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.

 

Quilting started.....................

I finished the basting yesterday morning and last night started the quilting on this small quilt I call Game Board.  This post shows the whole top.  I got the ditch quilting done in the 3 outer borders and then quilted the flying geese border.  I'll probably do the bow ties next and then proceed to the center.

I have tweezers handy when I am quilting.  No matter how many threads I pull out of the seams before I start, I always find more while quilting.  Sometimes as in this case, only about 1/4" of thread is showing and it's easiest to grab it with the tweezers.

This is how long the thread was.  I should have put all of them in a pile to show at the end but I didn't think of that until I had already thrown away more than a dozen of them.

 

Playing...............

I added some more pieces to 3 of the Marcia Derse fabric crazy piecing blocks.  I'm testing whether I want white with black fabrics added.  I have at least 3 other prints I can try.

Occasionally I pull out the parts department boxes and check out some of the pieces.  These are from the 4" Kaffe fabric box.  They are now safely back in the box.

I finished this dishcloth on Sunday night.  I now have 3 in this coloration done and want to make 3 more.

I started two more dishcloths last night.  The bottom one is blue flecks and isn't quite as dark as it looks here.

I also am basting a small quilt to quilt on my Pfaff machine.  I should finish that today and start on the quilting tonight.

We got another 2" of snow yesterday.  I had PT yesterday afternoon and stopped at the grocery store on the way home.  Today may reach 32 degrees and then single digits tomorrow morning.

November 2025 monthly recap..................

November had just one finish.  It was a special one for me because it is made of all Nancy Crow designer fabric.  I started collecting the fabric in the mid 1990s and had only used a few pieces of it in quilts over the years since then.  It's my favorite pattern to make, 16 patch with a patchwork print cut into 8" blocks placed in with the pieced blocks.  It is 62" x 78.5".

I finished 3 quilt tops.  The Purple Rosy (Kaffe design) quilt top took up most of the creative time in the month.  The original pattern has just one row of squares around the perimeter and I did 2 rows.  All of the fabrics are Kaffe collective, and it surprised me that there was a good variety in purple.  This top measures 66.5" x 84".

The Kaffe Strippy 2 top was an experiment which turned out rather nicely.  It is 49.5" x 71".

The little flannel quilt top will be keeping some baby warm when I finish it this month.  The top is 30" x 40".  It was made from pieces in 2 project boxes so it was a quick one.

I made several small table pieces early in Nov.  Some are mug rugs, one table runner, and a table mat.  All but the 4 piece mug rugs have been gifted already.

It was a good month and now I have to get serious about finishes again.  I am at 24 finishes and 23 quilt tops and I was hoping for a larger margin of finishes at the end of the year.

Last minute November finishes and more......................

There is nothing better than an all day sewing day.  It was too cold to go anywhere.

This top is finally finished other than a little trimming of the bottom edge.  It ended up at 49.5" x 71".  There are 2 Martha Negley fabrics in it and the rest are all Kaffe Fassett Collective.

I determined a final layout and got this flannel baby quilt top sewn together too.  When I was putting the blocks up on the  design wall, I realized the bottom left block was shorter than the rest.  Evidently 2 of the light strips were 1.75" instead of 2".  I thought I had pulled all of those out of the box.  I added a strip to the bottom of the block to get it up to size.  Only 1/4" of it will show when the quilt is finished.

Last night I needed some mindless sewing so I pulled out a bag of small Marcia Derse scraps.  I will have to pull out the bag with longer strips to continue piecing these.

I made 6 all together, working until I ran out of everything but very small scraps.

This small pile was left and will go into a smaller bag and put back in the box for now.

This plant's blooms are dark orange or red-orange depending on how you would want to classify them.

I turned the plant so I could get a photo with better light.

I wish these blooms would last longer.  They are so pretty at their peak.

Snow is the big news..........

Yesterday there was a little snow on the ground when I got up and it was light snow in the beginning.  This photo is from 10 yesterday morning.  By noon there was heavier snow.  By afternoon, there was a break in the storm and we were under that area.

This photo was at 6:30 last night when we had around 6" of snow.  On Chicago news they said my town had 7.2".  The snow total for a day in November may be broken in Chicago's records.

I spent the day sewing the columns and then sewing them to each other.  I finalized my ideas for 2 of the insert strips so it is sewn all the way to the third one which needs pressing before I can continue.  This quilt was a nice experiment, nothing more.  Someone will love it when it is finished.  More than half of the strips were already cut (and in a project box) and the rest were fresh cut strips.

I have one more day to finish November projects so my monthly recap may be on Tuesday.

A few changes................

Still playing with this one......

I moved the 2 tone green strip one column to the right, oh, and I cut it into 1.5" segments.  I'm not sure that dark strip will stay in there.  After an hour or so I left this project and checked back at it a couple times during the day.

There wasn't room on the design wall for the flannel blocks so I laid them on the floor to see how they look together.  This probably isn't the final layout.

I needed to do a load of laundry, so while it was washing and drying I worked on backings and battings for the next quilts to go to the longarmer.  I had already sewn the long back seam for the one on the left so I just needed to cut batting and trim it to the right length.  It is pieces of 2 different batiks for the back.  The one on the right has 3 pieces of Kaffe collective fabrics for the back.  They were all trimmings from previous backs, 2 were wider and one narrow.  Then I cut the batting for it too, and trimmed it to length.  That is easy to type, but a real workout to do.

I'm glad I kept looking for a back for this quilt.  The teapot fabric is one of the Liberty fabrics that Kaffe did the coloration for.  With the purple and red, it was perfect for this medallion quilt top.  I sewed the long seam and trimmed the excess backing fabric.

When all of that was finished, the clothes were ready to come out of the dryer.  Yes, I'm one of those people who remove the clothes immediately so they don't have time to develop wrinkles.

All blocks....................

Yesterday morning I got all of the strippy blocks up on the design wall.  I think I might have moved 2 of the blocks after this photo was taken.

I decided to sew the columns I'm happy with so the three at the left are sewn, but not sewn to each other.  I need to do more playing with the insertion strips.  I don't like the grouping of the strippy block columns right now, 3, 2, 3, and 2.  After I sew some columns I can move them around and also move the narrow strips to new locations.

I decided to make 2 more flannel bullseye blocks for a total of 12.  The blocks will finish somewhere near 10" so that would make a 30" x 40" quilt which is a good size for a baby.

I hope I can convince myself that today is Friday.  These holidays mess with the brain.

Flannel.............

Standing at the design wall didn't sound appealing to me yesterday so I got 2 boxes of flannel pieces off a shelf in my studio.

I decided bullseye blocks was a nice mindless project.  They will probably be made into a baby quilt.

They haven't had their final press yet so they look a little crooked.  Some of them used a variety of short pieces and others were just 3 fabrics for the whole block.

I still have tomatoes ripening in the garage.  A lot of them are golf ball size or smaller but they taste great, better than the ones I could buy at the grocery store.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my US readers.  We have a snowstorm headed our way for Saturday and Sunday and then temperatures in the 20s on Monday and Tuesday.  December is going to look like winter right from day one.

Auditioning ideas........................

The morning yesterday was spent making a backing for an older quilt top.  I'm using a full width piece and a cut away from another back for it.  Now I just need to cut batting.

I have a bunch of ideas on the design wall to audition what works and what doesn't in this strippy quilt.

This is my favorite new block.  The stripe is Twigs by Martha Negley so now there are 2 Martha fabrics in this project.

In the middle of the afternoon I had a PT session for my weaker leg.  

I bought the Kaffe collective fabric on the right at a good sale price.  I tried it for the backing of the purple Rosy and I like it.  I had a 25% off birthday discount at a store that had it in stock so I ordered a little more so the whole back can be this fabric.

I finished a dishcloth last night and when I spread it out to take the photo I noticed a mistake (in the top edge).  I'll probably keep this one because it might bother anyone that I would gift it to.  My dishes won't care at all.

 

Starting a new one................

There are 2 blocks of each combination except one so this is half of the blocks.  Getting them up on the wall helps me see what colors and values need  more representation.  After I make about 5 more combinations I'll continue with the design.  I ran the blocks crosswise on the last one of these and thought I would do a vertical setting on this one.  I'm just playing with some ideas here for a quick small quilt.

I need to make a list of all of my started quilts and see which one I want to work on next.  Also I need to quilt a couple baby quilts.  This seems like a good week to make lists.

I spent the morning making two batches of Chex Mix to send with traveling family for Thanksgiving.  They are going to arrive Tuesday afternoon so that gives them plenty of time to enjoy this before they have turkey dinner.

First quilt top finished in November 2025

The corner blocks were sewn yesterday morning and then I just kept working on it.  In the afternoon it was pressed and photographed and measured. It is 66.5" x 84". The difference between this one and the original Rosy (Kaffe) pattern is that I added one more row of small squares in the border.  I used 3" finished squares in the 9 patch in this quilt and used 2" finished squares in my green Rosy quilt.  I'm glad I made this one but I like my green one best.

This gives a better idea of the size.  The double design wall is 84" tall and 98" wide.

My cacti are striped early in the  morning before I open the blinds.  We have had sunshine for 2 days.