Mission Accomplished

As usual, I am down to the wire with my UFO finish for the month!

But, I am pretty relieved proud that I finished at least one (okay, probably just one) each month--twelve quilt tops out of the UFO bin--yay! 

There was a little sunlight and even less snow, so I decided to take photos outside--wish it was still warm too!

Over the River and Through the Woods pattern by Crabapple Hill Studio.
I competed the embroidery and piecing in 2008--the top hung for a couple years at Colorz for Quilts....

...so it was about time to bring it out of the bottom of the bin and make it into a quilt!

The embroidery was done with brown floss on a sampler print from Blackbird Designs. 

It's always so hard to decide how to quilt embroidered blocks.For the lyrics block, I Googled the sheet music for the song and quilted the notes above and below the embroidery.
I don't read music, so I hope it's accurate!

 I decided to just enhance the landscapes... 

and do plumes and scrolls in the flying geese.
I'm so happy to have this one done--and it only took six years!!

I couldn't resist using my "Punch-card Sale" postcard at Gruber's, so on Friday Mr. Moosebay and I took a little road trip to St. Cloud.
I'm concentrating on adding to my homespun stash---I have a plan.
I only purchased about eight yards--well--maybe more like nine--oops!

New Year Wishes

Wishing you a peaceful and blessed New Year!

Stitching Society Update

I have lots of completed hexagons to show... 

I wish the photos were a bit nicer--dark days this week!

 Hummingbird

 Pineapple

 Barn

 Schoolhouse

 Pony

Gone to Seed

Daisy

Dandelion

Sunflower

Today I plan to complete the machine quilting on my December UFO and work on the binding this evening! 

Linking up with Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching HERE

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Catching Up--a little....

The latest issue of Simply Vintage finally arrived in Brainerd--I have been waiting anxiously for the final part of the Bonnie Sullivan mystery Susie's World. As soon as I got home with my copy of the magazine, I dug into my Susie's World tub and got to work!

The last block!
Little Susie in the garden....

and the piecing that surrounds it.

Yes! I finished the whole top! I love it!
I'm hoping to get it quilted sometime in January--fingers crossed!
You can see past posts about Susie's World HERE and HERE and HERE

Before this kit got buried in piles of stuff on my cutting table, I thought I better get it put together.
It's this years Black Friday Weekend freebie kit from Primitive Gatherings.
I have to confess I switched out a few of the fabrics--too many blah ones included--now it's a little happier.
I only have a half bag of crushed walnuts left, so I can't stuff it until I replenish my supply--this pin cushion is huge-almost 5"x 9"--it may end up as a door stop!

I forgot I had this little wool felt ornament kit until I started clearing a space to cut my flying geese for Susie's World. I decided I better get it put together before it disappears again.
At our October long arm meeting, Rebecca brought some things she was weeding out of her sewing space. Rebecca had started the ornament, but lost interest in finishing it, so I pounced on it! I added the pine branches since it looked a little bare. When I completed all the blanket stitching, I spritzed it with a little distress spray so it would look a bit vintage-y. 

Sunday I will be spending 6 hours in the car, so I am hoping to get at least a couple of my wool hexagons stitched--we'll see!

Linking up to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching.

A Little Bit of Christmas

 So far, this is the extent of my Christmas decorating. 

I'm just not feeling it this year, obviously!

I finally put up my mantle cloth I showed a while back HERE.

I probably wouldn't  have this much decorating done if I hadn't recently finished the mantle cloth and not packed it away yet.
And I just got the sign in the mail.
 I needed a few notions from Joann's so I added the sign to my shopping cart (it's all about the free shipping!).
 Merry Christmas to me!

I can see now that I need to straighten out the mantle cloth!
This year we are doing our family Christmas early (this coming Sunday!) at my brother Dave's house, so I don't really feel the need to do much more decorating.
Well, maybe a little more.....! 

Book Report

I seem to have quite a stack of new book piling up on my quilting table--I thought I would share a few!

Well, this isn't a book obviously.
 I won this pile of very generous half yard cuts during the Henry Glass blog hop to introduce their new book A Flair for Fabric.
  
I also won an virtual (e-book) copy of the book which featured quilts designed by Henry Glass fabric designers such as Kim Diehl, Buggy Barn, and Heather Mulder Peterson (just to name a few!).
There are great designs in the book--made with Henry Glass fabrics, of course! 

I also won this book from Debby Kratovil in September.
I found it very interesting--I learned a lot about the history of our national anthem that I never knew!

Okay, back to quilts!
My sister's and I usually go for gift cards for our birthdays--easy to mail!
My sister Mary gifted me with an Amazon card this year, so I picked up a couple books that I had in my Wish List.

I've had a lot of fun reading about this crazy silk coverlet!
 It's the oldest dated piece of patchwork in Britain--very fragile!
There are patterns for the 69 blocks that make up the design--I think it would look great recreated with Cherrywood fabrics. 

This is one filled with fun scrappy quilts.
You know I love scrappy!

The back of the book gives you some idea of what's inside--there are several quilts I would love to make from this book!

More Slow Sunday Stitiching

Even though things are very busy on Moose Bay, I managed to complete a few more of my wool hexagons from the next group of fifteen:

Snowdrops
This is the first time I've used the bouillon stitch on any of the hexies--hard to see, it is used for the green "drops".

The Pear

The Peach

Ladybug

Dragonfly

Bee Skep

Nine more to go in this group!
If I finish my Christmas cards today, I will be doing a little stitching on these today!

Linking up to Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching

Scrappy Patches

A while back Lori of Humble Quilts had a sew along for an adorable little quilt. She has had several sew along's and you can see some of them here.

I went so far as to get out my boxes of squares...these are the 2.5"

These are the rest that measure under 5"--there's a layer of 1.5"squares in the bottom

Well, I never got around to starting Lori's little mystery, but one morning I saw THIS BLOCK on Lori Holt's blog.
Since I have a plethora of 1.5" squares I decided to try it out with my scraps in a smaller size. 

Yes, that mess above is just these 2 components (x8) laid out on my block board to make one Crossroads block.

Using my medium/dark 1.5" squares and 2.5' light squares, my block is half the size of Lori's.
It finishes at 8"and I think it's pretty cute!

I cooked up a couple layouts in EQ7 using a straight set (35 blocks) and on point (32 blocks).
They both finish at just about the same size--I'm leaning toward the straight set on the left.

Linking up to Scraptastic Tuesday HERE