Great mail.......................

In my mail preview I saw a card from Vicki Welsh.  This was my favorite of the three she made this year.  It is so exciting to receive one of her cards.

I did a little rearranging of the cards from the previous 14 years plus the new one.  They are up on my bulletin board year round and I look in that direction while I'm sewing so I'm enjoying them all of the time.

Also in the mail was a new book.  The author contacted me a while ago and asked if she could use the image of one of my quilts in the book she was working on.

If you do a search for her name you will see she is the maker of the gemstone quilts.  Her diamond was the first one I saw.

There is more interesting information on the back of the book.  Click to enlarge.

If you go to her website and click on SHOP you can order the book directly from her.

It was hard to hold the book open with one hand and take the photo with the other hand.  This is my quilt in her book.

I finally got in the mood for baking and made the English Toffee Bars first.  Then I made 2 batches of Chex Mix and mixed the dough for a batch of Kringlas.  It needs to be refrigerated so I will bake them today.

I found a surprise bloom on one of my red-orange cacti.  It was on the side facing the window.  This one was repotted in the summer.  I have another bud ready to open on one of the white with pink edging.  It had already bloomed and then set another bud.

I'm not sure if I'll have any blooms on Christmas.  

The weather forecast is saying we might be in the 50s for Christmas.  It has happened before but is always surprising.

 

Finish #4 for December 2025..................

I started this quilt in 2016 and this post shows the inspiration quilt.  I used the layout and some of the elements in the book and then went off onto my own tangent to finish it.  The center portion hung on a hanger for 9 years waiting for me to figure out end borders to make it rectangular.  I was overthinking it, not realizing it only needed simple end borders.  It is 59.5" x 80".

I found three red Kaffe fabrics that had enough yardage for the back and then I decided to look in one more box.  There I found the teapot fabric, a Liberty fabric colored by Kaffe Fassett.  It is so perfect for this quilt.  It has Hobbs 80/20 batting in it and was longarm quilted by Robin Diaz.  I saved enough Kaffe purple Wood Ear for the binding.

Yesterday I had to fill my gas tank if I was going to drive around enough to keep my van battery charged.  I decided to stop at W*lm*rt on my way home.  Then I had PT at 2 and stopped at the family owned grocery store that is 7 blocks from my house.  I did one load of laundry and just couldn't get enthused about baking too.  Today I should be able to stay home and get busy on the baking.

Bright and soft......................

The binding is finished on this medallion quilt and full photos and stats will be on tomorrow's post.  The repairman was supposed to come between 2 and 4 yesterday and he got here at 5.  By 6:30 he had the oven and the dryer both working normally.

While waiting for him to arrive, I pressed all 10 flannel pieces and cut the squares.  Last night I got the top sewn together.  It is 32" x 40" so a 1 yard piece will be enough for a backing.

Jack Frost only did a little painting on my kitchen windows with our frigid weather over the weekend.  It's all melted away now.

Now that I have an oven working again, I'll be spending a couple days baking....and doing laundry with a dryer that isn't screeching at me.

 

Still hand stitching.................

I worked on the hand stitching on the binding of this medallion quilt a few times yesterday.  I have about 40" left to stitch.

I have only one cactus currently in bloom.  This orange one is so pretty.  I don't see buds on any of the others in the living room and dining room.  I have one on the kitchen windowsill that is 4 pieces that broke off of one plant and I rooted them and planted them all in one pot.  There is one bud on one of them so I hope it gets to the blooming stage.

It was -4 yesterday morning and got up to 8 degrees during the day.  Relief is on the way.  6 of the next 9 days are supposed to be above freezing.

Binding started.................

I got the binding sewn onto the medallion quilt and got 1 1/2 sides hand stitched last night.  This one should take me 3 evenings to finish.

A couple weeks ago I got a package from Nann.  She went to Kay Sorenson's estate sale and got these 2 fabrics for me.  She knew that Kay and I were friends.  What she didn't know is that the fabric on the left is one of my very favorite African fabrics.  The one on the right is an Australian fabric by M&S textiles.  It is a lot different than their current fabrics and I wonder if it was one of the early fabrics by that company.

 A reader, Barbara, had received a box of fabrics from an estate sale and there were some Nancy Crow fabrics in it that she wondered if I would like.  I got them yesterday.  I have never seen this print before so I was very happy to add it to the NC stash.  My local quilt shop at the time stopped carrying the NC fabrics after the first few lines.

This was the other fabric in the box.  I had a piece in both rust and burgundy in this print but had never seen the blue one.  It's a little more of a dark gray-blue than it looks in this photo.

 

Quilt trimmed, table piece finished.................

Another quilt is back from my longarm friend Robin.  I got it trimmed yesterday afternoon.

Since I needed to turn on the iron, I also pressed the binding fabric and cut the 7 strips needed.  It is Kaffe's Woodear fabric.

I also cut the binding strips for my Christmas table runner and got it sewn on and since it is for me, I hand finished the binding.  It is 14.75" x 34.5".

I also finished the second dishcloth from this color ball of yarn.  15 dishcloths have left my home since the beginning of November so I'm playing catch up to fill the basket again.

While the iron was on I also pressed this striped flannel for the back of this baby quilt.  It will be the next one I baste to prepare for quilting.

I also chose this pinkish red check flannel for the back of the flannel tumbler baby quilt.  I need to press it and find a piece of batting for this one.

When I was cleaning the area around my dryer (for the repairman) I found this Raggedy Andy outfit.  It was for the first Raggedy Ann or Andy doll that I made, when my son was little (he's 64 now).  The dog we had in the 1970s totally destroyed the doll but didn't hurt the suit.  I'm not sure why I am keeping this other than for nostalgic reasons.

Finish # 3 for December 2025

This quilt with Kaffe collective fabrics was finished on Wednesday.  It is 52.5" x 74".  It has 80/20 batting in it and it was quilted by Robin Diaz.  It is a nice throw quilt size.

The back is three strips of Kaffe collective fabric, leftovers from making backings for other quilts.

I treated myself to a fat quarter pack of Tim Holtz neutrals and 2 half yards.  I think I'll look through my Stonehenge fabrics to pair with them in a 16 patch quilt.  Or maybe a quilt of all triangles.  Or maybe Sawtooth stars and 16 patches.

I quilted my Christmas table runner last night with gold metallic thread.  You never know if it will be a good day with metallic thread so ditch quilting was best in case I had trouble.  I changed to a topstitch needle with a big eye to give it a chance to work well.  It did break 4 times but not until I was almost to the end.  I'll get it trimmed today ad cut the binding.

 

Finishes..............

Since this quilt is made with Kaffe collective fabrics, that is where I looked for the binding choice.  This one is a Brandon Mably design.

There are 3 fabrics for the backing, all leftover strips from previous quilt backs.  This is the second quilt recently that has used those strips as backs so the pile of them is getting smaller.

I'll get this quilt photographed today and share the details tomorrow.

The repairman yesterday confirmed that it is probably the igniter on the oven but he didn't have the right model with him so the part is being ordered.  The dryer was a little more complicated because the bearings were burnt out and wheels flattened so there will be lots of parts in its repair next Monday.

I photographed the Interweave blue batik quilt yesterday morning.  This post shows the beginning of this quilt and the pattern.  I didn't follow the pattern, just the general idea.  It is 54.25" x 74.25".  There are 5 different batiks for the binding.  It has Hobbs 80/20 batting in it and was quilted by Robin Diaz.

The back is 2 batiks, one the full width of the fabric (light one) and a leftover strip (dark) from another batik quilt back added to make it wide enough.

 

Quilts back..........................

I got 2 quilts back from my longarm quilter and got them both trimmed and binding cut for both of them.  The blue Interweave binding was done all by machine.  I think its future owner will probably be someone who has no idea that some people hand finish their bindings.  I still hand finish my special favorite quilts.  This one has 2 fabrics on the back and they both show in this photo.  The widest piece is the light fabric showing at the top right in this photo.  The binding is 5 different blue batik strips out of my supply of strips.

I finished sewing the 22 Christmas fabric 1.5" strips into a strata.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it yet.  I got my Christmas table runner prepared for quilting.

The repair person for my oven and my dryer is coming today around 11.  I'm hoping it is just the igniter for the oven.  The person I talked to for the appointment was surprised it has never been replaced in the 21 1/2 years I have been using the oven.  I think the drum is just off balance somehow in the dryer.  Otherwise it is working fine.  It is 41 years old, Maytag of course. 

Miscellaneous..................

Yesterday's food projects were fudge and pink Spritz cookies.  I forgot to take a photo of the cookies.

I chose the backing (the light print) and the binding (red print) to finish the Christmas table runner.  I also found a piece of batting the exact size I needed.  Maybe I'll get it layered and quilted today.

In the box with the squares (that were used for the table runner) was a group of 1.5" strips.  I don't remember cutting them so maybe they were cut to use up the ends of some of the Christmas fabrics.  I'm sewing 22 of them together and will cross cut the strata and create some kind of a design for a table mat.  The pile at the left is waiting to be sewn on. 

Baking again.........

I baked Kringlas in the morning and should have left the oven on and baked something else.  When I turned the oven on later in the afternoon....nothing....no heat.

Since I already had chocolate spritz dough made, I had to go to plan B.  My main oven is gas, but I have a countertop electric oven.  I know things bake differently in the 2 kinds because my mother had electric and her cookies always turned out different than mine.  It took many trays to bake since the oven is small but I got the job done.

After I figured out the adjustments I needed to  make, I mixed up the ginger cookie dough.  The first tray came out a little dark so I get to eat them.  The rest came out OK.

Now it is the orange/peach cactus turn to bloom.  It always blooms in sections even though it is all one plant.

I always need my closeup shot.  There are several more buds so it should bloom for almost 2 weeks.  I saw a bud on another one on the shelf below this one and I don't have it marked for color.  I think it is the orangey red.

We got another 3 or 4" of snow very early yesterday morning.  Today is going to be cold and then mid 30s for 2 days with rain possible.  That should clean off the last bit on the driveway but then there is more snow predicted. 

Busy day..................

I decided to do two loads of laundry yesterday so while I was in the basement I was looking through all of my flannel fabric.  I had something specific in mind which I haven't found yet.  When I saw the leftover pink with bears I decided to pull all of the others that would go with it for a baby girl quilt.  I think I'll use the diagonal plaid on the back but there might be a little of it that I can use on the front, depending on the size quilt I make.  If I keep it to 34" square, there would be a strip that I can use.

I baked a batch of shortbread cookies and mixed a batch of Kringlas that is in the refrigerator for the time being.

Snow was predicted to start sometime before midnight last night, so our clean sidewalks will probably be covered this morning.  38 degrees predicted for 2 days midweek with rain.  A little bit of everything, and 0 for Saturday morning.   

Table runner.................

I tried to make this as random as possible and still got some of the same fabrics close to each other.  It is 15" x 35".

There were enough squares for one more row but one of them would have been repeated 6 times in a row of 24 so I decided not to add it.

This is an interesting combination of colors in this dishcloth.  I think I knitted some from this color of yarn when I first started doing them.  It is named Violet Stripes by the Lily brand.

 

First finish for December 2025....................

The quilting wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be.  The story behind this is that the 4 star blocks were a little too large for the flying geese strips added around them.  That means I did a lot of easing and stretching and the center didn't lay as flat as most of my quilts.  I tamed it pretty well with only one little tuck. I named this one Game Board.

I'm glad I used the fun fish fabric on the back.  The fabrics are Kaffe collective.  It is 39" square and was quilted on my Pfaff 7570.  The batting is Hobbs 80/20.

This is the binding choice.

I pulled some white with black Marcia Derse fabrics as possible additions to the crazy piecing project  The whites in these are softer than the one I showed a couple days ago.

I think I might finally use all of the 2" squares of Christmas fabric that were cut many, many years ago.  I have made several table runners and square table mats from this collection over the years and I always ended up gifting them to someone.  I'm hoping I can keep this last (hopefully) one for myself.

I'm linking with Alycia's Finished (or not) Friday.