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I originally made 4 stocking using this pattern, Snowdrift Stockings by Jillily Studio back in 2010.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!

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!

Design Wall and Challenges

On September 1st, Kat released the new block for the Covered in Love blocks. These blocks are called Fiddlesticks! The tutorial is found at Zippy Quilts. Kat made a few adjustments to the tutorial so that the blocks would be cut to 12.5" The background fabrics are to be solid or textured solids. I used some cottons from my stash and the sticks are from my scraps. 

On September 3rd, Cheryl released the next step in the Morewood Mystery Quilt. 90 HST ~ 60 3" size and 30 5 1/2" size. 

Here are my HST!

Cheryl also did a Facebook video that was a very helpful tip in trimming the HST without stretching. Why have I not heard of this technique before? 

The corners are perfect! 

I also started the quilt challenge from the National Quilters Circle called Starlight Mountains. Week 1 instructions were released on Monday. 

6 stars! 

This is what is on my design wall!

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts.

Where does the time go?

 Once again, I have been away from my blog longer than expected. Time just seems to get away from me. We did get away for a long weekend camping! It was my grandson's first camping trip! It is always nice to escape for a while. 

I have finished and delivered the T-shirt quilt, named Unforgettable Moments, to the graduate! This girl (and her family) is very dear to me/us! She is now off to college! Praying for safety during this time.

She had so many t-shirts from all her activities...school, soccer, volleyball, camp, etc. I can use so many more t-shirts and vary the sizes by doing the puzzle format. It gets a little tricky and small filler pieces are used to make it work. 

It has been a strange year for graduates, but I wanted her to feel special cuz she is!

She wanted neutral gray to offset the bright and varied colors of the t-shirts. 

The backing is an almost solid gray I found in 108" wide so it required no piecing! The binding is gray and white houndstooth from my stash. 

I quilted in a diagonal straight line in the body of the quilt and a elongated diamond braid in the border. Finished size is 64 1/2" x 74"

Yay! A finish!

I also finished putting together the top for the 2019 Quiet Play Pattern Club! I had to rearrange the blocks from the original layout to get a better color balance.

I really like how this quilt came together...the picture blocks and the text blocks! Hard to pick a favorite! It is now waiting to get sandwiched and quilted (behind a couple of other quilts) 😆

I joined the Morewood Mystery Quilt with Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs. This month the cutting directions were released and I finally got the pieces all cut!

I'm ready to start sewing the first clue in September. 

I'll leave you with this cute camping picture!