Quilt Diary: Jack ‘O Lantern Wooly Mug Rugs Finish!

It is an overcast day here in San Jose, CA.  I was thinking about whether to take my computer to Starbucks and realized that it has been two weeks already since the last time I posted anything.  So the laptop was grabbed on the way out the door along with the cookie making shopping list.

I have been persistent in making one batch of cookies each weekend since the week before Thanksgiving.  Guess what, there is not ONE cookie at the house.  They are getting eaten as fast as I make them.  So I think we will go big this weekend with at least two batches of cookies, maybe even three.  I want to try the lemon butter cookies again as well as some cocoa peanut butter cookies.  Both of these require refrigeration preferably over night.  Meanwhile, I want to make my all time favorites – Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies.   Enough about baking, let’s get to the good stuff.

Sewing on the Go Update

Wooly Mug Rugs (Wool Hand Applique & Embroidery)

Whoo-hoo!  I finally finished those adorable Jack ‘O Lantern wooly mug rugs above.  I always have two projects in my ToGo bag.  I must confess once I was on the last color of embroidery embellishments, I forgo my usual switching between projects.  I just felt this great urge to be done with adorable guys!  The results are well worth it.

After finishing these guys, I went to the wooly mug rug kit box to grab the December & January ones – Candy Canes and Snowman, respectively.  What a pleasant shock to realize this series will be coming to an end.  This was my first time working with wool and I have really enjoyed the baby steps working on this project has allowed.  I learned how to fuse with wool, expanded my repertoire of embroidery stitches beyond backstitch and French knots, and worked with both wool thread and dazzle thread.  It has been great working with a fabric that does not frazzle or have to be perfectly edged so it won’t fray.  What fun this has been!

If you are interested.  These are free pattern downloads on shabbyfabrics.com website.  I found it hard to find the threads and wool at the time, so I purchased all the kits.  I found a cheaper place to get wool subsequently and I think my thread supply is just fine as you only use a wee bit for each project.  For all you appliquers, I have these grand ideas of doing these patterns in cotton as well (with machine embroidery embellishments instead.

Ruby’s Garden Quilt (English Paper Piecing)

Working with the rose colored fabrics have been fun.  I finished up block 5/83 and have started block 6 already.  It is easier to prep the reverse of each at the same time then one at a time or a whole bunch of hexies.  I know that this will happen once I get to the point there is not enough of one color to finish.  This quilt is a labor of memory and love for my Grandma Ruby who made me my first hand-pieced hand-quilted quilt.

Farmer’s Wife 1920 Quilt (English Paper Piecing)

With the push to finish up the Jack above, this project suffered.  I have been working on the center pieced triangle.  I am almost done with Block 36/111 – Flower Garden Path.  Maybe I am taking longer because I love looking at this gorgeous Alison Glass yellow fabric.  I have one of the next two blocks completely ready to go and the other is all cut just needs to be glued.  Better get on this because this one will be done in a jiffy!

On the Sewing Table Update

Halloween Placemats & Mug Rugs

Uhh…  I am such a slacker.  It would literally take a couple of hours and these two projects would be done.  The placemats just need binding and the mug rugs are quick and easy projects.  Next time I update you, I promise these will be done!

Potholders

Zilch progress.  I make no promises on this one other than they will be completed in the next week so I can give them away!

Tula Pink Charm Squared & Halifax Temperature Quilt

Hmmm.  Still sitting on the corner of my sewing table waiting for me to refocus on them.  I need to update my book for a few more months of temperatures.  Alright moving on.

Applique Update

I have not worked on any of these projects (A Year in Words, Blooming Series, or A-door-naments) in the past two weeks as my time has been consumed with my new quilt-a-longs.  Three are ready to be layered and quilted and two are still waiting in line for some machine applique.  Need to finish up these fall projects so I can work on my Winter projects.

Sew-A-Longs (aka Quilt-A-Longs) Update

Just to put it out there, I haven’t done anything with #365blockchallenge in recent months. Today I spent some time printing out the rest of the patterns I need to complete the quilt.  Nor have I worked on my Quilters Planner BOM 2019.  This one is supposed to be assembled this month.  So what have I been working on for the past two weeks?

#Adventscrapalong2019 hosted by Marianne Jefferey

Honestly, this is where I have spent the majority of my time working on these fun 25 patch blocks using a jelly roll and some white yardage I had on hand to fill the gaps.  The jelly roll is Kringle & Klaus.  It is a mellow Christmas fabric that has been showcased by this QAL.  I am loving the blocks a lot.  This is the Christmas quilt I decided to make for a wedding quilt for a friend of Caitlin’s.  I am behind but here is blocks 6 – 17:

Sugaridoo Bernina QAL

I have my fabric pull including my accent and background fabrics.  I have cut my first row (#5).  Mine is yellow for this row.  I choose a very pastel purple as my background with a shot cotton – dark gray with maroon. We will see if it is as striking as I think it will be.  I have a lot of dark fabrics in my palette as you can see below:

Cosmos Mystery Quilt

Received clue 5 and sewed it up last night.  How exciting, huh.  Loving how these colors play together and am very curious how it will all turn out.

That’s a wrap!

Well this wraps up this week’s edition.  A quick hockey update on my grandson Shaun.  He had two games last weekend (not a lot of sewing happened).  The rink had a problem with Benihana pipe breaking and flooding one corner of the rink.  Their Saturday game, they tried to play anyway.  The game was called after 5 minutes with the score of 4-0 GSE-Jr Sharks.  The refs felt it was too dangerous to play.  Both teams want to continue playing even though it would not longer be official (they shortened the ice away from the melted corner)  So the coaches ref’d for the next hour or so.

They came back on Sunday and the ice was perfect.  They lost to the other GSE team 6-5.  They played well for two of the three periods.  Unfortunately for the them, the period they didn’t play well, the other team took advantage of.  First period ended 1-1.  Second period ended 5-1.  So you can see they had a comeback.

No hockey this weekend with the holidays, but Monday is a special holiday hockey tournament to raise money for supporting parents who babies die from SIDS.  It is just for fun and Shaun will be playing with his old teammates while I work the whole day.  I should get to see his last game of the day as it is an evening game.

Hope your holidays are filled with love.  Have a great holiday season.

Peggy