December Finish

The weatherman predicted 6-10" of snow for us today, beginning about 10:00 this morning. It finally started snowing at 8:30 this evening. 6-10" ? I don't think so. 

I finished Wiggle Time Oceana yesterday and gave it a good washing so it would be soft and cuddly. 

 

The quilting looks like swirling water to me, and I love it. The Riptide pantograph was perfect. 

I also finished the four small bowl cozies for my kids. The base of these is about 5 inches. I have cut out four of the larger size and will be working on those over the next week.
 

Ribbon Candy, a pattern by Doug Leko of Antler Quilt Designs, is the next one being moved into my five-project quilt rotation. And I'm quilting it with a pantograph called Ribbon Candy, haha. I finished this top earlier this year, but I don't think I ever blogged about it. 

These were all scraps left over from my Holiday Solstice quilt that I made in 2020. I used up a bunch of different white-on-white scraps for the background too. I used the wrong side of quite a few of them to make the print less noticeable.

 

This Debbie Mumm print is what I'm using for the backing. 

The last several days of the Advent Calendar have consisted of a bunch of interesting notions--a threaded needle case, which I've never seen before; a little redwork kit, which will be given to my daughter-in-law; a spool of beeswax, which I will definitely use....

..... a zippered hard case, very nice; fingernail art stickers, which my granddaughter will love....

.... and this thread cutter that uses an old rotary cutter blade, which I've also never seen before. 

Fun, fun, fun!

Bowl Cozy Day

Brrrrr, it was a very cold 16 degrees when I got up this morning, but still no snow in the forecast. Which isn't a bad thing. 

The last several days of the Advent Calendar gifties have consisted of a good mix of notions and project ideas. Along with the Parking sign, there was a small embroidery project. Neither one is really my thing, but my daugher-in-law suggested that a little duck in a charm for a necklace for my granddaughter would probably be well received. A great idea, and I'll wait til next year to make that up. the charm is tiny, about an inch in diameter. 

There was a button jar, to include a little yellow duck button (the company mascot) with directions to make a pincushion top for the jar. Using one of the unused squares from the charm pack from Day 3. 

The next day featured some blue fabric and a pattern for this snowflake pillow, using the buttons in the button jar. 

Yesterday's giftie was a needle threader and needles. Haha, they should have got someone to make a needle threader with a duck. 

Today's giftie is a stashbuilding yard of white on white fabric and a couple spools of cotton thread. 

Personally speaking, I may not use everything in the Missouri Star Advent Calendar box, but whoever put this together put a lot of thought into choosing useful items and fun projects. I have already decided to do this again next year. 

I haven't made quite as much progress as I had hoped on my current projects, but I am moving forward. Wiggle Time Oceana is on the frame, and I've made several passes. The Riptide pantograph seemed like a good choice for a quilt that reminds me of ocean waves and uses some ocean-themed fabrics. 

 

The Cozy Cup mini top plus one mug rug is complete. I still have to add the side borders to the other two mug rugs. 

Whoever designed this quilt did an odd thing with the sashing between the rows. The directions had you add a narrow 1/2" strip to the top and bottom of each cup and snowflake. After I had the top together, I realized it would have been easier, faster and less wasteful to omit the strips on the top and bottom of the cups and just use a wider piece for the sashing. No idea what they were thinking. This would make a great giftie for someone, so it's likely I'll make another; and I'll make the adjustment for the sashing. 

Before I can get these items quilted up, I need to finish the quilt on the frame and get some bowl cozies made. 

Anything that is not quilting is what I call utility sewing, and mostly I don't like to do it. Only occasionally will I make household items like curtains, a tote bag, or anything like that. I did, however, offer to make 4 small and 4 large bowl cozies for my kids, to use up a LOT of yardage of vegetable fabric I acquired at a very cheap price. Why so much? Because I thought I might use it for adult cover ups (bibs), only my quilt chapter never worked on that again as a group project.

So naturally I'm going to use every shortcut I can come up with to make this kind of sewing as painless as possible, so I bought precut bowl cozy batting from Gypsy Quilter. Turns out Creative Grids got together with Gypsy Quilter and made a set of 2 bowl cozy templates which are the same size as Gypsy Quilters batting, which will make it faster to cut out the fabric and more batting. Brilliant!

I made a set of two bowl cozies long enough ago that I forgot some of the little improvements I made to the method, which I remembered after I had most of the first one together last night. 

As I was getting ready to topstitch the outside of it, I realized I had no idea whether my thread was all cotton or a cotton/poly blend, which could be flammable in the microwave. I still have some of the Coats & Clark blends that I am using up, so it very well could have been one of those. So I wound up taking it all back apart, ripping the thread out of the one half, and today I'll put it all back together with the proper thread. I can also include some of those method improvements too.

One side of my bowl cozies is yellow onions, and the other side is red bell peppers. Once I get the first one together, I figure I can put three more together assembly line fashion, to limit how many times I have to change the thread colors. 

A New Obsession

I'm on the last quarter of the Stars Over America quilt. Still have four more red star halves to sew for the corner border blocks; but since there's only one border, I anticipate having this top finished by bedtime tonight.

Paper piecing 88 star halves got tedious at times, so occasionally I switched out the project with another from a class I bought on Craftsy. I discovered Craftsy sometime late last year and have come to love it. It started with knitting, then expanded to quilting, a few cooking classes, and a few gardening classes. They have some other kinds of classes too, and I wish they'd have one on refinishing furniture.

A few weeks ago while I was surfing the internet, I came across Joan Hawley's blog--she owns Lazy Girl Designs. She wrote about a new technique she developed using half of a zipper, with a different colored pull, to sew into a bag. My interest was piqued, so I bought her three patterns that feature the technique. Before I could get started, she started offering a class on Craftsy, so I signed up. A worthwhile investment, because she offers some tips that are not in the printed patterns, and the videos make it a whole lot easier to understand what to do. Too bad I had already bought the patterns because all three are included in the class materials, which makes it a great value.

Using only half of a zipper makes it easy to install, then you can use the other half for another project. You can also see I've added different colored pulls to each of the three pieces I made. In fact, the key fob actually has two different pulls on it. I could have added three or even six. How fun is that?

The other thing I really like about this technique is that using one half of a zipper allows the bag to sit wide open when it's unzipped, which makes it easier to see and reach into the bag. This is Joan's Sweetpea Pod pattern. I've been keeping one of my charger cords in it, but a friend made one from vinyl mesh (which I thought was brilliant) and keeps her little red binding clips inside. The larger bag is Becca, and the key fob is Fobio. The split ring on the Fobio is small enough to put through a zipper pull, so you can put one on the Sweetpea too.

You can also purchase a bag of extra zipper pulls so you have colors to choose from. I have always detested putting in a zipper, but Joan made a believer out of me. I had so much fun in this class, and now it's spawned a new obsession--stashing zippers and zipper pulls.