Sister's Choice Quilts

This is Really My Last Project for 2019

I managed to squeeze in one last project for 2019.  I don't have a lot to show for my year in quilting this year, but I am going out strong.  With luck, this will be how I will continue in 2020.  This little quilt is not perfect by any means, and I am going to try to rectify a couple of those chopped off points before I quilt it.  This was a tricky block to make, and I can't say I enjoyed it 100%. Those little pieced flying geese units were a bear.  Lots of bias edges and ways to go wrong.  Still, I know I will enjoy it as a table topper with a fun wintery scented candle on it.

I am full of ideas for January projects, which I can't wait to get started on.  I have a snowflake quilt in mind, plus a couple of small wool projects.  

It is time for us to say goodbye to our son and wish him a safe trip home to Ireland.  That makes me very sad, but we enjoyed every moment of being together.

Hope you had a great weekend and are looking forward to cheering in the new decade!

Happy Holidays

I hope your Christmas was as fabulous as mine was.  Lots of family time, which is just the best.  My cousin Dennis from Michigan was visiting his brother Paul, and it was just lovely to sit and visit with someone who I grew up with and don't see very often.  He is an international pilot and has such an interesting life.  We had a small family gathering Christmas morning, then headed to the Bay Area for my larger family's Christmas Extravaganza.  It is wonderful, but is complete chaos.  Those of you with large families can relate, I am sure.  It was pure pandemonium.  My husband, Eva and I stayed over at a motel, while Ahren stayed at my father's house with Ozzie.  Ozzie was pretty overwhelmed by the entire proceedings.  He is getting older for sure.

Today Eva and I headed home, while my husband and son went down to the Monterey Bay area to see some sights.  After dropping Eva off at her daddy's I tackled the piles of gift bags, ribbon and discarded boxes.  After sorting those out for the most part, I swept floors and made a big pot of soup.  Truth be told, I am pretty pooped out about now, and am looking forward to at least three days of doing nothing!

My favorite presents were from my husband (new bathrobe and slippers), my daughter (an entire box of beauty products) and my son (a new Staub pie plate and a gift certificate to Fatquartershop!!!  They know me so well.  I am off to put on my robe and slippers and sit in a comfy chair for awhile!  Maybe for the next three days.

Last Project of 2019

I am just so happy with this.  My little snowman candle mat.  I got his eyes and mouth on-just French knots, but they add the right amount of personality.  I think his nose is too big though.  He did not need such a gigantic Jimmy Durante schnoz. And it is so droopy.  Oh dear.

And you know what?  I am going to hand quilt this.  I had a minute this afternoon to work on it, and guess how many stitches I got in?  Ten.  Yes, ten.  I could not do one single thing today without being interrupted countless times.  One of these days I will have a few hours of uninterrupted time to do whatever.  Today I had Eva over, we made cookies, and then Dennis and Ahren wanted to go to the movies to see Knives Out (it was good).  Then we made dinner-Fettucine with chicken, basil and tomatoes.  Oh, and just to keep things real, we had a plumbing emergency.  Our sump pump alarm went off and that never bodes well.  Our lovely local plumber showed up within an hour and sorted us out.  I am going to cultivate a firm friendship with that young man.

At any rate, I am pleased with my little wool applique project and hope to do more like it in the months to come. 

I hope you all will have a marvelous Christmas!!  I am hoping for a productive 2020 for all of us!  For myself, I am wishing to explore some new avenues and techniques and am so excited for you all to accompany me on my journey.

Do You Want to Build a Snowman?

I am having so much fun with my dabble into wool appliqué!  I think my little snowman came out great and I can't wait to embroider his little face and otherwise finish up this project.  I downloaded a slew of free rug mat patterns from Shabby Fabric this weekend and am excited to make some additional projects with wool.  

It's been a busy few days, with no let-up in sight, but I managed to fit in a few hours of sewing.  I am listening to a fantastic audiobook by Diane Chamberlain called The Dream Daughter while I sew.  It has a complicated plot, and I will share it with you in a review in the New Year.  This is such a good book!

Our son Ahren arrived from Ireland and is so happy to be home.  We are enjoying every minute while we are together.  I found fresh Dungeness crab at the market, so we had a seasonal feast over the weekend.  If you have ever had Dungeness crab, you know what I am talking about.

I have a hand stitchery question for those of you who do wool appliqué.  Do you use the blanket stitch around all your little pieces?  Or do you use the whip stitch?  I am flying blind here, and wasn't sure which way to go.  My blanket stitch looks pretty good, but I was wondering if the whip stitch was the more common way to go.

Hope you are all enjoying the days up until Christmas, and Happy Hanukkah to those of you who celebrate the Festival of Lights.

Cookies!

My sweet son in law hosted a cookie decorating party for our Eva and some of her friends and neighbors.  After eating pizza, we cleared the decks and he brought out gingerbread cookies he and Eva had made.  The kids were given decorating frosting and loads of sprinkles and goodies to decorate their cookies.  You can see little Sawyer on the left is really into making her star cookie exactly right.  It was total pandemonium, but a good time was had by all.

On the sewing front, this is my last zippy bag.  I ran out of lobster clasps, and this is as far as I got with the last bag.  The clasps should arrive today and this enterprise will be finito. These things are a breeze to make, and if you are afraid of zippers, this is the project to help you get over that in a hurry.  I will do a tutorial on the triangle pouches after Christmas.

My son Ahren has arrived in San Francisco and had a good flight. He will spend today with a good friend and my husband will collect him Saturday morning and bring him home.  Can't wait!  I asked him what I could cook for him for his homecoming, and he responded with the first thing that popped into his head:  Linguine and Clams.  Ok then.  That is what I am making for dinner.  The things we do for our kids, right?

Have a fabulous weekend!  Last one before Christmas!

It Is All Catching Up With Me...

Christmas will be here in one week.  I still have some gifts to wrap, last-minute things to pick up, a school performance to attend, cookies to bake, menus to plan and shop for, my son arriving from Ireland today, a guest room to get ready, and I have Eva overnight because her parents are entertaining their employees.  And I am pretty sure I forgot a few things, like my manicure appointment and my date to walk with friends on Friday.

And three more of these to make:

These little triangle pouches are such fun to make, can be finished in a jiffy and people seem to love them for carrying lip balm, hand sanitizer, or even earbuds for audio devices. I attach lobster hooks on little tabs so folks can clip them to whatever.  I have given two away as teacher gifts, so they aren't in the photo, for a total of nine made so far.  I need to make three more, by my calculations and think I can just about manage that.  It is a nice little "extra" gift to tuck in a bag.  Especially if you put something fun inside it.  It is bad luck to give a zippy bag without something in it, don't you know?  If anyone is interested in a tutorial, I took lots of photos while I was constructing them, so I could do that.

Eva and I made an astonishing mess making spritz cookies for her to give her parents and grandparents in the little tins above. I found them at Savemart and think they will be perfect.  They are small, so they won't hold a ton of cookies, which is good.  The little spritz cookies will be perfect.  The lids are see-through, which is kind of fun. It is amazing how we totaled the kitchen much fun we had making those things.  I will be sweeping up sprinkles for the next six months, but it was worth it.

Oh!  And I totally forgot to share with you this adorable little wool kit I bought from Shabby Fabrics!  It arrived yesterday and I cannot wait to start it in the New Year.  The pattern is easy (beginner-friendly)  and adorable, and the wool included is so pretty.  It may have just slipped into my shopping cart while I was shopping for other people.

Are you relaxing right now and enjoying the days up to the holidays, or are you totally overcommitted and frazzled?  There must be a balance we could strive for.  I'll get the essentials done in the next two days, and then I swear, I am going to chill out and enjoy my son's visit.

Triangle Zipper Pouches

These two funny looking things are triangle zipper pouches.  I watched a couple of YouTube videos to get the basic instructions.  They went together easily, with a few trial and error mishaps.  I sewed those D ring tabs on wrong about four times but got it right in the end.  I will provide more details in my next post.

For now, as it is late, as I write this, I will say, the smaller size was the more successful.

You can whip these up in no time, I will say that.  More tomorrow.

Holiday Gatherings

Hope you all had a great weekend!  I got a little sewing done, and finished my piece for the snowman applique.  The snowman and his broom will go on the right in the empty space.  It will be just the right amount of wool applique to get me started.  Of course I don't have any wool yet, but the Etsy shop where I bought some has shipped it, so yippee.

We had a family gathering on Sunday night, and I was so pleased with all our decorations.  We were all decked out.

My husband, as I have said, loves holiday decorations and thinks the more we have out the better.  He recently came home from a trip down to the Monterey area with a metal tree centerpiece decoration that has holders for five candles.  I wanted to give it a bit more oomph, so I added my crazy snowmen collection around it, and I like the results.  Everyone gives me a hard time about these snowmen, but they are wonderful collectibles that I acquired in the 90's.  

I get a lot of teasing about these funny looking little guys, but they are near and dear to my heart.

I've been watching some YouTube videos on making little zippered bags, so I may attempt one this week if time allows. There is always time to make a few zippered bags before Christmas right?  We have what, nine days? Have you seen the ones that are in the shape of little triangles?  So cute.

Scrappy Churn Dash Mini Quilt

I know.  Can you believe it? I actually finished something!  This little mini quilt is about 22 inches square, with little churn dash blocks that finish at 3".  The pattern came from the Simple Friendships II book, but I made my project smaller and changed up the border.  I cropped the photo, so the border looks kind of wonky because I chopped some of it off in the picture.  It did turn out pretty square though.  I had those borders off and had to try again a second time though because they were a mess on my first try.  That can happen when you change up a pattern size!  With some adjustments, it came out ok.

I started up the Buttermilk Basin wool applique pattern I showed you the other day.

Cute, right?  Well, the instructions are not so great.  Buttermilk Basin patterns are absolutely adorable and I have purchased many of them (and will continue to do so).  That being said, I am disappointed the instructions are not better proofed and are not a bit more thorough.  Pressing suggestions?  Figure it out.  And I believe there is a mistake in the cutting directions.

For the upper left-hand unit you are told to cut out 3 1/2" strips.  Clearly that is too long.  It should be much smaller than that to line up with the four patch. Plus the diagram indicates sewing a diagonal seam on two of the corners of that upper left unit, and that can't be right.  (Enlarge the photo to see the diagram better). Or have I lost my mind due to lack of sewing and am just not interpreting things correctly?  Diagonal sewing is called for to form the star, but not on the four corner units.  Look at the block photo, do you see any diagonal seams on the four corner units?  It is easy to blame the pattern, and maybe I am being hasty here, but I think the instructions are lacking.  I'll figure it out, but goodness, I feel frustrated! 

Did I ever get some great wool applique comments on my post the other day!  I wasn't able to reply to Vikki, but I did take several of her terrific suggestions.  I ordered the Lisa Bongean wool applique book, a wool pressing mat and an applique pressing sheet.  The book arrived already and I have been studying it. In the book, there is a recommendation for a certain needle threader which I have ordered.  I cannot wait to try it and share my results with you.   Now I am just waiting for some wool.  And of course, I have to finish that darn block above.

 

 

Unexpected Honor

I received an unexpected honor this week.  I got an email from someone from "Ranked Blogs" telling me that my blog Sister's Choice Quilts was listed 23rd on a list of 110 best quilting blogs!  Since blogging seems to have waned in popularity amongst the competition from other social media venues, I was quite surprised to be contacted.  Anyway, it is nice to know that people are reading and nominating me for consideration.  If you would like to go to their website "Top 110 Quilting Blogs of 2019" and cast a vote for me, I could rise even higher in the list.  If you scan the list, you will many other worthwhile blogs you might be interested in following.  We quilters have a lot to share!

I started this blog back in 2007 and have posted frequently over the years.  I am extremely grateful for anyone who reads my posts and especially for those who take the time to comment.  It has been such a treasure to get to know so many of you over the years and to have shared communication with you.  I think one of the best features of my blog is the dialog that we get going in the comments section.  I have readers who have given tips, suggestions and information that has been invaluable to others.  It has been a collaborative effort, and I value you all!