in is hard to do, but I'm glad we did take that drive.

I finished processing the fabric scraps I was given, with one exception. I have one small bin with denim scraps I haven't touched yet. Some of these scraps were actually mine, but only the ones I had in bins in the living room for whatever reason. I still have a lot of fabric scraps I need to deal with of my own, but getting these processed into usable sizes was still a win. I've now got three empty bins in my small nine cube storage unit I have in the living room, which is a huge win. One bin is crumbs, and one bin is strings. I don't have another spot for crumbs, but I can empty the string bin into my cube unit downstairs that is all strings. All of these pre-cut sizes have a place to live, and some of them are even put away now. 

I used to feel bad about throwing any scraps away, but the only bits in this bag are too small for me to ever use, and I use some really small stuff! I felt pretty good about tossing this bag of fabric bits, knowing it's that much that I would never use anyway, but now I'm not having to store it. It's funny how freeing it is to understand that an almost full grocery bag of scraps left my house, and it was really down to the unusable. Pre-cutting my scraps works for me, if I'm making a quilt with sizes I keep, I automatically go to my scrap stash first. I often have a quilt in mind when I'm cutting up scraps, but if I don't, I cut to my most often used sizes. 

I'm just starting on my Christmas sewing. I'm making two throw quilts for Christmas, and I've got both quilt tops finished and basted. I started FMQ one of those this morning. As soon as I finish this blog post, I'll be prepping pillowcases to sew up for the grands. Christmas sewing is now my priority, and hopefully I'll get it all done with a minimal amount of stress. 

27 Million Stitches

 Modern sewing machines are kind of fun, in that we know when we hit certain milestones, whereas vintage machines are a bit of a mystery. I'm getting all my machines serviced before DH retires, and right now my original Bernina 440 is in the shop. I knew my 440 was really high mileage, which is why I recently purchased a new-to-me 440 that only has 26 sew hours on it. My original 440 has almost 800 hours of sewing time on it. 

The repairman just called me, to ask whether I really wanted it repaired because of how much use it has had. He said I've sewn 27 million stitches on it. He said he's never serviced such a high use machine, even the embroidery machines he services usually have far less. Up until now the highest he's seen on any machine is 24 million stitches. Now, when I say have it repaired, you need to realize I sewed with it the day I dropped it off, it was still sewing just fine, I was just dealing with some top thread breakage. 

He said the reason I was having some top thread breakage is because the timing was slightly off, because I had worn the timing gear teeth off! Now, these are not plastic or nylon gears, these are solid metal gears! When he told me the price of the new gears, I did pause a minute, but I ran upstairs to ask DH about it. He asked me if I could find another used 440 for the cost of the repair, and the answer was an easy no. I paid twice the cost of servicing and repairing my old 440 for the one I bought used, and that was one the cheapest I had ever seen used. We decided to go ahead and have the new gears installed, and since my plan all along was to make my high mileage Bernina into my backup/travel machine, and use the low use one for regular use. I think my old one will last a lot longer now that it won't be my main machine, and it's still less money than I would have paid for a travel machine I would be happy with. I tried buying a cheaper machine for travel and I hated it, everything on it felt so flimsy. I returned that machine, and that's when I started looking for a used Bernina.

It's funny to think about one of my machines having so much use on it. For a little while, I was only using that Bernina, but it didn't take long after I bought it, before I dove into the world of vintage machines. I do well over half of my piecing on vintage machines. Since 2020, I've done all of my FMQ and binding on my Janome M7. How many stitches would that Bernina have on it if I wasn't also using other machines? Some things I only do on the Bernina. All garment sewing and applique I do on the Bernina. Now that I think about it, I only use my Janome for FMQ and binding. I only use my vintage machines for piecing. Any other sewing I do is on the Bernina. Bag making? Bernina. Make a pillowcase? Bernina. Luggage tags? Bernina. I sometimes go weeks without using the Bernina, but when I'm using it, I'm often batch sewing, so the stitches add up quickly. I've got several things I'll be making for Christmas, and almost all of it will be done on a Bernina. 

Besides running up a repair bill, I did do several other things this week! 

I finished another set of twin quilts! The pattern is Twirling at the Disco, though I resized it to use 2" cut squares instead of the 2.5" cut squares the pattern calls for. All of the small squares are solids, and even though the black background looks solid in the photo, it is actually a blender fabric with a bit of texture to it. These are finishes #31 and #32 for the year. I started quilting the next quilt, but it's the last of the smaller quilts I have basted so the finishes will slow down for a bit. I've already reclaimed almost 2 jars of basting pins! 

I've got two of the grands this week, so not much sewing going on. I have been working away on cutting up scraps though. I'm working on those in the living room, so I can still be readily available while I'm working. 

I've got the autumn colored scraps cut into a quilt kit. The entire quilt will be scraps, because between all the cream colored scraps,  I had enough to make the background pieces for the applique blocks.

I think it likely I'll have to go into my Scrap User system for some more blue strips, but I've got most of a quilt cut. Someone had given me muslin scraps from a wideback, and if I use some poverty piecing techniques, I'll have just enough of the muslin to do all of the background I need. I'll never run out of blue fabrics, so I more concentrated on cutting the larger blue pieces I need for this quilt, knowing I have plenty of 2.5" strips already available for use. You can see I have plenty of blue strips cut from this batch of scraps too, I'm just not sure it's enough variety-wise. 

The red and white prints are cut into a quilt kit as well. I cut all the excess into 2.5 and 3.5" strips, which I could use in a border, or for anther quilt, I haven't decided. The whites I needed were a mix of the new scraps and strips from my Scrap User System. My goal for these quilt kits was to use only scraps for the quilts, and not to cut into any yardage. 

I've made such good progress on the scraps, that I'm cutting up the scraps I hadn't divided into colorways, and I'll just be adding those into my Scrap User System. I'm hoping I still have some scrap interest left after processing all the the scraps that were given to me, so maybe I can cut up the scraps from my own overflowing bin. Most of my own current scraps are leftovers from widebacks, and some of those I have enough of to sash or border another quilt. I'm feeling quite happy with my scrap progress, and knowing those scraps that were given to me will be put into use so soon is a good feeling. 

Oh, in case you are wondering what I do with all these quilts I'm finishing, I've donated 22 quilts to Project Linus this month, with the latest two destined to go there too! 

High Fiber, No Calorie Donuts a.k.a. Finishes #29 and #30

 It's easy to get rapid finishes when the quilts are all basted. This week I finished twin quilts.

The quilts are about as close to identical as I get. Some of the blocks are the same, the background is the same, and they are the same size, even the backing fabric is the same. I had a bunch of 3.5" strips to bust and this is a simple block to make quick work of busting those strips. I made a bunch of blocks with white backgrounds too, and those will be getting assembled into quilt tops soon. 

I'm also working on another set of twin quilts. I've got one quilted, and I started quilting the second one today. Once they are both quilted I'll bind them one after the other. After having my Janome in the shop for 6 weeks, I thought there was NO chance I'd make my goal of finishing 40 quilts this year, but now I'm thinking I'll at least be close, or possibly even make it. We'll see. 

I've been working on processing those scraps I showed last week. 

This is the quilt kit I made myself from the plaids and narrow solid strips. I added some blender strips from stash, because I didn't want to cut into yardage, but I had some blenders in my scrap user system I could cut down into 1" strips. I did need to use a few shirt pieces to add to the plaids to get the quilt size I wanted. 

I also cut up all the bright colored scraps and cut those to size. I haven't cut the background color yet, so I'm not calling it a quilt kit yet, but I did write myself a note with what I need to cut from solid white for that quilt. 

Currently, I'm cutting up the autumn colored scraps, and I'm hoping it will be 100% scraps too, just like the plaid quilt. I also chose patterns for the red and blue quilts I'll be cutting from scraps. 

These were the September units for the Greek Murder Mystery quilt. I think the idea of the murder mystery quilts are awesome, and reading a book written to go with the quilt as the year goes on is very fun. The only thing I don't like about it is the designer and I have very different methods of getting things done. I like to cut accurately, sew and it's done. I use a lot of specialty rulers to help me do that. The designer doesn't want to require purchasing specialty rulers, which completely makes sense, since there are a lot of new quilters every year doing her mysteries. Also taking the new quilters into consideration, she does a lot of oversized piecing than trimming down to size, which is NOT my preference, I kind of hate doing it that way. To make these units, the designer had everyone doing Seminole piecing, which wastes a lot of fabric, so a lot of women ran out of fabric and had to use substitute fabrics to finish the units.

After running through her cutting instructions, I didn't have enough pink fabric left to do it that way either. I used my Ominigrid On Point ruler to cut the center squares, my EZ Companion Angle ruler to cut the side setting triangles, and my EZ Angle HST ruler to cut the corner triangles. I ended up with fabric left over, I sewed it up, it came out the correct size, and I only had a few dog ears for waste instead of large waste pieces.

Honestly, the mysteries are a lot of fun, and if you 1) enjoy paper piecing and/or oversized piecing and trimming down, you'd love the designers instructions (in the facebook groups one of the moderators makes paper piecing patterns available for all of the blocks) or 2) if you are experienced enough to tweak the method to your preferred methods like I am, you'll do fine with the Murder Mystery Quilts. I don't plan on doing the mystery quilt next year, because I would rather tackle more UFO's next year, so I'm not planning on doing ANY mystery quilts next year, not even Bonnie Hunter's which I do more often than not. 

I've been trying to be good and not buy fabric unless it's for an imminent project, but I went and looked at Hobby Lobby's clearance section today, and these fat quarter bundles were marked down to $4.99. Each bundle has 5 fat quarters, and fat quarters for $1 each are pretty much extinct these days, so I splurged. Almost nine yards of fabric for $35? Yeah, I'm going to take advantage of that. 

I'll have two of the grands for half of next week, and they are off school for fall break, so that should be fun spending time with them. DH will be busy all weekend with The Scooter Zine, so I can get some extra sewing in this weekend, which might make up for the no sewing days while we have the grands. I bet I can still get some of those scraps cut up with the grands here, so even though I may not be sewing, I'll still be doing something!