Bye-Bye 2015, Hello 2016!

Every year I do an evaluation of my quilting life for the last year. Last year I listed six projects I wanted to get finished in 2015, plus another few things I'd like to tackle if I had time.

How did I do? Well, I only got four of the six specific projects done, the other two I haven't worked on at all. No excuses here, I did what I could.

On the other hand, of the projects that were really weighing me down, which were finishing other people's last projects, I finished four quilts that other people were working on when they passed away, and the last one I have is a quilt top now. On that goal, I feel really good about my progress.

I did a Pay it Forward thing for 2015, where I had to make things for five people, and I did get those projects finished.

One thing I got done last year that was not on my goals, but has been a huge weight off my mind, is getting all my scraps cut down to the Scrap User System. It took me six or eight weeks, I can't remember which, but it was well worth the time it took, to have the scraps dealt with and usable, and not all wrinkled in tubs throughout the house. Those scraps represented years of sewing!

Here are my empty spools from 2015. They don't look like much, but they represent 16,041 yards of thread, or 9.1 miles if you prefer. Towards the end of this year, I went on a bobbin busting spree, trying to empty as many bobbins as I could to free them up for other projects. I emptied almost 70 bobbins, and I have no idea how much thread that was, but suffice it to say, it was a lot. All that thread from bobbins is not included in the 9 miles.

I didn't keep good records of how much fabric I used this year, but I think 150 yards would be a minimum. I used over half that just on Christmas presents. 

I finished a total of 10 quilts this year, which is a little disappointing. I did get several other quilts to quilt top stage, which is good.

Let's see, goals for 2016? I have a few deadline quilts. I know of two boy babies coming, I need two girl twin sized quilts, and one wedding quilt for a niece getting married in the fall. I'd like to make DS the Younger an Army quilt for his graduation from AIT (Advanced Individual Training), and I need to finish the rag quilt for DD#3. DD#1 wants another quilt for her birthday this year, but she chose one of my UFO's, so the top is done, and I just have to quilt it. That already puts me at 8 quilts for 2016, and you never know when another wedding or baby quilt will be added to the mix. With 8 deadline quilts, I don't think I need to add to that list. I'll just get done what I can, sewing when I can, and trying not to stress about it. Quilting should be fun!

I stuck pretty well to no-buy on fabric in 2015. I did buy a few things starting on October, since I started no-buy October 2014. Almost everything I did buy was used immediately. I am not planning on no-buy in 2016, but I'm not planning on buying a bunch either. Let's just call it low-buy. Since I wasn't buying fabric in 2015, it gave me a chance to stock up on my most used threads, as well as a few other quilting necessities. Overall, it was a fairly inexpensive quilting year compared to others. This year I also plan on keeping my costs low.

Oh, I got the fat quarters I received for Christmas put onto small mini-bolts.

These are from Connecting Threads Quilter's Candy line. I also dealt with all the fabric my MIL brought me, and all of it is put away now too.

After all the Christmas sewing, and working on two mystery quilts, the sewing room was looking like a tornado hit, so some cleaning up was in order. Now that the reveal for the mystery quilts is out, I can cut the last fabrics I need, and get the rest put away. Just getting some things put away will help the sewing room quite a bit. If I manage to get some projects finished in the next month or two, that will help even more.

I hope you all have a great 2016!

Allietare Mystery Quilt Progress

I'm working on Allietare when I can, and not stressing about it when I can't. I am all caught up with cutting at least! I was really excited when Clue 5 had no extra cutting, so I only had to work on cutting out clue 4 in both colorways to catch up on the cutting. I figure, if I at least get everything cut, I can catch up on the sewing as leaders/enders if I need to.

I am furthest along on my men's shirt colorway. I have all of clue 1 done, all of clue 2, most of clue three, one set of clue 4, and one of clue 5. I haven't done any of the knocked off corners on the big neutral rectangles.

Here is a sample of how that shirt colorway is looking. Remember, I moved the colors around, so no, my reds aren't in the wrong place.

On the bright colorway, I am finished clue 1, done part of clue 2, all of clue 3, one set of clue 4, and one of clue 5. Again, I haven't done any knocked off corners on the big rectangles yet.

On my monitor that solid is really looking blue, but it's purple, trust me on this.

I'm going to have to be really careful to keep those HST's oriented correctly on clue 5. Since my neutral in one colorway is light, and my neutral in the other colorway is dark, it would be easy to flip them.

DD#1, who chose the color combinations, asked if I had any guesses on where Bonnie is going with this, and I had to tell her, I've been too busy to even think about it much. I did the math to see how much of the quilt top is accounted for at this point, just so I'd have an idea of how much is left to do before assembly, but aside from that, I'm not really that curious about it, I'll just let it happen.

Besides working on Allietare, I cut out my first rag quilt.

How's that for a stack of squares? I'm jumping right into rag quilting, and I'm making a four layer quilt that will finish at 64x80. DD#3 is always cold these days, and I felt like a flannel rag quilt might be my best bet on keeping her warm in the living room. I bought her an electric blanket for her bed, and that's helping, but she's been piling multiple quilts on top of herself in the living room, and I'm hoping this one will be a better option for her.

I need to go buy a frame for DS the Younger's photo from basic training.

I can put his photo up with his Dad's photo, and both of his grandfather's photos from their times in the military. Our DDIL just moved in with us, along with their two dogs, so they will stay with us, until training is done and they can join him at his first duty station. I'm proud of our family's military history.

If you'd like to see how everyone else is doing on the Allietare Mystery quilt, click here.

Merry Christmas!

We celebrated our Christmas early, since DH is working a 12 hour shift on Christmas Day. We may have little ones in the house, but we don't do the Santa thing, so it's pretty easy for us to move Christmas or any other holiday, and DH works most holidays so someone else can have it off. My personal preference is that he take Thanksgiving and Easter off, but I don't care if he works the rest. Since he is an emergency room nurse, they are never closed, so all the hours must be worked by someone.

We had a nice Christmas celebration, and now I can show you a couple things I was working on.

I took this photo before it was quilted, but I made a set of four placemats for the couple that just got married. I had a bit of fabric left over from their wedding table runners, and I thought some placemats made out of that fabric would remind them of the wedding without being over the top "wedding-ish".

Check out these stacks of microwavable bowl holders! This photo was taken after I had already mailed off four sets of them! I made eighteen sets of three sizes, they are made using 10", 12", and 14" squares. If you'd like to make your own, I used the directions found here.

On my 2015 quest to finish other people's last projects, I finished two lap quilts started by DH's great-aunt. I gave them to my MIL for Christmas.

This one Aunt Elva had assembled into a quilt top, and had a backing folded with it. The half blocks on the bottom cracked me up, and the fact she didn't use the center strips of the blocks as a lattice, but more like two ribbons or fish struck me as odd.

She had three blocks in one colorway, and 17 in another, so I did the best I could with those. There was some damage to the blocks, so I appliqued hearts over the damaged parts before I assembled the top. At least her last projects are now finished.

I still have one project of someone else's that is not finished. It's the quilt started by DH's grandmother. I did get it assembled into a quilt top this year, but have not had time to quilt it. It is staying at our house, since we don't have a quilt made by Granny, so that put it a bit further down the list.

I also made 34 pillowcases for Christmas, 15 kids placemats, 10 potholders, one scrub top, and I'm sure a few things I'm forgetting. I lost count of how much yardage I went through, but at least 75 yards I'm sure.

I was one very spoiled quilter this Christmas, and although I used more fabric than I got for Christmas, I did have some stash enhancement as gifts.

DH bought me 2 sets of quilter's candy fat quarters, one of blenders, one of all fabrics with dots, plus a layer cake. DD#3 got me a purple fat quarter bundle, and a neutral set of fat eighths that didn't make it into the pic. I'll be wrapping the fat quarters onto my small mini-bolts, and can snap a better pic after I finish that.

I scored several quilt books that have been on my Amazon wishlist. I realized Marti Michell's Patchwork System books will work with my Accuquilt Go dies, so I'd like to get a few of those books.

I got this quilting mug that really cracks me up! I'm am quite the coffee drinker, so a mug is always a welcome gift.

I also got some earrings I've been wanting, and a few non-quilty things like lotions. I was pretty spoiled this year!

I'm not linking up with the mystery quilt this week, because I still haven't cut all the strips for clue 4, but I'm working on it. I would imagine I won't have all the sub-cutting done for clue four until sometime next week.

I am working on clue 2 in the shirts colorway, and I'm about halfway done with that. I haven't even started sewing clue two in the brights colorway, but it is all cut out. I sub-cut the stripsets I made for clue 3, and sewed up what I had. I am using scraps for these, so I was just guessing on how much I had. No WOF strips are being used. I ended up with exactly 120 bright four patches, which cracked me up, since that's exactly how many we need. I have 104 four patches in the shirts colorway, so I'll have to make a few more of those.

Since that was a bit confusing, here's the breakdown on how I'm doing on the mystery quilt.

Clue 1
shirt colorway- done, bright colorway- done

Clue 2
shirt colorway- half done, bright colorway- all cut, none sewn

Clue 3
shirt colorway- I need 16 more four patches, bright colorway- done

Clue 4
I am currently working on cutting both colorways, none sewn.

Tomorrow I should have quite a bit of time home alone, and I'm hoping to finish clue 2 in both colorways, as well as finish those last 16 four patches. We'll see what happens. If I get tired of sewing, I will work on cutting out clue four.

DS the Younger is home from the Army for Christmas, and any time I get to spend with him trumps sewing. He's got lots of people to see, and he needs to spend lots of time with his wife, as he should, so when he has time to visit, I'll drop everything to spend time with him. I've already baked lots of his favorite goodies, so that's a plus.

I hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas!

Allietare Mystery quilt-Clue 3

I just finished sewing the last of the Christmas gifts!!! Somehow I feel like I should hear a marching band or similar celebratory music. Before you go thinking I finished with a week to spare, I didn't, we are celebrating Christmas on Sunday, December 20th. Considering I haven't made any Christmas cookies, or any other holiday cooking yet, I'm actually cutting it close.

I had a bit of piecing to do for one of the Christmas presents I was making, so I managed to sew up a bunch of strips sets for clue 3 when I did the other piecing.

One of the great things about sewing up two different colorways is, I don't get sick of sewing the same colors together. Bonnie is doing a great job mixing up the order of which colors we sew when this year anyway, but still, it's great to see totally different colors under my needle. Sewing the orange and purple strips to each other, just had me smiling. This is going to be a fun quilt!

 I'll have a lot more variety when I'm finished sewing up the four patches, but I just sewed up a few to see how they would look.

I got a few of the shirts colorway four patches done too. I'm not sure if I sewed up enough stripsets or not, I'll sub-cut and sew up what I've got, then count and see if I need more.

I won't be doing any sewing for a few days, which my left shoulder will be happy about. Long sewing days makes it cranky, and I've had a lot of long sewing days lately, trying to get the Christmas presents finished.

We've been dogsitting two of our granddogs while DDIL goes to get DS the Younger from Army Basic Training. He graduated basic training this week, gets to come home for Christmas, then goes back for Advanced Individual Training.  The granddogs are a hoot. One is a tiny chiweenie, (chihuahua/dachshund mix) and the other is a Great Dane/Pitbull mix. They are both brindle-coated, so their coats are very similar, even if their builds are not.

The little one gets cold easily, so he makes himself at home on top of any lap, and if no laps are available, he lays on the bigger dog. It just cracks me up!

Here is my youngest, Private Rains. I'm so proud of him, and can't wait to see him tomorrow!

DS the Younger and DDIL took a selfie right after his graduation! I know she was so glad to see him again after the separation, and I'm betting he was just as happy to see her.

So, next few days are family, cooking, holiday stuff and no stitching at all. I'm looking forward to it all, and sometime next week, I'll get back to sewing. The sewing can wait, it's all about people right now!

If you want to see how everyone else is doing on the mystery, click here

Allietare Mystery Quilt- Clue 2

I'm really taking a laid back approach to this year's mystery, even though I am tackling it in two colorways. I'm mostly working on Christmas gifts right now. I finished all the homemade gifts that needed to be mailed, and got those posted this week. Now it's local gifts that need to be finished.

So, with all the Christmas sewing, did I get anything done on clue 2? Yes, enough to give me an idea of what is going on. I got all of clue 2 cut out in both colorways. I sewed up a set of four in each colorway, which took me about 15 minutes.

The shirts colorway is easiest in some respects. The constant gold is in place of Bonnie's constant grey, so the cutting is very similar. I just had to pay attention to the fact that I am using blue instead of red, and red instead of black. When using men's shirts, I try to make sure that I mix stripes and plaids, or at least mix the scale of the prints, to add interest and contrast.

On the brights colorway, my purple background is constant, and the yellow I'm using instead of grey is scrappy. Not knowing how the final quilt will look, I just took a guess, and I am matching my yellows in the same sets of four. Whether that turns out to be right or a mistake, only time will tell.

Now I'm back to working on Christmas presents! We are celebrating Christmas on the 20th, so I'm in time crunch mode, but while everyone else is celebrating Christmas on the 25th, I'll be home alone and sewing on the mystery quilts!

To check out how everyone else is doing on the mystery quilt, click here.