Category Archives: Mystery Quilts

Hello to the middle of December

They say time flies when you’re having fun, and right now, except for one tiny glitch, I can say that’s true.

I have been very productive with needle and thread, both at the sewing machine and in hand.

Yesterday was one of my twice-monthly sew-togethers with my local group and I worked mainly on my Bonnie Hunter Step 3 4-patches.

Here’s my progress photos to date.
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Part 1: 221/221
Part 2: 100/100
Part 3: 10/168

Today should see the finish of my purple 4-patches.

When I’m caught up on my Parts, I am cutting/preparing for the Midnight Flight class I’m taking next month. There is a class info sheet that tells us how much to bring to class (instead of enough for a whole quilt) so I’ve been pulling fabrics and cutting. I am taking more than I need so I can hopefully swap some with other attendees. I have my constant red cut, and changed the orange to a yellow. I’m also not including any purple and using blues only. I think I may be buying a couple of 1/4 cuts before then as I’d like a little more royal to go with my navy.
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As to my stitching, I know I said in my last post that I was going to do a separate post about my Year of WIPs Challenge status, but I think instead of spending more time on this computer writing a post, I’ll just do a photo update in my dedicated tab up top. I am still loving the 10 hour rotation with the focus being on Houses of Hawk Run Hollow. I am now spending less time stitching than before, but I knew that was going to happen so chose the number of WIPs accordingly. So far I think I made great choices. The bit success right now is that I finished And They Sinned. Woohoo!

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She’s a big girl! That countertop is 5 feet long 😀 If you click on the picture, it’ll turn right side up, but it was hard to get it to focus because of the size.

The glitch I first mentioned is my HarleyQuinn had to have surgery this past Monday to remove a large hematoma from a back leg. She has 3 layers of stitches (because her skin is so thin) and the layer I can see I counted 7. While she was under the doctor went ahead and removed 7 other places and all but one of those just required 1 stitch (the other one required 2). So now we’re nursing her. Pain pills, anti inflamatory/pain pill, liquid antibiotics every 12 hours. No overactiveness, which means carrying her up and down the stairs. In other words spoiling her more than usual, which is a lot already.

This picture is of her staring at me the night before because she’s starving (she’s always starving, just ask her).
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and here she is all snuggled up between dad’s legs after we brought her home. She was drunker than Cooter Brown, and we worry she’ll flop herself off the sofa.
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Today she’s back to her sassy self, and is more work to keep her from dancing and prancing. She’ll have to have 24/7 babysitting until the stitches are removed. We do have a care-collar for her, but if we keep her with us she shouldn’t have to wear it. Fortunately Mister is out of school, and neither of us have any plans to be anywhere together that can’t be cancelled or rescheduled for a later date.

The sewing machine is back out!

I never unpacked my sewing machine, or the project I was working on, this past April after my winter visitor friends left.  I never realized how important the social aspect of sewing was to me, until this year.  Before my machine was always set up and I’d sporadically sit in front of it.  This past year.  Nope.  Never unpacked it.

When the girls started showing back up we set the date for our first twice-monthly get together at the golf course and while I was sad that I hadn’t sewed since they’d been gone, I was happy that all I had to do was load it all in car.  😀

Remember this?

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I ended up not sewing but pulling the papers off, and ironing open, a whole lot of tiny HSTs.  I’m going to love this tablerunner!

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I didn’t make the 2nd get together.  My BFF was in town all week for Thanksgiving break (she works out of state) and had invited me over for that day.  It ended up she was sick and I didn’t get to go see her, and I just didn’t feel like leaving the house after that.  I ended up stitching instead.

So now, here we are 2 weeks after Thanksgiving.  Black Friday was not a shopping day for me because……Bonnie Hunter has started releasing Parts for this year’s mystery quilt.  En Provence.  I spent my day at a kickoff party.

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Quilt Label from our hostess Andee!

Quilt Label from our hostess Andee!

 

Here’s a few photos of the fabric I pulled and the ladies with last year’s mystery finishes, Allietare.

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My favorite neutral

My favorite neutral

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Part 1 and 2 so far

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I haven’t finished part one, but I’m making great progress and I’m very happy with how things are turning out so far, although yesterday my seam ripper and I were best friends. I’m stitching the 4-patches between each Triangle in Square and my numbers so far are:

Part 1: 70/221
Part 2: 40/100

I did mention in my last blog post that I needed to decide on my quilting goals, and I want to do something similar as I’m doing for cross stitch, but I think that’s too much so for now I’m going to attempt a finish 2, start 1 and see how we go.

I forgot to mention it in an earlier post that while I was in Louisiana I found out my one and only niece is having a baby girl in April, so I get to make my very first baby quilt.  I’ve decided on the pattern, and pulled what I think is enough focus fabric from this.

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I have some background but need to measure it, buy more if needed, then start cutting.  This is what I need to be focusing on, plus I have a Bonnie Hunter class in early January (Midnight Flight). I think I would really like to have Baby Quilt, En Provence, Celtic Solstice, and the tablerunner as definite finishes (including quilting/binding) for 2017, and everything else will be icing.

I do have some Year of WIPs Challenge updates (including finishes) but that’ll be a separate post.

I haven’t been a total slacker

Except for blogging 😉

Remember this post?  I finally got my Kona Color Card and have started deciding on colors for my Dear Jane.

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I have a new link in the upper left side bar. Bonnie Hunter’s new mystery starts in a couple of weeks. I decided that since I have so much going on already, I would use 1 constant colorway this year.  I’m using an off-white print and Kona black to go with these fabrics.

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No. I have not finished last year’s mystery. Don’t judge.

My guild is sponsoring a class with Bonnie after the first of the year for the Happy Scrappy Houses quilt. I also submitted a request to take  another class the next day, through another guild. We have to give 1st and 2nd choice and my first choice was Cathedral Stars.

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2nd choice is Pineapple Blossom.

I am now the very proud owner of 1/2 season Arizona Diamondback tickets. We decided that owning full season tickets would be just too many games for us to attend. We have full-season perks tho, and I’m already counting down to opening day. We took a tour of Chase Field on Halloween. It was eerily quiet, but no one being there gave us the opportunity to sneak in a few places not normally seen on in-season tours (plus I think our rep was bored and not ready to head back to his office). I did remember to take a couple of Club House photos – our “LSU” pitcher’s locker

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and one of the few remaining favorite players of mine.

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I’m holding judgment on a couple of late season rookies.  Of course, the very next week there was talk of moving our catcher. I’m a bit disgruntled.

Quilt camp was a lot of fun and very productive for me.  Meal times were announced and we pretty much did what we wanted to the rest of the time. I managed to finish (except for borders) a quilt top.

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I have fabric for the borders just need to decide how to use it. Hoping to take care of that later this month.

I also started on my Peace and Unity BOM. Despite my continuously measuring my blocks they didn’t come out right so a few need to be unstitched and redone.  I’m loving them tho.  Here’s a couple of the 20 setting blocks.

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Here’s a couple of shots of some of the works of the talented ladies in attendance

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I’m making good progress on my SamSarah Mystery Sampler.

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I started the 3rd, and last, section last night. Glad it’s going so quickly since the new Luzzie*Kate mystery started shipping today. I’ve already seen a photo of the fibers, and they’re beautiful. I’ve just about decided to go back to And They Sinned once both mysteries are finished.

We spent the majority of today running errands, which included buying paint for my room. Today marks 3 years that I arrived in Arizona and it’s taken me this long to make up my mind. I actually found an inspiration piece at IKEA a few months back but what I wanted to do was so far out of my comfort zone it took me a bit to just go with it – plus Mister Art Student said he thought it would look good 😉 So here’s what I’ll be working with.

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(I did change the satin black to glossy after that photo.)

Last, but not least, here’s my handsome son with the love of his life, out on the town on his birthday. He still has that big bright smile.

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And remember I’m not a photographer and mostly use my phone 😀

Move along, nothing to see here

My life has been blessedly boring of late!

My first half-day back to work about killed me, but not near as much as my first full-day back.  I was so tired that night I almost cried.  But the next morning when I got up I was fine, so I knew I was going to eventually get over it.  The second full-day back I realized about 2 hours from closing that I was just then getting tired.  Next day, no problems at all.  Yay for recovery!  I still have a couple of sore “spots” but they’re slowly going away.

The only purchase I’ve made the past couple of weeks was a new-to-me book.  Scrap-Basket Surprises by Kim Brackett.  I was at the shop yesterday looking over the upcoming classes list and meeting a friend for lunch.  A new quilt had been put up since I worked on Thursday and it was from this book.  There are 18 quilts in it and they’re all from 2 1/2″ strips.

So the numbers from my last Sunday Stash Report remain the same.

Fabric added this week :  0
Fabric out this week :  0
Fabric added this year (April – present):  149  3/4
Fabric out this year (April – present):  51  1/2

I’m waiting on backordered black batting for Son’s Quilt.  I added one more row to Niece’s tumbler quilt.  I got the hourglass blocks sewn together last Saturday, but discovered, while looking at a photo I took, that one row is wrong so I’ll be unsewing and fixing that.  I still haven’t cut the fabric for future-DIL’s quilt, or my own!  I do have fabric on hold for the background of my quilt, so next week I’ll be adding fabric to my stash report.

But I’ll also be pulling fabric since I’ve decided to participate in Bonnie Hunter’s upcoming mystery.  I went to Lowe’s Friday and pulled her paint chips but I also pulled some in the same colorway but darker in tone since that’s more me.  I’m keeping her orange, though.  Nothing dreary.  I figure this will probably be a perfect quilt for one of the nephews.

I need to get busy!  I’m headed back to Cali in a couple of weeks for a needlework retreat and trying to decide whether or not I want to bring my machine, the tumbler quilt, and maybe a JMLW project or 3.  Decisions, decisions.  I’ll be visiting with Son for 3 days prior to that so everything would be in the trunk of my car during then and I don’t know if I feel safe leaving it there.  LOL

 

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