Here's to the close of 2020 and new hope for 2021!

 I thought I would participate in the Best of 2020 linky party hosted by Cheryl @Meadow Mist Designs. She has asked that a new blog post be written highlighting the 5 best of my blog post from 2020. Cheryl has left it up to us to determine which post are 'the best'!

The first 'best' up for me is my post from October 31st when I posted about my finish of my Look on the Bright Side quilt. This quilt was made from my participation in the Quiet Play Pattern Club from 2019. All the blocks are paper pieced and designed by Kristy Lea. 

I really enjoyed sewing the paper pieced blocks in rainbow colors and the text blocks!

I picked this post because although this quilt took me longer than usual to finish, I kept working on it and finally finished it~~~no UFO here!

Second 'best' is from my blog post on August 30th. This post showed the finish of my I Spy quilt featuring by grandson. He still loves to take out the quilt and 'spy' all the things on the quilt! There are over 100 things to search for!

My third 'best' is Manifest, a quilt I featured in my May 13th blog post. I designed this quilt for my daughter. She loves very simple designs and sent me some ideas to work with. This quilt also feature some of my natural dyed fabrics!

The fourth 'best' is my Breaking the Rules quilt featured in my March 19th blog post. This quilt was created as part of the #improvtrianglesewalong by Nicholas Ball. I really loved learning this technique and how this quilt turned out! It now hangs in my quilt room.

I quilted it using a dense straight line/matchstick type quilting...much denser than I usually quilt!

Finally, my fifth 'best' is my Orphism quilt. It is based on the Cubism Art movement which is known for it's abstraction and bright colors. This was featured in my 

May 6th blog post.

I really like this quilt that is made with 2 different sizes of HST. The pop of yellow really makes the quilt stand out. 

Well, that is my 5 best! It was hard to pick only 5 out of 20 quilts that I made during 2020, however it was fun to look back through the past year. Hope you enjoyed it!

I'm linking to the Best of 2020 @Meadow Mist Designs.

Today I have a couple of new finishes!

 I finished the Snowflake quilt by ModernHandcraft. The pattern is based on 3" blocks but I wanted it for a wallhanging. I used 1" squares so the finished size would be 20" x 24".

I used Christmas fabrics in my stash that were donated to me. All the fabrics have gold in them. I also quilted the snowflake with a gold metallic thread. The background was FMQ with swirls and snowflakes in green thread. I'm linking up with Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop @Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Peacock Party @Wendy's Quilts and More, Friday Foto Fun @Poweredbyquilting and Finished or Not Friday @AlyciaQuilts

I also knitted this little gnome that I found on Pinterest to add to my collection (red hats). 

I do love to craft for Christmas! 

My grandson has the right idea for 2020...

The perfect ornament for 2020!

More Christmas and December sewing

 "The stocking were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there." excerpt from The Night Before Christmas.

Now that the stocking are finished with all 9 names embroidered on the cuffs, they adorn the mantel waiting for them to be...

as my grandson says, "fill them up!"

Other fun Christmas crafting has been making Scandinavian woven hearts with my daughter. We strung them on ribbon to make a garland.

We made 4 different designs!

Here we started to line them up to see how big the garland would be. We finally strung them onto ribbon leaving extra ribbon so they can be adjusted in length. 

I forgot to snap a picture of the final garland.

These are a gift to my youngest daughter. 

I also made this cute little gnome (or Christmas nisse) using a sock and a cotton mop head! A wooden bead became his nose.

Linking to Creative Compulsions @My Bijou Life

It is starting to look a lot like Christmas here! 

Our Norwegian Christmas tree with flags and wooden beads!

I love seeing my grandson in our Christmas tree!

Another vignette embracing our Norwegian heritage is my gnome collection! I call them my red hats!

I hope decorating for the holidays bring you joy...much needed during this crazy year!

One last note, I finished the December step for the Morewood Mystery Quilt. I'm all caught up until 2021!

Can wait until we start putting this all together!

November steps done and Christmas sewing

 You may ask what I've been doing since my last post. Although the year 2020 seems forever long, the days and weeks seem to fly by. Life has changed in so many ways! Some good and some not. In any case, life still seems busy for me whether it is working (schools were open for hybrid learning for a month or so and are once again closed), watching my grandson, early Christmas/birthday shopping (our daughter's birthday is Dec 30th and our grandson's birthday is Jan. 1st.), discussing plans on how to handle the holidays, doing a bit of updating of our bedroom, and sewing!

On the sewing front, I made 5 more Christmas stockings so now everyone in our family will have one (at least for now). 

I originally made 4 stocking using this pattern, Snowdrift Stockings by Jillily Studio back in 2010. At that time I made them for my 3 daughters and my now son-in-law. I included the snowflake and the tag for their names.

I decided not to include the snowflake (it was a bit fussy) and I'm planning on embroidering each name on the cuffs instead of making the gift tags. Now to do some slow stitching! Linking to Favorite Finish @Meadow Mist Designs.

 I also finished the November steps for the Morewood Mystery Quilt 

@Meadow Mist Designs. All ready for the December steps!

I'm so excited about our upgrade to our bedroom. We added an accent wall! My son-in-law had his own business applying American Clay in Austin. They used it on many walls in their house in Austin. We fell in love with the look. We bought the materials in Austin a couple of years ago and brought them back to Chicago (American Clay is not readily available in Illinois). This was the first opportunity to get it applied (now that they live with us). 

before

application

drying (looks darker than it will be)

All finished! Can you see the texture?

 Our room mostly put back together ♥️ It was worth the wait!

I finally finished it!

 I am excited to show you my finished Quiet Play Pattern Club 2019 finish! I named it~ Look on the Bright Side. This quilt is entirely paper pieced. I love paper piecing but it does take me longer to finish each block as there are many small pieces that go into these blocks. 

The top has been finished since late summer but I really didn't know how to quilt it.

The backing is a piece of rainbow stripe fabric.

I finally decided to just quilt an overall meander. 

This quilt makes me so happy! 

I bound it with Kona Navy. 

Here is the coloring sheet I used as I made each block. 

This quilt finishes at 51" x 61.5"

The Quiet Play Pattern Club is the creation of Kristy Lea.  She did run a club for 2020 but I didn't participate because I was still working on my 2019 blocks!

I will link to Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop? @Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Favorite Finish Monthly Link Up @MeadowMistDesign.

 

I also put together my RSC quilt! Here it is with borders added.

Linking to ScrapHappyBooDay @SoScrappy.

Linking to SoScrappy:Wrapping up the year

I promised to show you the placemats I finished to go with the Tossed Apples table runner. Here they are...

They are getting good use this Fall!

Hope you are enjoying the beautiful Fall weather! We have had some snow flurries but the colors were beautiful this year! 

Stay safe!

October's RSC block

 October's RSC color is yellow! 

This is the last color of the challenge. Angela @SoScrappy leaves November & December for catch-up, adding other colors to round out and balance the quilt, and finish. Here is my yellow column.

Also, I ran out of the gray fabric and actually had to piece 2 of the 2 1/2" squares. 

Here are all the columns together in random order. I will play with the colors to make sure they balance out. I also was debating whether I should add a very narrow 1/2" sashing between each column. I decided against it.

How do you balance your quilts?

I like to turn my pictures to black and white and see the color balance. It really shows darks and lights. Here is this quilt in black and white and you can see that it is heavy on the darks on the right side and lights on the left.

I moved around just 2 columns and the balance if much better.

Here is a look at my process for this quilt. Each month I would randomly draw a column of squares and HST. Then I would figure how many 2 1/2" squares and 3" squares (HST) I would need of each color. Lastly, I would pull scraps from my scrap bin, cut and sew.

Now to sew the columns together and decide if it need borders or not!

Linking up to Scrap Happy Saturday @ SoScrappy and Can I Get A Whoop, Whoop @Confessions of a Fabric Addict

What have I been doing?

 It has been a while since I have had time to update you on what I've been doing? In between time spent with my grandson and some time away with my DH, I have been quilting. I finished the apple table runner I previously shared and started 4 apple place mats that still need to be quilted.

I picked the quarter apple pattern from SewFresh Quilts for the placemats.

I also completed the top from the QAL from the National Quilters Circle, Starlight Mountains. This was a 5 week QAL with week 5 ~ the quilt assembly. Even though it is called Starlight Mountains, I wanted to use fabric from my stash. The watermelon fabrics were donated to me several years ago.

I'm not sure what I'll call this quilt as Starlight Mountains doesn't seem to fit. Any suggestions welcome.

I was able to sandwich my 2019 Quiet Play Pattern Club quilt! It is ready to be quilted! Soon!

Finally, I finished the 2nd step in the Morewood Mystery Quilt. Here are Steps 1 & 2!

Hope you are able to get out and enjoy the lovely Fall weather. DH and I were able to take a few days in Fond du Lac, WI and biking in Freeport, IL on the Jane Addams Trail. 

Beautiful colors in WI!

Rail to Trail ~ a wonderful time biking!
And because I can't resist...my grandson and I did a little craft making binoculars and then went on a walk in the neighborhood where he was having fun 'spying' all kinds of things! 

Thanks for hanging in on this rather long post! Stay safe!