Merry Christmas!

I hope all of you that celebrate Christmas are happily ready and not franticly finishing things. This past weekend I was rushing around a bit, because although I was expecting a very low key quiet holiday, that's not the way things are working out, so I had more gifts to buy and stockings to stuff when I thought I was done. It's all good though, I'm being blessed with seeing some people I haven't seen in several years, and meeting a young person I've never met in person!

I've got company staying every day this week, but not all the same people, so there's lots of laundry and bed making going on around here. It's a bit like running a bed and breakfast! The only quilt related things I've gotten done this week is some cleaning up of the fabric room, because starting tomorrow I'll have to set up a cot in there for someone to sleep in there since the guest rooms will both be full! My fabric room was a disaster, so being forced to clean it up a bit was actually a blessing. 

I did get a bit of sewing done last week after I blogged. Not as much as I would have liked, but it's a busy time of year and it is what it is. The Diamond Terrace quilt that was on the design wall in my last post is fully assembled, but needs to be pressed before I hang it in the quilt closet. 

This was the next quilt on the design wall. I made a LOT of orange/yellow blocks a while back, in my scrap busting mode. This will be a good sized throw, and this one is in rows now.

I realized if I made two throws, I'd have an odd number of blocks left, but if I made a big center block, I could use all the extra blocks in a baby quilt. I looked through my block tool and came up with this block.

I really liked this block, and I think I may make a quilt with those as the main block. I think it was called Duck and chicks , which doesn't make much sense because baby ducks are ducklings, but whatever. 

This is how the baby quilt looks, and it's sewn into rows too.

I got the last of the yellow/orange blocks up on the design wall, but no sewing on these so far. 

As far as cutting goes, the only cutting I've gotten done is finishing the cutting for the blocks for my youngest granddaughter's quilt. That quilt has a March deadline. I still need to cut the sashing and borders, but I'll likely wait until I have the blocks done. 

I haven't cut anything for clue four of the mystery quilt, and I won't have a chance until early next week. Late next week I'll be back to having a houseful, so I'll only have a couple days where sewing time might be possible for the rest of this year! I knew there was a good chance the rest of this year would be a wash, so it's OK.

Merry Christmas and happy quilting if you've got time to!

21 Quilts in 2021

 I finished the Star Wars quilt, mailed it off and received video of the adorable recipient opening his gift! 

I had DH take photos of the quilt before I mailed it off, and I never actually checked his photos until now. Too funny, he had the quilt upside down, so to have the quilt right side up on the blog, I had to flip the photo upside down which makes the quilt look pretty weird, but whatever. Not all the fabrics are directional, so depending on which fabrics he was looking at he might not have realized there was a top and bottom. But, if you were wondering if someone was standing on their head to take the photo, hopefully that explains the weird perspective. 

That was my 21st quilt finish for the year, and likely my last. I do have a quilt I'm FMQ on, but it's a big one, and I've got a fairly busy schedule for the rest of the year, with sleepovers with the grandkids and some out of town company, so I'm not expecting to get another finish in this year. 

I am all caught up on Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt, Rhododendron Trail. Not all of the details are worked out as far as when I'll have the grandkids and which days I'll have company, so I have no idea if I'll be able to stay caught up on the mystery quilt. If I can at least get most of the cutting done for each step, I should be able to catch up easily enough later on. 

I still have four seams to sew to get the center of the night fairy quilt together, but since it was off the design wall, I got another quilt laid out, and yesterday I sewed this one into rows. This quilt is called Diamond Terrace, and I made it with a jelly roll I received for my birthday this year! That's a record on how fast I used a jelly roll! I plan to press all the rows today, and maybe I'll get them sewn together, maybe not. Since this one is now off the design wall, I can lay out another quilt, or I can start cutting one of the March deadline quilts. Of course no matter what I'm working on, I've always got leaders/enders going, so more quilts are being made in between assembling others. 

I think cutting may be what I can do over the last couple weeks of this year. Since I'll have company quite a bit of that time, if I get up early, I can cut and that's a quiet activity so I won't be waking anyone up. 

20th Quilt Finish of the Year

Baby Marvel is a finish! It's my 20th quilt finish of the year. I've finished other projects, like the table runner, which I didn't count as a quilt finish, even though it's quilted. I pretty much only count baby sized quilts and up as quilt finishes. 

 I'm happy to have this one finished! I've got the twin sized Star Wars quilt that needs to mailed with this one quilted, I will bind it this weekend, and hopefully mail them both on Monday. 

As with most of my baby quilts, it's wider than WOF, so I needed to make the backing a bit wider. My favorite way to do that is by clearing out some orphan blocks.

I had five blocks leftover from my nephew's wedding quilt, and those five were just about the perfect size to increase the backing!

I've only got a few seams left to have the center of the night fairy quilt assembled. I'm hoping to finish that quilt top in the next couple days, so I can put another up on the design wall. I still need to cut an inner border for it though. 

My mystery quilt progress is slow and steady. Considering I started a week late, and I've been working on multiple other projects, I think I'm doing OK. I've got all of clue 1 sewn, and most of it pressed. That's good, because I looked at clue 3 this morning, and I need clue 1 finished to do clue 3. On clue two I'm about half done. I think I've got enough pieces cut to finish. Since I'm trying to die cut the mystery quilt, and I'm using men's shirts for fabric, I'm actually just cutting a few pieces at a time, and sewing them up then seeing if I need more. This is so NOT my normal way of working! If I were rotary cutting, I wouldn't think twice about just cutting a bunch of strips, knowing if I cut too many, they could just go into my scrap user system. I try not to have a bunch of extra die cuts though, I tried that once and I still haven't done much with them. Since men's shirts are such weird shapes when you cut them apart, I don't always end up with as many pieces as the die can cut, sometimes a couple pieces are a bit short because the fabric wasn't squared off. No worries though, I'm just tossing the wonky bits into the crumb bucket. I saw on clue 3 we need to cut some extra squares from neutrals. Since my neutral is a solid, I may just rotary cut those, which won't take long at all. Die cutting all the triangles has saved me a bunch of time though! 

I need to rotary cut some of the pieces for another quilt too, which needs to be done by March. Actually, after the Star Wars quilt is finished, both my next deadline quilts are due in March. I'm still debating which pattern to use for the March baby quilt, but the twin sized I Spy for my youngest granddaughter I have all figured out. I've got all the novelty fabrics cut for it, I just need to cut the fabrics for the Attic Windows bit. I'm totally cheating on the Attic Window's part. I can't imagine doing 80 mitered corners for one quilt, so I'm doing the cheater method that just uses an HST in the corner. 

I've got so many projects going on right now, I can't really even say which is my leader/ender project and which is my main project. Basically, when I'm piecing, I just always make sure there's something under the needle. I have several quilts cut out, and I just kind of grab whichever pieces are closest to whichever machine I'm at. Since I'm assembling quilts and piecing all at once, it's kind of a free for all. Add to that I've got two machines set up for piecing right now, and it really adds to the chaos. Thankfully, I'm pretty good at working on multiple things at once, and rare is the time I sew the wrong things together. My Janome is always either set up for quilting or binding, I've never done anything else with it, nor do I plan on using it for anything else. I could sew all kinds of things on it, but with three machines set up all the time, I don't have to, and I prefer it that way. By FMQ one hour a day, it keeps my UFO's moving through the queue, without a big commitment to quilting UFO's. If I have deadline quilts, those move to the head of the quilting queue, but other than that, I just try to keep a couple UFO's basted and ready to go so I always have a FMQ project to work on that first hour of sewing. 

Public Service Announcement

 I had plenty of time this week, but I got very little sewing done. Why you ask? Well, I was a little off after taking a Covid test and having it come out positive. I was NOT sick, and it was a breakthrough infection, so the vaccine did just what it was supposed to do. The only symptom I had, I didn't know could be a symptom of Covid, and that's why I'm writing about it. I had cold sores around my mouth, which I have a life long history of having. They come and go, and I've pretty much learned to ignore them. I had no idea cold sores can be a sign of Covid, if I had I would have taken a test before I had people here on Thanksgiving and the weekend after. 

I only found out because DD#2 casually said, "Hey, Mom, you don't think it could be Covid do you?" I told her I had never heard of it being a symptom, and I felt perfectly fine, so I kind of blew it off. After everyone left, I mentioned it to DH. We looked it up and it's not listed as a symptom on any of the big medical sites like the CDC or WHO. BUT, when I googled "cold sores and Covid", there it was! I found several articles mentioning the link between cold sores, canker sores, and Covid. I took a Covid test, and it came out positive, DH took one and his was negative. The thing is, he's had his booster shot, and I haven't, because I was out of town when he got his. 

So at that point I knew I had exposed a large part of my family to Covid, which I never would have done had I known I was sick. It's been about a week now, and to my knowledge no one is sick. My cold sores are gone, and I've tested negative for Covid now. I think since I didn't have a cough or anything, and I was washing my hands constantly because I did have cold sores and I was cooking a LOT, the chances of someone catching it from me was low. 

I had an appointment to get my booster shot this week, and you aren't supposed to take the shot if you actively have Covid, so I cancelled my appointment and I stayed home until I tested negative. The information on when to get a booster shot after having a breakthrough infection is conflicting, but I saw a couple sites suggest waiting four weeks, so that's what I'll do. 

I didn't write this because I wanted to debate whether to vaccinate or not. I was vaccinated, and even though I've got a history of pneumonia, and obesity makes me more likely to have a serious case, the only symptom I had was cold sores. I didn't lose my sense of taste or smell, I didn't have muscle aches, fatigue, cough or anything. I had NONE of the frequently listed side effects. I did have several cold sores, and a couple canker sores, but that is not unusual for me, so I ignored it. Looking back on it it was more sores at once than I usually get, but not the worst breakout I've had. I felt fine, I was only emotionally upset about exposing other people, not all of whom were vaccinated. 

After I tested negative, and it looks like no one caught anything from me, I started to get my mojo back. I've quilted half the Marvel baby quilt, and I just sewed up a couple units from clues one and two of Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt.

If you are following this year's mystery, you'll notice I've gone rogue on colors. I'm using a burgundy solid for my neutral, and I'm using men's shirts for my colors. I'm going for an autumn vibe. 

Bonnie's colors                                                My colors

neutral                                                              burgundy

pink                                                                  green

garnet                                                               brown

yellow                                                               yellow/gold

aqua                                                                 orange

Since my background is a solid, and hers is scrappy, I feel comfortable going scrappy on all the other colors. 

Some of you tell me my sewing rooms are so neat! That's just because I don't usually show the messiest bits! I decided if I was going to try to fit in the mystery quilt to my already packed to do list, I needed to try to die cut the whole quilt, at least everything I have dies for. This morning, after FMQ for an hour and getting half the baby quilt quilted, I decided to see what I need to do to start cutting for the mystery. First I needed to clear off the die cutter, because there was a bunch of stuff piled on it, then I pulled out the solid I'm using as a neutral, and the colors of shirts I needed for clues one and two. Well, the shirt pieces all needed to be ironed, and my ironing station is buried! Rather than unburying the ironing station which is in my sewing room, not the fabric room (which I'm thinking of changing), I decided to make room in the fabric room for an ironing board. Well, that meant I needed to put away my last HUGE purchase from Marshall Dry Goods. The best place to put that, which is mostly quilt backings, was in the closet in the sewing room, which is where I normally store quilt backing fabric. Now, I haven't taken the time to clean up that closet in months, and that really needed to be done first, so THREE HOURS later, the closet was clean, and all the fabric was neatly put away! 

By then I was exhausted, way too tired to iron or cut, even with the die cutter. I ate lunch and watched some TV, taking a LONG break, and then I went back downstairs to set up the ironing board. I pressed a few shirt pieces, along with some of background, and cut what I had pressed. I'm not done cutting for those two clues by any stretch of the imagination, but I had enough to sew up some units, and I've got a pile of pieces to use as leaders/enders while I assemble a quilt or two. Now that I've got the Studio cutter unburied, and an ironing board set up, I can just press and cut a little each day, in between doing my other sewing and housework. I might be able to get caught up before clue 3 comes out. 

Sometimes I really love doing sew and flip corners, and getting those bonus HST's, but right now, cutting the exact shapes I need and having nothing left over is exactly what fits into my schedule. Die cutting is a LOT faster than rotary cutting too. 

I may not have sewed much this week, but I did finish Christmas shopping for the hardest person on my list, whom I had saved for last. I may pick up a couple more stocking stuffers, but I'm basically done Christmas shopping. I've even wrapped everything that is here. 

DH and I also took the time to plan out our epic train trip for next year, and we bought our tickets! He's got all the dates to try to set up scooter events in the different cities we're going to, and I'll work on hotel reservations once he's got some of that sorted. We aren't going until autumn, but when you are trying to plan events in multiple cities, and you have to order merchandise for giveaways and such, you need a long lead time. He also had to get permission to take three consecutive weeks off his day job, which can be tricky. As of right now it's a go, and I'm super excited! It's definitely something to look forward to.