Just in Time

Just as I anticipated, I've had hardly any sewing time, and I expect no more sewing time until next week. I'm hosting Thanksgiving, and I have two different groups of people staying here over the next few days, along with others just coming for the day. 

I did manage to get the table runner I was hoping to use for Thanksgiving finished though! I used a double layer of wool batting because I want to be able to put hot pans directly on the runner, and although a hot dish isn't likely to damage my washer/dryer, if I ever use the runner on a plastic folding table, I still wanted it to completely protect the surface from damage. I have three more of these blocks leftover, so I'll be making a smaller version of this runner as well, but that can wait a bit. This runner uses eight blocks.

DS the Younger sent me a family photo, and it amazes me how much the kids have grown. I haven't seen them since March, and I don't know when I'll get to see them again since they moved so much further away. I'm thankful for photos and video chats when I get them though! 

I'll be very busy over the next several days, and next week I have an appointment for my Covid booster, so we'll see how I feel after that. I felt fine after the last round, and my flu shot didn't bother me either, so we'll see. 

For those of you in the USA, have a great Thanksgiving, and no matter where you are, stay safe!

Less Time Than Anticipated

I thought I'd have quite a bit of sewing time this week, but it hasn't turned out that way. That doesn't mean I've had NO sewing time, just not as much as I thought I'd have, so many of my goals were not met. 

I did finish assembling the Star Wars quilt that was on the design wall last week. I haven't given it a final press yet, but the top is finished. 

 I got the quilt that uses the last of the night fairy fabric on the design wall. It's a little tricky to assemble because three of the blocks are much larger than the rest, but I've got a plan. This quilt will be getting a couple borders once this much of it is assembled. 

This morning I finished making the rest of the quilt blocks that needed black piecing thread, so I'm setting those aside for now, and I switched the thread to grey so I can start assembling the last of the night fairy quilts. 

I haven't gotten back to FMQ at all, so that's a bummer. Now that the two December deadline quilts are tops, getting those basted and quilted are my priority, so I will likely put the quilt I've been quilting on aside once I get the two deadline quilts basted. I'll see if I can get a bit further on it before I have to put it aside. My goal for the weekend is to get the deadline quilts basted. 

Next week is a complete bust for sewing. I've got a birthday dinner to make on Sunday. On Monday I'm babysitting all day (which I did one day this week as well), Tuesday I'll be going out with my sister, Wednesday and Thursday will be all about cooking Thanksgiving dinner. I'm sure I'll look at the clues for the mystery on Friday, but I've got company coming for a three day weekend, so no mystery quilt sewing can happen until the next week. 

As soon as I finish blogging, I'm going to go baste the table runner I am making for Thanksgiving, but I have company coming tonight for dinner, so I don't have a lot of time this afternoon either. The table runner won't take long to quilt, so I'm hopeful I can get it done on time! Even so, finding the time to quilt it could be an adventure. 

Speaking of adventures, DH and I are considering doing one of our bucket list trips next year. We've always wanted to take a big train trip, and we are gathering all the information we need to make a decision on it. Have any of you done a cross country trip on Amtrak? I'd love to talk to someone who has! I've been watching YouTube videos about it, and those are helpful, but I've never done overnight on a train, only day trips. If anyone has any good train tips I'd be anxious to hear them!

Home Again

Whenever I go away for more than a couple days, it takes me a little while to get into the swing of things again. Of course there was catching up on household chores to do, though DH did do the floors while I was away! Yay! I should have gone right back to my deadline projects, but I didn't. 

When I found out one of my nieces is having a girl next spring, my first thought was this was a chance to use up the fairy fabric I've had in a bin. I had a clear picture in my head of what I wanted to make, and then I'd use all the leftovers from the first fairy quilt and the baby quilt in a third quilt and bust all the bits and pieces leftover. The first fairy quilt had a lot of waste. I've since decided to do something else for my great niece after talking to my niece, but that project in my head wouldn't leave me alone. So, instead of working on deadline stuff when I got home, I made this quilt top instead.

 I'm really happy with how it came out, and since I had bonus HST's left from making these big stars, I incorporated those into the last quilt to be made from the fairy fabric. 

I now have all the blocks made for the last quilt, and I'm not sure how it's going to look. There are several different types of blocks going into it, it's literally just the dregs of the fabrics I bought for the first fairy quilt, the waste pieced bits from making all the original stars, plus just enough yardage to make the blocks all the same size. As it turned out, I had more fabric left than I remembered, and the third and last quilt from the night fairy fabric will be twin sized. I'll need to get that quilt on the design wall before I get a feel for how it will look.

Next on the design wall is a deadline quilt though!

This is the twin sized Star Wars quilt I'm making for a different niece's stepson. DH put it on the design wall for me, and I had already had him take down the top row before I thought to take a photo. You can't see the bottom couple rows in this photo either, but this gives you an idea what it looks like. There are 24 different Star Wars fabrics, two blocks with each fabric. 

As if I didn't have enough projects going, I decided to do Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt this year. She's using a spring palette, so I decided to go Autumn. 

I'm using a solid burgundy as the background, though not this piece, I didn't have enough of it. I'll be using my stash of men's shirts for all the other colors. I've since dug through all my men's shirts and have more options in each color now. 

Actually, the first quilt related thing I did after getting home from DD#2's house was sorting all my men's shirts. I started with five containers of men's shirts. After sorting I have one of all neutral shirts, one of all blue shirts, one with the colors for the mystery, and one with all the other colors sorted by color. What happened to the fifth container? Well I pulled out all the shirts that don't read as one main color. If there wasn't a clear background color, like shirts with even width stripes, or checkered shirts, or really large scale plaids, I tossed those into a laundry basket, and I'm cutting those harder to use shirts into leader/ender projects for 2022. I got a ton of quilt tops made this year, and it's largely due to the fact I pre-cut the projects I used as leaders/enders. After doing the sorting, I realized sooner or later I have a lot blue/neutral men's shirts in my future! But that's not a project for next year, I'm still working with scraps and hard to use fabrics, and those will be my main focus, besides continuing to finish UFO's and deadline quilts. 

In case you are wondering, a week off did my arm a world of good, and I'll likely not start FMQ until next week so I'll have two weeks off of that, which will be even better. DH was joking he would buy a longarm and quilt all my quilts for me, and I told him go ahead. I prefer piecing to quilting anyway! He won't do it, but I'd definitely let him if he wanted to!