One more

Well, here is the last one before Christmas. I don't know why I can't finish anything in the daylight. The colors aren't great, but I'll see if I can get a picture during the day before I give it away. We leave early tomorrow for LA. We're taking the southern route because it's been snowing for the past week through the I-70 corridor. There is some snow between here and Albuquerque, but the reports don't look too bad.

The blocks are a 4-patch. I'll see about getting a picture of the original fabric. I might use it for the binding. I'm using a pale spring green fleece for the batting/backing.

Quilted!

Done--just the binding waiting to be finished and I should get to that this afternoon--then I'm going to try to finish a baby quilt before we leave on Monday for California. The backing is fleece, and feels very nice, I hope it doesn't pill and get yucky.

The quilting holds the parts together, and not much more. I guess it adds a bit to the design, but it's meant to make the two layers into a blanket, and I think it succeeds.

Now on to the next one.

I'm quilting...

the artisan's palette. It's nothing to write home about, but then I'm not an heirloom quilter. I stitch so the layers don't come apart. I have most of the inside done--just lines on the diagonals and then around the center colored blocks. I think it will do just fine. Maybe I'll get a picture tomorrow.

Its supposed to be about 9 degrees tonight, luckily hubby built a fire downstairs so we won't freeze in bed tonight. The back part of the house can get might chilly--just passive solar and wood burning stove. There have been a couple to time when we went to bed and the room was only 40 degrees. That's cold!

Artisan's Palette top done

Here us the top done. I may yet get it done before we leave for California on the 22nd. I'm backing it with cream fleece and it's going to have simple quilting--don't know what yet, but something.

No quilting today...box making!

From this....Comes this....

Aren't they just cute. Well maybe you can't tell in the picture, but trust me, they're cute. I made some truffles for gifts for Christmas and needed boxes to put them in. I found some in craft stores, but they were either too small or too expensive. I decided to look online today and found a video on etsy lab. They are very easy and I just made a couple of changes. To start off, you are supposed to fold a square of paper diagonally both ways. When you do that, though, the tops (and bottoms) of the boxes have folds through them. That's not awful, but if you just make the diagonals with light pencil lines instead, you don't get any folds across the top. I also didn't have any fun paper, just boring old white. So, I decided to print something on it to make it more interesting. I did a search for free clip art and found a couple I liked. I manipulated them a bit so they would fall in the right place on the paper and, voila! decorated boxes.

See how well the truffles fit in!
They even taste pretty good, mint rolled in candy cane bits, orange, choclate rolled in pecans, and the last was just a plain chocolate truffle. The one on the bottom right had the chocolate correctly tempered, the one othe the bottom left was not correctly tempered--see how it's not shiny, but it still tastes good.

My magic pressing stick

I was pressing open seams this morning (there's a two hour delay at work, so I have a bit of time) and thinking how much I like the stick I use. A stick you say, for ironing, don't most people use an, well, iron?

I was in a class for learning how to make strips and curves, and a woman in the class had this pressing stick--it was laid under the seam and the seam was pressed open without interfering with other seams.

I went home and promptly bought a 1" dowel and had my hubby cut it in half so I could have my own pressing stick. I press all of my seams open, and before my magic stick I would often have trouble (especially with smaller pieces) of pressing one seam closed while I was pressing the one next to it open. This allows me to press easily and because I'm pressing on a hard surface it presses well.

Oh, here's a picture.

Bit by bit

Another border. Each corner will have the dark fabric. I had to cut more of the 2 1/2" strips, didn't have quite enough. If I keep going at this rate, I should be done sometime soon!

Artisan's Palette--border

Here is the first border, and the piano keys on one side. I have to count to be sure I have enough 2 1/2" strips for the piano keys all the say around. If not, maybe I'll leave it off of one of the short side.

Artisan's Palette-mostly together

Here is the largest part of the top--now a 2 1/2" dark border then a piano keys border. I haven't finished this nearly as fast as I was hoping. I already have the fleece for the backing, so once I have the top completely together I'll be able to quilt it. I'm going to do a walking foot quilt pattern, just something to hold it together, so that bit shouldn't take too long. I was working on the built-in in the bedroom yesterday--no, it's not finished yet. We did get the wood around the window installed, so what's left is all the molding then painting. I don't know if we'll get it done before we go to California for Christmas, but we might.

We've also been bringing boxes up from under the house. It's kind of funny--we have a whole box (about 20-25 different boxes) of Christmas cards. When did we buy all those? And a bunch of stuff for the kitchen that I have to figure out how to part with. I don't want to fill up every nook and cranny, so we've already taken about 6 boxes to Goodwill, I think I'm going to figure out how to ebay stuff and then put that money aside. I also have to figure out what folks will buy and what they won't.

Back to sewing--if I get more done that is picture worthy I'll post again later today.

Fixed!

Whew! It wasn't as difficult as I thought it was. I woke up early this morning and was able to rip out and sew back the bit that was wrong.

Now onward to continue and finish before Christmas.

OOPS!

Doesn't that just bite it! Notice a problem with the top bit that I have finished? I didn't either until it was all sewed together and I had it on the design wall. Let's see, I think I have to take out about 5 feet of stitching to make it right, and that's only if I don't take the whole line of stitching out, just the parts that are wrong. Do you think anyone will notice if I don't? :^)

I guess I'll get to it so I can get back to sewing again--I hate the unsewing part!