Down to the wire?

Here's Marbella, month 6. We are doing a mystery quilt at Stewart's Sewing too, and I still need to get this month's work done. Too busy doing a few projects for Christmas presents that I am not revealing at this point...

I did get the final block of Merry and Bright finished too. When will I put the whole thing together???

I've been trying to get done quilting this thing so we could use it before Christmas is over--it's the Binding Tool Star from MSQC. I am finished quilting--yay--and was working on the binding in this picture. I actually did finish it last night and will post a finished pic soon.

Today's sewing will be those Christmas projects and then it will be time to clean up the sewing room so some of my kids can stay in there when they come next week. Now, that clean up will be a major project in itself!

Blocks are almost all done--now to put it together

The Merry and Bright blocks are almost all finished! Yea! I only have block 17 left to sew (it's cut out) and then I need to put the whole thing together. The 18 setting blocks are finished too. Easy-peasy, right? Ha, ha, ha... finding the time between other projects is the key.

(I should have cropped this one before putting it on here, but...)

These blocks are month 5 of the Marbella BOM through my LQS, Stewart's Sewing in Mt. Zion, IL. I'm all caught up with them and ready for month 6 (maybe tomorrow). Love these colors!

I really like doing these BOWs and BOMs but they take time away from other stuff I want/need to do. Dilemma....

Merry and Bright 15

Here's block 15 of Merry and Bright--haven't gotten to 14 yet--being gone a week puts one behind a bit. This was was easier to think about with only 2 colors. Fourteen has 3 colors to decide on.

Got to visit this little sweetie (baby) yesterday. That's Lynnlee, born on the 8th. Her big sister is Elsie and that's a proud aunt holding her. Lynnlee is a doll-baby. Took her a cute little blanket and matching hat. Made Elsie some doll clothes, none of which I took pictures of, silly me.

Hope to start quilting my Christmas binding tool star quilt (MSQC pattern) today. I'd really like to have it out during the Christmas season.

Pick a Pumpkin--My Turn

Well, it's my turn today in Carla's fantastic hop. I have seen some fantastic projects! What an inspiration these hops are. 

First off, I  thought I'd show you some other kinds of pumpkins. We decorated our church for last weekend's hosting of our IL/WI district conference. Below are some of our decorations.

The photos below are at church too but those pumpkins are some I made a few years ago. I made more but gave most away. Glad I kept a couple of them.

This photo is at the entrance to our home. I made the small wall hanging a number of years ago (It's a Debbie Mumm design) but never did quilt it. It looks fine anyway.

Thought I'd show you a couple of my little "pumpkins" when we took them "trunk or treating" at the preschool. Amelia is 5 and Camella is 3. Their parents were out of town so we got to watch them.

Now on to my project for this hop...

I had seen a quilt with the pumpkin made in strips but stitched into the background strips. In fact, yesterday's blogger, Kathy of Hazel’s Daughter created a table topper much like that quilt. I didn't want a quilt--I wanted a wall hanging about 30" square--so I took scrap orange 2.5" strips and stitched them together until I had something about the right size, drew a pumpkin shape, and cut it out. Then I stitched background 2.5" strips together until I had a big enough background. I cut a stem from a scrap of brown. Then I appliqued the pumpkin onto the background. I used scraps of green to cut a leaf and curly tendrils. I used my Go Baby Accuquilt cutter for the blackbirds. My walking foot did the quilting and more leftover 2.5" strips made the binding.

TA DA!

Many thanks to Carla for hosting this wonderful hop! Enjoy all the other hoppers!

Here is today's round-up:

Thursday, November 8th

selina quilts

Seams To Be Sew

That Fabric Feeling

Just Sew Quilter  (You are here.)

Home Sewn By Us

My Sewful Retirement

Creatin' in the Sticks

Merry and Bright update

My post is a week behind, but this is block 13 of Merry and Bright. Ok, I know it needs to be pressed too--hey, I was in a hurry. This week's block is out today--and I probably won't get it done until next week. Anyway, #13 is done.

I finished this table runner too. It's from the Sew Sampler box that Fat Quarter Shop sends out every month. It's called Cherry Pickin and is from the Badda Bing! line by Me & My Sister Designs. I sure like the way it turned out. 

More Merry and Bright and other things

Here are the last 2 weeks' of Merry and Bright by Pat Sloan, blocks 11 and 12.

I goofed on the width of the blue strips for the ornament so added another background strip to the bottom instead of starting over. (I hate starting over.) I think it looks fine. 

These two Christmas trees were projects from quilt club. We saw one in a shop and did our best to duplicate it. I'm sorry, I don't know the pattern or designer. We didn't use one.

Here's one of our pretty sunset maples--finally, they are getting some color!

This wine brings back memories of our "sisters' day out" in OR last summer when we went to the Flying Dutchman winery, bought some wine, and ate at Mo's. (Clam chowder is fantastic there.)

Merry and Bright Block 10

You get to see pant legs and all in this photo--I forgot to crop it. This is block 10 of Pat Sloan's Merry & Bright BOW. Does it look like a piece of candy? I am ready to sew Block 11 but I won't get to it this weekend. Maybe Monday??

Last weekend we had 2 lovely granddaughters with us. It was cold but nice enough for trampoline jumping.

Some fun with hats

We went to a wiener roast too. The girls were too busy running around to be in a picture.

Catching up

I FINALLY fiinshed my "inherited" quilt--7 blocks were done. I embroidered the rest, looked for fabric, created patterns from pictures and already finished blocks, quilted each block, then put them all together. One fantastic quilter, Barbara, from NY, sent me another center so I could have 16 embroidered blocks instead of 15. Realized a border would be best so quilted it and put it on. Only 3.5 years for my on-again-off-again project. My research led me to find out this was a Thimbleberries BOM in 2006, Vintage Stitches. Couldn't find all those old fabrics 4 years ago but found several. Love this one--it stays here with me.

I refurbished my Featherweight case while the machine is gone, getting a check-up. I think it looks pretty good. (Okay, I see I already posted it, but, what the heck, look at it again--I'm pretty proud of this one.) Can't wait to get my machine back now. AND I just bought another one--white this time--so am eager to receive it.

Carla's blog hop will be here before we know it:

Pick a Pumpkin Blog Hop Schedule

Monday, November 5th

MooseStash Quilting

QuiltFabrication

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Just Because Quilts

Made By Marney

ShirleyC

Words & Stitches

Tu-Na Quilts, Travels, and Eats

Tuesday, November 6th

Life in the Scrapatch

Clever Chameleon

Songbird Designs

Kathy's Kwilts and More

VroomansQuilts

Vicki's Crafts and Quilting

Super Mom No Cape

Quarter Inch Crafter

Wednesday, November 7th

Just Let Me Quilt

Count in *all* Joy

MaryMack's Blog

DesertSky Quilting

Melva Love Scraps

Hazel’s Daughter

Adventurous Applique and Quilting

Beaquilter

Thursday, November 8th

selina quilts

Seams To Be Sew

That Fabric Feeling

Just Sew Quilter (that's me)

Home Sewn By Us

My Sewful Retirement

Creatin' in the Sticks (that's Carla)

Looking forward to seeing all the cool projects!

Plugging along

Cerro Gordo Quilters made drain bags last week for mastectomy patients. Here are some of us. A total of 100 bags have been made and will be donated in our area. Thanks goes to Darlene, who recently had a mastectomy, and knows how important these are.

My most recent Merry and Bright block, #9, I believe. I also finished up all 18 setting blocks.

I took my 1953 Featherweight to get repaired and decided to refurbish the case.

Featherweightshop.com has a "how to" on refurbishing these black cases. Worked pretty well , I think, but the chrome latches were very icky and stubborn. They came out looking good, considering how bad they were. Now the case is ready for the machine to come home. The Featherweight Shop is a great site for all things Featherweight.

I only need to put the binding and label on my Thimbleberries adventure quilt. More on that when I finish it up (I hope today, but have to get ready for company too).

More Merry and Bright

These are my latest finished for Pat Sloan's Merry and Bright QAL--blocks 7 and 8, I think. So far, I have been able to keep up. Oh, and there are setting blocks--I have 13 of 18 done.

These are 4 of the setting blocks. Some have red instead of the turquoise, some have green, and some have blue.

Another big project nearing completion is my Thimbleberries "inherited" quilt parts. I finished half the embroidery centers myself, completed 13 of the 20 blocks, having to create or duplicate patterns for all 13, quilted each block, and then put the whole thing together. Now I will work on borders.

Oh, yeah, and I made this banner for church--44" x about 7'. Design by Debbie Noffsinger for our church district's 2016 conference. I liked it so much, I wanted to duplicate it, with Debbie's permission, of course.

Harvest already?

Who would have thought farmers would be picking corn already? It has dried down a lot, however, so harvest is inevitable. The picture below is in our field. Allen has all red equipment (Case IH, I think.). 

This photo below is across the road from us. He uses the green stuff--we all know John Deere. 

I've been keeping up with Pat Sloan's Merry and Bright QAL. This is block #6 from last week. A new one comes out today. I'm using Snow Much Fun fabric. It's going to be a pretty quilt, I do believe.

And these are 4 of the 9 setting blocks I have finished. Need 18 all together. The rest are cut out, ready to stitch. The other 5 I have done are red instead of turquoise.

At our last Sew Day, several of our quilt group made zippered bags from candy bags. Missouri Star has a youtube tutorial on them. 

Here are some sneak peaks of my Pick a Pumpkin blog hop project. It's all done, but I can't show it until my day in November.  😉

Yesterday I finished a new banner for church. In the photo it's hanging from our loft rail--I'll get it up at church before Sunday. This was our district conference theme in 2016, and I asked Debbie Noffsinger, the designer, if I could make a banner from the design. She was gracious enough to give me permission. Our congregation is hosting conference this year (Nov 2&3); my goal was to have it done in time for that. I think I made it! It's 44" x 84".

I'm also working on the Missouri Star binding tool star quilt. I have several blocks finished--maybe 10--with 6 more to go and then the borders will need to be done. Once in a while I get inspired to do some work on my Thimbleberries quilt. I hope to get it done before the year is out.

Never lack for projects, that's for sure!

Pick a Pumpkin hop

Well, I hope I know what I'm doing--I joined Carla at Creatin' in the Sticks' Pick a Pumpkin blog hop. It runs November 5 - 8. Why is that a concern? I am co-coordinator for our church  IL/WI district conference the weekend before--and it is at our church. I figure I can make at least one pumpkin item before then!

Carla's still taking entries, if you want to join. Let her know!

Send her your name, email, blog name and address.

Should be fun!

More quilt blocks

Here's Merry and Bright (Pat Sloan), week 3. I forgot to post earlier, and tomorrow is block 4, which will probably wait until the grandchildren go home next week. I love block 3--made 2 of them, as you can see.

Our LQS, Stewart's Sewing, is doing a block of the month called Marbella. We actually get 2 blocks at a time, or at least we have the first 2 months. This month was applique`. I love the colors in this quilt--that's one reason I wanted to participate.

Twelve members of our quilt group, Cerro Gordo Quilters, are making butterflies so we can swap blocks. Mine are all done, each one different, since I decided to use scraps. I could easily make my own quilt with these, but I'll have a bunch of different lovelies after we all trade.