According to Plan? I Think Not

I am a planner by nature. I like making plans, I like seeing plans through. Lately, not much is going according to plan. I had planned to have 17 for Thanksgiving dinner, I had 7. Thankfully, I found out about the cancellations before I had made very much of the food. I did, however, find out that I use the same number of pans, bowls, cutting boards and such to make Thanksgiving dinner for 7 as I would have for 17. Tomorrow I'll cut up the leftover turkey and ham and get it in the freezer. I had only made a turkey breast, and I already made turkey salad with some of the leftovers, so not a whole lot of that will end up in the freezer. I have a lot of ham left, but that's a great thing to add to lots of meals, so I'm OK with that. 

DH and I took a trip to California last weekend. It was a business trip for him, so I brought fabric to sub-cut in the hotel room. I've never done any English paper piecing, but I'd like to hand piece at least one quilt in my life, so I bought a bundle of reproduction 1800's fat eighths, and I'm going to use those in my EPP attempt. I decided on diamonds instead of hexies, because if I really hate EPP, I can sew diamonds by machine fairly easily, though not in the pattern I wanted to do. At least I've got a backup plan so no fabric will be wasted no matter what. 

I cut the fat eighths into strips before we left home, and when I started at the hotel, both containers looked like the one on the left. I forgot to take a true before photo. 

This is what I've got now. For the pattern I chose, I need six diamonds each of two different colors to make a star hexie. Since I needed the diamonds in sets of six, I cut the rest of each strip into squares, and I will make four patches for a different project with those. The baggie holds the crumbs, but they are pretty small. I'll see if my sister wants them for fabric postcards. I didn't have hardly any waste from those fat eighths. I have no idea how large of a quilt I'll be making, and it won't be made anytime soon. I want this to be my standard travel project, so on most car trips I'll just be bringing a couple sets of diamonds with me. I already have everything I need to paper piece it, and I'm no stranger to hand sewing, so I know I can do it, it's just an unknown on how much I'll enjoy it. I am thinking this will be a several year project and I'm OK with that. Not everything has to be fast. 

BUT, speaking of fast, I've got nine quillows quilted now. 

The ninth one I haven't trimmed yet so it's not in this pile. I hope to quilt the tenth one tomorrow, then I'll try assembling a couple before I finish quilting the other five. I need to get the ones that need to be mailed ready to go. 

I officially have two more quilts on my 2020 list now. The engagement I expected has occurred, so I'll need a wedding quilt, and I found out the gender of the latest grandbaby, so I know which quilt I'll be making now. They wanted a llama quilt for a boy, and a flamingo quilt for a girl. Looks like the baby quilt is for the birds!

Taking Advantage of a Lull

Starting tomorrow life is up and running again, but I had a few days with surprisingly little going on. I took advantage of that as much as I could, and here's what I've accomplished.

I've quilted five quillows, plus one UFO. I'm halfway done quilting another quillow, and hope to finish quilting it today. I am completely ignoring my hour a day quilting rule to get this much done, but if I have any chance to get the quillows done for Christmas I can't stick to that. I am taking breaks, and icing my arm when it needs it. It is so frustrating to really come to grips with the fact my arm injury is going to be an issue for the rest of my life. 

None of those quilts are finished, they are just quilted. I decided I wanted to concentrate on quilting in November, then in December I'll alternate quilting with making the quillow pockets and binding everything. I had planned walking foot quilting on the quillows, but in the end I decided to meander. It wasn't as much a time factor as the fact that with all the pulling and stuffing you do with quillows, I thought meandering would hold up better than all the stress being on long straight quilting lines. 

I quilted that UFO because I'm back on the queen's list in the UFO challenge. Last I looked I was #37, but I'm probably higher than that now. I'll try to get that binding sewn on the first of December, so I can likely stay off the list the rest of 2019.  I've decided to not do the UFO challenge in 2020, because I have so many new starts planned. I still plan to work on UFOs as well, I just don't want the pressure of the challenge. 

Now that I've reclaimed the basting pins from that UFO, I have just enough pins available to baste 4 quillows at once. I have three basted now, and if I finish the quillow I'm quilting today, I'll baste a fourth tonight. 

I still have five quillow tops hanging in the closet untouched, but if I can manage to finish what I've got going today, I'll have six quilted and four basted before DH gets home from work tonight! That would be a win! 

The rest of November only has maybe four sewing days in it, and that's pretty optimistic. I've got more company coming, I'm hosting 17 for Thanksgiving, plus there's a few other things going on. I've been trying to quilt one quillow every day I have with a chunk of sewing time. I've been quilting half of one, taking a break, then quilting the other half. Of course, my breaks, like most women I know, consist of laundry, dishes, cleaning, etc...BUT, I have been binge watching DC superhero shows on Netflix too. I'm usually doing something else as well whenever I watch TV (lately that's wrapping Christmas presents), but TV shows tend be my timer for breaks. If my arm feels pretty good, one episode of Supergirl is long enough for a break, if my arm hurts, I need at least two episodes. In the sewing room I normally just use the timer on my phone, but with Christmas fast approaching, I've ditched the timer and I'm just setting goals before I take a break. It takes me under 1.5 hours to quilt half of a quillow, so that's pushing it, but not by a bunch compared to my normal quilting habits. It's the second session per day that's really pushing it. 

I am starting to have hope I'll have at least most of the quillows done for Christmas. I started this project in July, I really didn't think it would go down to the wire, but life has been busier than I expected. I can only do what I can do, and although I hope to finish on time, the world won't end if I don't. 

Life Keeps Interrupting

I'd sew everyday, if, you know, life didn't interfere ;-) Every time I think things are slowing down, life surprises me again, and it gets crazy all over again. It's all good though, and although I didn't really get much sewing done last week, I did get a handle on Christmas shopping, so if the quillows are late, which is quite likely, the grandkids will still have something to open. I'm hoping to at least the get the quillows that need to be mailed finished. 

I did get two of the quillows pin-basted today, that's all I had pins for, since I haven't gotten much quilting done lately. 

DH finished laying out a quilt for me. This is all the extra fabric from a Postcards From Sweden kit I bought. I had so much extra fabric, the second quilt is bigger than the first. DH named this quilt Visual Frustration, because he kept starting patterns then deliberately stopping them. This is the first time I've pressed all the seams open on the HST's, but I wanted DH to be able to turn them any orientation without a buildup of seams. He doesn't normally layout my quilts for me, but I thought he might have fun with this one. 

Since I haven't been sewing much, I have been thinking about sewing a LOT, and I've been working on goals for 2020. I have plans to move things around a bit in my fabric prep room too, but the quillows need to get finished before I start on any of that. I'm pretty excited about my ideas though, so it should be fun!

A New Village and Sneaking in Sewing

My oldest sister is so talented at crafting, and she is at her best when making things from what others call trash. She loves multimedia, creating different textures and depth by using a variety of materials. My family tries to help her out from time to time, and when she wants to focus on a specific material, I get everyone saving whatever she's looking for. For a while it was soda cans, right now it's cereal boxes. The latest thing she gifted me used both of those.

She made me a Christmas village made from cans. Cereal boxes give them structure. She put hangers on them so they can hang on the tree or go on a shelf. The schoolhouse has a bell. 

The church has "stained glass" windows. With my love of reading, she gave me my own library. 

DH and I have our hobbies represented. I get a quilt shop with a quilt hanging in the window, and DH gets a scooter shop made from a root beer can which is his favorite. DH not only runs a scooter club, but also publishes a scooter magazine. 

The flower shop has two of my favorite colors, and the coffee shop (DH and I are both big coffee drinkers) is made from an iced coffee can.

The clock shop reminds me of DD#1's FIL. He repaired clocks all over South Africa. 

The candy shop adds more whimsy to the village. 

She even made me little people for the village. More boys than girls because I've got more grandsons than granddaughters. 

Having such a talented sister is a blessing in my life. 

I wasn't sure I'd have any chance to sew this week because I've got company, but I did get 30 quilt blocks done in between guests. Here is a sampling of those.

These were made from the extra Flying Geese units I had from misfiguring how many units I needed for my main project. I'd like to use the same purple sashing I am using for my main project, but I don't think I have enough, so I'll need to buy more. I'll look at my stash first though, and see if something else will make do. A dark green would be a good option too. 

I've also been assembling a large 99x108" quilt top. I still need to sew two more seams before it's done, but I hope to do that sometime today. I want to keep getting UFO's to quilt top stage, if I need them finished quickly, its a lot easier to quilt a completed top than have to finish making units or blocks then assemble before quilting. 

Tops Are Done, Now What???

I've got all 15 quillow tops finished, pressed and hanging in the closet! Yeah, there's a few UFO's beyond that too, along with some other quilt tops from this scrapbusting spree. I have extra people around for the next nine days, so no sewing will be happening, but after that, I guess I'm going to have to work on how to actually make a quillow. 

Have you ever gotten yourself into a situation like this? You've never actually made something, but you are sure you can figure it out so you just jump in feet first. I've never made a quillow, but I've made a lot of quilts, and I've made plenty of pockets, so how hard can it actually be? I guess I'll find out, but I figure by the time I finish the 15th one I'll be pretty good at it. 

I finished sewing those Flying Geese units into sets of five as leaders/enders while assembling the quillow tops. I needed another thing to use as leaders/enders, since I haven't cut any of the other pieces for the Flying Geese quilt yet. I grabbed the leftover HST pieces I had from a Postcards from Sweden quilt I made for my youngest granddaughter. I had my oldest granddaughter help me pin the HST pieces into pairs.

Miss S, who is 8, is an accomplished pinner, and had a great time choosing color combinations, since I just wanted a pretty random look. I just finished sewing the last of these tonight, and I've actually pressed all the seams open, which is really odd for me when quilting. Tomorrow I'll work on snipping all the dog ears, and I'll figure out how many HST's I actually have. Once I figure out how many I have, I can decide on a setting as in number of rows and how many per row. I already told DH I plan to have him lay this one out for me. I pressed the seams open so that he could move the HST's in any orientation he likes, and I can still sew them together without major issues with bulk. I don't ask DH to lay quilts out for me very often, but I though he might have fun with this one. There are 36 shades of solids total in this bin. I've never heard of a quilt kit having this much extra fabric, but I will admit I did not follow the cutting directions, and the way I cut the pieces used less fabric, even though the pieces were the same size as the pattern called for. Sometimes specialty rulers are well worth the money, and if they save a bunch of fabric, that's one of those times. 

I"ve been sewing such long days trying to get these quillow tops done, that I've really pushed by arm. The repetitive stress injury is rearing its ugly head, so nine day of company is likely a blessing in more ways than one. I hope to get a little sub-cutting done with the company, or maybe just finish a couple hand projects, but we'll see. I hope you'll sew a few extra stitches for me, while I'm busy doing other things.