Holiday Rush

The holiday parties have started. We have our quilt guild party today. It includes a catered lunch, so that will be nice. Tomorrow I have a get together planned with my stepdaughters. We’re doing it a little early this year, but I have all the gifts bought and mostly wrapped. Another party Saturday night with girl friends, and then I can rest until the church luncheon next week! I knew I would be busy, so I got as much work done this week as I could manage. I got the binding put on one I quilted last week. 

She will pick it up next week sometime. I also got a baby quilt quilted and bound.

I’m not sure when this one will be picked up, but at least it’s done and ready to go. 

I also got Susan’s Anna Maria quilt quilted. It’s already been picked up. 

So pretty, and the back is pretty too

It is also an Anna Maria fabric, but I don’t know if it’s the same line or not. 

I have another finished but I haven’t taken it off the frame yet. I’ll do that tomorrow and get another loaded. That gives me three to bind. I am amazed at how many people don’t want to do binding. I do it all by machine so it’s not too bad, but it has never been my favorite part of quilting. Apparently a lot of people feel that way.

Shop Hop Projects

I had high (naive) hopes of finishing my shop projects over the Thanksgiving holiday. Ha! I was a little too optimistic. I had bought three potholder kits, four tea towel kits, and the free shop gift was materials and pattern to make a table runner.

I did so much cleaning and rearranging over the weekend, I think I misplaced two of the potholder kits. I’m not complaining—I needed to clean worse than I needed to sew, and they will turn up soon enough. I did get one of them sewn. 

I got the bird cut and pieced over the weekend, and then yesterday, I quilted it and got the binding put on. 

The binding wasn’t cut very straight, but it’s cute in spite of the misaligned plaid. I stitched in the ditch around the bird and the holly leaves. 

I got the trees for the table runner pieced Saturday night while I was watching a movie

and then I put the border on Sunday afternoon.

I’m not sure at this point when I will get it quilted or what I will bind it with. I think I have some red and green plaid that might work for the binding. I also have enough strips left over to make at least one more runner and possibly two more. It’s a cute runner, and I wouldn’t mind making a few more. Especially when the strips are already cut. 

I couldn’t work on the tea towels because the pattern had no pictures and no written instructions, and I couldn’t remember what it looked like. I will go back to the quilt shop and see if they have one I can at least look at. 

A New Week and A New Month

I think I just realized this year is almost over. It just passed so fast, and I am a little sad about that. There’s just not enough time to do everything I want to do. The only solution is to prioritize everything. Unfortunately, I am not very disciplined about sticking to my priorities and sometimes end up doing whatever strikes my fancy at the moment. I’m sure I’m not the only one who struggles with staying on track.

Our church potluck went well. We had about 70-80 people who stayed to eat, so there weren’t so many leftovers.

I had no hashbrown casserole left, and this started out as a full cake pan of ham. I really don’t like bringing home a lot of leftovers so this was good.

Five or six people brought sausage, and that pretty much got eaten too. The crockpot had chicken and dumplings which were really tasty. There are usually a lot of desserts, but this time there weren’t many. 

I think there were three pumpkin pies. I assume leftover from Thanksgiving. I don’t care for pumpkin pie so I didn’t eat any.

I watched the Texans game when I got home. Final score was 20 to 16. I’m not sure how the Colts got 16 points. They must have scored a field goal in the fourth quarter that I missed. Anyway, I’m hoping next week’s game against Kansas City will be an easy win. 

After the game I got all the fall decorations put away and did some dusting so I could start getting out the Christmas stuff. I got a little done, and that may be all I do. 

The red tree needs new batteries—C cells—which I will try to get today. I don’t know right off the top of my head where the rest of my stuff is, but I need to at least look for the wrapping paper. I went to Walmart for some gift bags and got these candy bars for the girls. They were $14.97 each.

The young man who checked me out (I don’t do self check) said, “man, these better be good for that price”. I have no idea if they are good enough to justify the price, but I will put them in the gift bags with their gift cards and maybe a few other small things. 

UFO Day

I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday. I enjoyed mine, but I know any thing that involves a lot of family can be tricky to navigate sometimes. I ate leftovers again today, and I still have more left! I left most of the leftover food with the kids, so I don’t have too many to eat myself. 

I did some online shopping on Friday and then designated the rest of the day “UFO Day”. I had found the quilt top I pieced on my last quilting cruise, and it was almost finished except for one of the pieced borders. 

When I went on the cruise, I hadn’t cut quite enough of the dry brush blue, but I had more in my stash, so I went ahead and got the top finished. It took a few hours to get it done, but here it is:

Now it’s in the “to be quilted” stack. It’s big enough to be a Day One Graduation Project quilt, so that’s probably where it will go. 

I also had a few more borders to finish on our 2026 church raffle quilt. 

Before:

After:

I had debated about adding another pieced border, but I decided it didn’t really need it. It’s 96” x 96”, so plenty big enough. This one is also in the “to be quilted” stack. I already have the backing cut, so it will be ready to be quilted soon. 

Today is our fifth Sunday potluck at church. I got a spiral ham on sale at the store, and I also fixed a hashbrown casserole last night, so I’m all set. 

Potato Chip Update

You may remember I taught a class in October at quilt guild which culminated with everyone making potato chip quilt tops. 

I’m not sure if I ever showed mine or not. Here’s the blue and green one with the light neutral:

And multi colored with black neutrals:

I love both of them! I have two more I am working on, but they are not as far along yet.

We had show and tell at our November meeting and some of our members had completed their tops. 

Donna had one pieced 

 and another pieced and quilted. 

I think they’re all great, and these quilts are so much fun!

Binding Day

I usually work on binding on Saturdays, but I did the shop hop instead. It was worth it, but I’m now behind on everything. Yesterday I got one quilt and one table runner bound. 

I have two more to do today, and the binding is made and ready to go.

I wanted to go to the local quilt shops and look for some backing fabric yesterday, but it turns out they both closed all week for Thanksgiving. Okay. So much for that idea. I’m going to try to wait until next week instead of ordering online. 

When I got home from my failed quilt shop run, I started working on my Thanksgiving cooking. I cut up the onions and celery and chunked up some leftover bread. I also crushed a couple of sleeves of crackers. I tried to buy giblets when I went to the grocery store, but all I could get was chicken livers. I cooked some of the livers with some chicken backs I bought. 

Look at this beautiful broth! I have three large bowls of it. I will take the meat off the backs this evening and chop up a few of the livers for the dressing. The dogs will get the rest. I think they know…..

They have been on high alert since I started cooking the chicken. I will make cornbread tonight, and then put it all together tomorrow. I also need to boil a dozen eggs tonight for deviled eggs. I’ll make the sweet potatoes on Thursday. It doesn’t take very long.

Shop Hop

Hello friends and Happy Sunday! I had quilt guild Thursday and we had a sew day to make quilts for charity. Cassie finished hers on Thursday,

but everyone else was still plodding along. We decided to go back on Friday and sew some more. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures. I will get a picture of mine today once I finish unloading everything from the car. We meet at Christ the Victor Lutheran church, and we are actually paying for Thursday and Friday, so no problem with using both days. I talked to their church council about lowering our rent next year, and they agreed if we will make them a raffle quilt. Well, no problem with that!  Donna has already donated the top, and I will quilt and bind it. I can’t wait to post pictures here—it’s going to be so pretty! 

I left around 1:30 on Friday, because I knew there was a shop hop going on, and I was having some serious FOMO. I had been telling myself all week I didn’t want to go, but I really did want to. I hit the two Victoria shops on Friday afternoon, and then drove to Ganado (about a 40 mile drive). The shop hop was the Rudy’s Run they do every year. 

Each shop had a free goodie bag with parts and pieces for a table runner. 

Some shops had the strips, one had the border, Two Chicks had the pattern.

I didn’t realize the background wasn’t included in the goodie bags, but no problem, I have light backgrounds I can use. I hope to work on it today. I went to Yorktown and Shiner on Saturday so I was able to get all my stamps and turn in my completed passport. All the shops were selling their Christmas fabric for 25% off. I bought a few, although I’m not sure what I will use it for. Maybe table runners or placemats.

Each shop also had potholder kits made up. I didn’t like the ones at the Victoria shops, but the other three were cute. 

I want to try and get these made today too. We’ll see how much time I have. I want to go to the grocery store this morning before church and get my ingredients for thanksgiving. It turns out I am making dressing for three people (besides my family). My neighbor asked me to make her a pan, and two of my friends also asked. I already have to make dressing for my family, and it’s not any trouble to just make more. I just need to make sure I have plenty of cornbread and chicken broth on hand. 

Midweek Mash-Up

Happy Wednesday! First of all, my mom is doing well. Thanks for the prayers and good wishes, it is definitely appreciated. When she sees the doctor for a follow-up, we’ll find out if/when the blood thinners can be discontinued.

The dogs are going to the groomer this morning. It’s not easy to get harnesses on all three of them and get them in the car, but I would rather get them all done at once. I texted Melanie last night and told her my dogs stink. She will bathe them this morning, and hopefully trim their claws. My dog groomer is also my stepdaughter so I get good service! 

I have been working on customer quilts this week and making pretty good progress. I got two Jacob’s Ladders done for Janice.

The second one has an orange back.

So pretty.

Also, this small one for Penny. 

I am working on some more, but I will need to bind them and that takes a little longer. I have also been working on getting some three yard quilt kits put together for our guild workshop tomorrow. Betty came over yesterday and helped me get everything together. I hope to have pictures soon. 

Another Weekend Already

I can’t believe it’s already the weekend! The week kind of zoomed by leaving me in the dust. Of course, driving back and forth to Sugarland two days left me a little off my routine. My mom is back at home and doing well, so that’s a relief. She had an LAAO procedure which means they implanted a device to seal off the left atrial

appendage which is where blood clots are formed. I hope this will be the last of the heart surgeries. 

I managed to get four customer quilts done in between trips to Sugarland, but I just realized I didn’t take any pictures! LOL! All the time spent waiting at the hospital was an opportunity to surf through all the social media, and I saved some pictures of things I would like to make……..someday.

This is a vintage quilt. 

I don’t know who to give credit to for the photo. Isn’t it pretty? It wouldn’t be hard to duplicate.

Here’s another one. 

I think this picture came from Pinterest. It would also be easy to make with a solid and some 1930’s reproductions.

I want to make this one,

and I have already drafted it out on paper. I think it is the goose tracks pattern. Anyway, I can always entertain myself by looking at quilt patterns and drawing them out on paper. I had taken some yarn and a crochet hook with me, but I’m still not sure my right hand is ready for that much repetitive motion. I am going to try and rest it a little longer. 

A Busy Weekend

Happy Monday friends! 

The weekend was good. I went to Yorktown Friday to pick up my online order. I had bought six one-yard cuts (the ones on the left)

and they were $6.00, so I ended up getting six more. I can always use neutrals, but I prefer to see them in person before I buy them. She also had some of last year’s Christmas fabrics on clearance. I limited myself to three two-yard cuts. The gray one will be a border on a panel I have had for a few years. I like the panels, but I am often stuck on what to do with them. 

This one is a border print.

My plan is to use it for a table runner, but I don’t know for sure. Anyway, quite a bit of fabric for a little over $100, so it was worth the trip. 

My church women’s group had a retreat on Saturday. It was very nice. We had some guest speakers and some good fellowship. One of the ladies did a sound bath. 

It was my first time to experience that. It is actually for stress relief. It’s very calming; almost hypnotic. We also had a workshop on faith journaling. It was led by Melanie, our church secretary. It was like junk journaling with a biblical basis. A couple of the ladies shared their faith journals so we could get ideas. I didn’t take pictures of them, but they are something like this. 

Melanie gave us a package of goodies to get us started. 

I’m really not sure where to start, but I saved my church bulletin from this week and from last week, so I can cut out the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed. I think a profession of faith would be a good starting place. 

We had a soup and sandwiches lunch. Becky made a hearty pasta fagioli soup.

Becky, Gloria, and I went to the Our Lady of Lourdes fall festival after church on Sunday and ate turkey and dressing. They also had Vietnamese food available, and I bought a plate of that to bring home. I’ll eat it tonight. 

Tomorrow I will take my mom to Sugarland for her heart procedure. They are implanting a “watchman” device in her left atrial aorta. That is where the blood clots typically form, and she should be able to stop taking blood thinners once it is done. It’s amazing what they can do now; of course, they won’t do it in Victoria, so we have to travel.