Mystery Quilt Surprise and Finish #40

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas! Yesterday was a low key day for us, my sister came over for lunch, and we opened the things in our stockings.

DH put some fun fat quarters in my stocking! We're actually waiting until Sunday to open the bigger gifts, that's when we'll have family Christmas with the local kids and grandkids. My sister couldn't wait anymore for one of her gifts. She knew I was customizing a denim jacket for her, but she had no idea what I was doing on it. 

My sister is very creative, and unlike me with my quilting obsession, she does all kinds of crafts. Besides a brief interlude with ceramics back in the 80's, all of my craft endeavors have been sewing related, but my sister does it all. She can draw, paint, make anything out of paper or cardboard (She's made baskets and flowers out of toilet paper tubes!), and she can also sew. I decided to celebrate her creativity on her jacket. Most of my grandkids are also getting customized denim jackets, but not all of them have received them yet, so I won't show them yet. 

Last week I was talking about how to me, the Greek mystery quilt didn't seem cohesive. On Christmas Day, I found out the reasoning behind the designer's thoughts. The entire quilt is actually a game board and she gave us printables for the cards and pieces should we want to play! That was quite a surprise, and a fun idea for a quilt. I'm not a big board game person, so I don't plan on doing that, but it was a good surprise. 

This is finish number 40 for 2024, so I met my goal! It is a king sized quilt, 108" x 108", and will be my last finish for the year. The only other quilt I have basted is also a king, and I'm not even sure I'll have time to start it before the new year starts, never mind finish it! I do not have a longarm, and I need a lot more days off when I'm quilting the huge quilts so my RSI in my arm doesn't get too angry. With twin sized quilts and smaller, I can keep my RSI under control with setting a timer and only FMQ one hour per day. With the bigger quilts, there is so much pushing and pulling the bulk, that even a timer can't completely keep the pain away. Why don't I just pay for longarm quilting? For a quilt that size, it would cost me $350 to get it quilted, and that's just a pantograph, no custom quilting. That's just not an amount I'm willing to pay.

I have several more queen/king quilts I want to make, and those will be my focus for next year. Most of them are already started, in fact, most are ready for assembly or waiting for borders. I'm perfectly OK with getting a only a few finishes next year, if I can knock the largest quilts off my list. I know I only have so many queen/king sized quilts left in me, before I will have to switch to having them longarm quilted, or only make smaller quilts. I figure if I concentrate on the largest quilts next year, I can get those crossed off my list, and take my time quilting them, giving my arm as much rest time as needed. 

I've got a busy schedule for a while. Right now I'm dogsitting, I'm hosting the Family Christmas on Sunday, I've got grandkids spending a couple nights next week, and a bunch of us are going to the zoo to see the Christmas lights there. The first weekend in January, we are cohosting a party for my MIL, and the second weekend in January, I'm hosting a birthday party for the grandtwins. I'll be dogsitting my sister's dog somewhere in there too. I won't get much time in the sewing for a while, so instead, I'm working on some project prep. 

We have several events in the works for DH's scooter magazine next year, and I want to make at least 200 scooter themed luggage tags. I finished tracing the scooters for applique this week, so now it's a matter of getting them all cut out. I've been hunting for a scooter silhouette die in the correct size, but I've had no luck with that. This template will fit on a 2.5" square, and that's about perfect for the size luggage tag I make. If we keep doing events, I may eventually have a custom die made which would save me many hours of work. 

I may not be sewing much right now, but I'm always busy!