Merry Christmas 2020!

It was a quiet Christmas around here. All morning it was just DH and I, then my sister came over and we had lasagna and watched Wonder Woman 1984 on HBO.

I've been working hard the past few days to get my sister's Christmas present done. I wasn't sure I was going to make it, and I knew she was the only person I'd see on Christmas Day besides DH. I finished it yesterday afternoon, so just in the nick of time!

DD

I made her a quilt from our late sister's sweaters. It was my first time working with sweaters, and although it sewed up easily enough, quilting it was another matter. If you want to try doing this, I strongly suggest you use a walking foot to piece it together, the pieces stretch horribly if you don't. I also opted to use 1/2" seams, which I think was a good call. 

I tried FMQ on it, but quickly decided to rip out those stitches. Why is it whatever you can take a few minutes to stitch in, takes SO much longer to rip out? The seams were simply too thick to not get caught on the FMQ foot. I tried raising my presser foot, but I couldn't raise it enough to work. I switched back to the walking foot and opted for some very basic straight line quilting, avoiding the big intersections. Normally I would have quilted it closer together than this, but between the time crunch and the seam issues, this will do. I washed it as soon as I had the binding on it, and it came through the wash just fine, so I think it will hold up OK. 

I did get a few quilty Christmas gifts.

DD#2 gave me the patterns, and DH got me the fat quarters, seam ripper, and a couple brushes for lint. DH asked me which colors I was low on, and I told him the same three colors I always tell him, orange, yellow and purple. I can never keep those colors in stash. I do use a lot of purple, but I think the yellow and orange are just because I have so little of those in yardage, that it doesn't take a huge project to wipe out several fat quarters of those, then I'm down to very little again. 

Since I wasn't sewing today, I actually took the morning to make DH some gluten free cookies, I hardly ever make cookies anymore. I have been cooking a lot lately, and I've been enjoying making some amazing soups while the weather is cooler. Cool weather doesn't last long in Southern Arizona, so I'm having fun making soup while the weather is cooperating with me. I made some chicken gnocchi soup that was better than any I've had in a restaurant, and a couple days ago I made a big pot of gumbo that was pretty terrific too. Beef stew was on the menu this week, and I make some good beef stew too. I will make soup in the LONG summers we have too, but it is just so much better when the weather is cool. 

Now I need to finish the three quillows that are Christmas gifts, but I didn't need to have done for today, because I won't see the recipients until New Year's Day. The long range forecast is looking like an outside dinner will be possible. 

The quillows just need the pockets sewn on and binding, so that should be easily doable in a week. Other than that, I'll be working on anything I don't want on my plate in 2021. I'm hoping for five more finishes this year, three of which are those quillows. If I can manage to get some cutting in that will be great, if not, 2021 will start with quite a bit of cutting! It's pretty optimistic to get that much done in a week, but hey, aim high, right? I'll have to take down all the Christmas decorations during that time as well, so not all my time is quilting time. The other two finishes I'm hoping for aren't complicated, and one is a partially assembled top already. Both of those will get simple quilting, so it's not impossible by any means. The cutting is unhonestly unlikely to happen, but you never know!

Merry Christmas and good wishes for a better 2021!