Decision made........................

I decided to go with the wildcard fabric staggered.  I stacked all of the pieces for 8 block A and layered them on a cover of a plastic bin so I could carry them up the stairs.

I did the same for 6 block B.  Now I have some sewing set up for a couple days.

Since I was not using fat quarters, but instead cut a 10" strip selvage to selvage, I had room to cut 2 more stacks of each group.  These are stacks of 5 pieces in the order they would be sewn.  Maybe I can use them on the back of the quilt.

Last night's sewing, this far on 8 blocks, about 1/3 of the total piecing of the 14 blocks.

In the afternoon I tackled the big project, cutting batting off the roll and trimming it to the correct length, and cutting 2 lengths of backing fabric for each of these quilts.  I still need to sew the seam in the backings.

Every year I think I'm going to make a Christmas quilt in July.  I had planned to make one with the die cut large half hexagons and had cut strips off many fabrics.  For the ones that have a one way design I cut a strip tall enough to cut the pieces in the other direction.  I even have a large enough piece of that red and green paisley for the back of the quilt.  I know I cut these strips before the big shut down in 2020 in March.  I was cutting one day when my 2 friends were over here sewing.  So, for one more year I have missed the Christmas in July project.  One part of me says still make it, the other part says what's the point when I don't know anyone who needs a Christmas quilt (however it would look good draped across the bench in front of my fireplace).  Pros and cons, I would like to see what it looks like, and I think it will be pretty, but my life is different since I injured my leg 2 years ago with the off and on pain.  This is definitely a design wall project.  Who would have thought I still have many quilts I want to make and I'm in my mid-80s.  I don't think I ever thought that far ahead to how long I would still be quiltmaking.

5" blooms, more organizing..........................

From the 6" strips I showed on Monday I got 12 fussy cut blooms.  These are cut 5" to finish at 4.5", 2 to match up with the 9" blocks.  There is lots more cutting to do so these will go in the box with the others previously cut.

Back to the basement for more cleaning and organizing.  The next thing in line on the workbench was the box of Christmas fabric.  I will be going through this and pulling out the few pieces I might need for future Christmas stockings or other small projects.  I will sell the rest.

A little farther down the line I found a bag of scraps of Christmas fabric so it got added to the box.

On top of the box were *9* Christmas stocking patterns.  Two were paper which were immediately added to the recycle pile and there are some duplicates which I'll eliminate too.  All of the rest are cardboard or template plastic.

Do you remember when this brand of potato chips came in bags inside a cardboard box?  Also every August there was a 'back to school' pencil in the box.  I'll have to keep this pattern for nostalgic reasons.

Now I have the first 9' of a 15' 9" workbench cleaned.  I have one more of the green boxes that will go in the empty slot on the right.

In the lower 2 shelves are: top shelf - long strips leftover from backings, all labeled with size and sorted by regular prints, Kaffe, and batik, and bottom shelf - heavier weight fabrics for tote bags, etc.

The crate and the green canvas box on top of it are going to be removed, and when I have a helper, this box will be emptied and hoisted into that slot, and then refilled with my long cutting dies.

The Christmas fabrics that I'm keeping will go into the top right green box, which is empty right now, and the bin they are in will join my other empty bins.

I have a goal of trying to match all of the extra lids with their boxes as I find them.  Right now I have 5 extra lids and one box that I can't find the matching lid.

After my visit to my tomato plants, I came around to the front of my house for another photo of my new table and pots.  The geranium has a bunch of new buds so there will be some bright color in a few days.

 

Merry Christmas.................

No white Christmas this year, and I'm thankful for that.  We had our white right after Thanksgiving instead this year.  

In yesterday's mail there was a Christmas card from my talented friend, Linda Swanekamp.  She not only makes quilts, she also paints.  I love the warm glow behind the tree. 

I got the basting done on this little quilt late yesterday afternoon and started the quilting last night.  I quilted in the ditch crosswise on the quilt and am quilting a presser foot width away from the seams in the other direction. 

Both packages of treats reached my 2 out of state families yesterday.  On the post office receipt it said Friday delivery, so I could only hope they would be  more efficient and get the packages there on Wednesday.
 

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

Cutting and sewing of the sashing and border went smoothly on this table runner top made with Marcia Derse fabric.  It is 15" x 40" right now.  I'm contemplating how I'll quilt it now and I may put that off until after Christmas.

After I finished working on that I pieced a batting for the next baby quilt that I will finish.

I bought these 3 glass trees with interior lights last year.  They have a timer for 6 hours on.  The tall one looks tipped but that's my fault for taking the photo at that angle.  These are at the far end of my living room and the cardinal candles I showed previously are at the other end of the room.

It was 44 yesterday and maybe will be a couple degrees warmer today.  The snow piles along the side of the streets and along my driveway are still there but there should be more melting today.

Finish #5 for December 2025

The binding was cut yesterday afternoon and last night I sewed it on, finished by machine.  This little quilt is 30" x 39.25".  It is flannel and in the Bullseye Log Cabin pattern.  It has Hobbs 80/20 batting in it and I quilted it on my Pfaff.

 It took only a one yard piece of flannel for the back of the quilt.  The binding is a medium tan, darker than the light fabrics and lighter than the dark fabrics.

It was so dark yesterday morning that I had to move this cactus plant to the bathroom to take its photo.  It is the white with pink edging.

Here's a little closer look at the only bloom on the plant.

I haven't had a Christmas tree for many years since the party isn't at my house anymore.  This year I bought (with a gift certificate) a 24" tall flocked tree that has the tiniest lights you have ever seen.  They are on in the photo but don't show up.  I got the Merry Christmas wood and metal sign on sale after Christmas last year.

There was a little more money to spend on the GC so I got these candles, made of real wax with flickering LED lights in them.  There is a remote to turn them on and off.  I will have them on display all the way through March.  Today is the shortest day of the year, and the best news is that it will be getting lighter each day.

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.

 

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. 

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.

 

Front entrance decor..................

I took both daylight and night photos of the front porch.

My front porch lights are motion activated so there is no way for me to take a photo of the porch without them unless I turn off the switch inside.  Then it would be too dangerous for me to walk out there in the dark.  If you click on the photo and enlarge it you can see the lights on the greenery are on.

Even though some of the other cactus plants had buds before the red one, red was the winner in this spot by the east window.

There is one pale pink bloom and the plant is loaded with buds.  The one in the front left is a champagne color.  I should have lots of flowers here in a couple days.

The parties are over, back to sewing soon.

Unpressed progress....................

I'm working on the border blocks for the purple Rosy and I can't press them until I know where they will end up on the quilt.  That is, if I want seams to nest, which I do.  There are 4 of each of these as well as 4 of the one I showed previously.

This is how they fit along the center of the quilt.  I have the larger squares all up on the wall and need to piece more of the sections of 6 smaller squares and sew them to the large square sections.  It is the most boring part of the piecing.  I might look for a couple more choices of fabric for the smaller squares.

I usually don't decorate outside for winter/Christmas but I have had some pieces gifted to me and help putting it all up.  I know it is early but I need to accept the help when it is offered.  There will be more added as the week goes on.

I gave up on the table that has been on my porch with pots of pansies on it.  It had seen better days and in its fragile condition, it was time to remove it.

It was in the mid 50s yesterday and the same predicted for today.  Then mid 60s for 2 days.  All of that after 20s and 30s for a couple days.  Crazy fall weather.

 

Weather warnings and a little cutting.........

We were under a tornado watch last evening but the storms mostly missed us.  We only got enough rain to wet the driveway and then it moved on.  We haven't had a good rain since May 1.

I got the first group of pieces cut with my new die.  They are 8" so one X block would be 16".  I don't have any idea what I'm going to make with them but I'll continue to cut and also choose a fabric for the triangles that complete the blocks.

I'm used 10" squares from layer cakes for all of the cutting.  There are 2 triangle corners of waste fabric that I will start cutting into triangles for another project.

I finished a dishcloth while watching the storms on radar until the warnings disappeared.  It got up to 93 yesterday in Chicago and broke the old record of 91.  One more hot day today and then a cooler weekend in the high 60s.

While working on clean up in the basement I found a group of strips of Christmas fabric.  For now I'll put them in the box with the rest of the Christmas fabrics.  Every year I think I'll do a Christmas in July project.  Maybe this is the year it will happen.