Done, Done, and Done

I have officially completed all the projects I set out to do for Christmas this year!  I can say I achieved this by having a good idea of what I wanted to get accomplished early on (around the beginning of October), actually starting fairly early (around mid-November),  and setting out a schedule of what I wanted to get done when.

I made 5 quilts, 7 pillowcases (for wrapping paper), several microwave bowls, and lots of candy.  Yesterday, I put the final touches on the last quilt, i.e. stitching on the binding.

I am a big fan of striped binding.  I didn't quite have enough fabric to do this stripe on the bias, but once this was stitched down, I am really pleased on how it turned out.

Now back to my regularly scheduled sewing.  Mostly UFO's and older projects.

Warmest...

A Few Activities This Week

I have worked on some other actives this week besides the Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt.

I have an older dog who is having a harder time eating dry dog food.  I don't want to start feeding her the boughten canned food, as it can get expensive.  So once a month, I make her my own recipe for soft dog food.  Basically, it contains, about a pound of meat (I used some older frozen meat that had started to get a little freezer burned.  This time I had a small baggie of leftover turkey, left over ham, and a couple of salmon patties), six cans of vegetables (I used some of my canned carrots from prior years) and enough cooked rice to hold the mixture.  Rice is very gentle on her stomach as well.  I scoop out about 3/4 cup size onto cookie sheets, freeze them, and then take out one a day for her evening meal.  Total cost is about $4.00 and about 2 hours of time.

A few posts back, I posted about a quilt I did for one of my sons that will be part of his Christmas present.  His twin brother is also getting a quilt for Christmas quilt that I posted about awhile back when I first started working on it.  I managed to get it quilted this week.  

I quilted it using what I call the straight line method by quilting lengthwise down the long prints and then quilting crosswise on the various different prints.  

This is a peek at the backing of this quilt.  I had do some piecing of the backing fabric, as I did not originally purchase enough to do a backing for this sized quilt.  I rather like the look of the stripe down the middle of this one.

This is just a close up of the fabric used on the backing.  Perfect for this son who is a avid fisherman. 

I also did work on the next part / clue #3 for the Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt, but I will save that for my post tomorrow, so I can link up on Bonnie Hunters blog.

Warmest...

Next Christmas Project

Yesterday, I spent most of the day working on this quilt for my other son for his Christmas present.  He is an insane avid fisherman.  He spends every spare minute either fishing, planning a fishing trip, or doing prep work for fishing (like tying flies).  He is such a die hard, that when he works on finding that "special hole", sometimes hiking in 5 miles just to do a little fishing.

I picked up this pattern and the fabric about 5 years ago, with the intent of making the quilt for him at some later date.  Well, this is the year that I have enough free time to do the quilts for both boys (30 year old twins).

This pattern is true to it's name, it takes 5 minutes to shop and 10 minutes to cut it out.  Layering the eleven fat quarters and cutting them from the diagram included in the pattern, really lets you get it cut out in 10 minutes.  Credit:  5 & Dime, by All Washed Up.  It looks as though her blog has been idle since 2011, but you can find this pattern all over the internet by just googling All Washed Up.

This is the focal point fabric, a Robert Kaufman "Wilderness Ridge".  It is a screen print, rather than a woven design or pattern. This is a close up of this fabric, which includes fishing poles, flies, lures, bobbers, etc:

Here is the completed top.  the smaller blocks cut from the eleven fat quarters includes prints with fish, river bed rocks, grass, woods, sunrise/sunset, sand, and other fishing gear. 

I chose this simple pattern, because he also, like his brother, like things simple.  So I will be doing some simple quilting on his as well.  Probably some straight line quilting from top to bottom about 4" apart.

Warmest...