It is time once again to check in on the progress that I made in the sewing room during the last three months - October, November, and December - of 2019. It was a busy fall with two family weddings and one friend’s wedding (for which I did the music), as well as trips to Minneapolis, Dubuque, and Las Vegas. I also took in the Wynton Marsalis concert at The Lied, Jesus Christ Superstar at the Orpheum and a couple of Husker Women’s Basketball games (they are 11-1 to start the season! GBR!). Throw in get togethers for Thanksgiving and Christmas and it is a wonder that I had time to finish anything. Amazingly enough I did just that.
The first project that I finished was the Dream Big panel in the orchid color way that I made for the cake table at Kevin and Melissa’s wedding reception. Several blogs have already been devoted to my experience with this digitally printed fabric so I won’t go into detail about it here. Suffice it to say that I was very pleased with the result and was thrilled to add my little touch to the festivities by hanging this gem as a background behind the cake.
Another project that I was able to mark “finished” was a kit from Connecting Threads called Sparkle Plenty that I purchased several years ago. I was drawn to the pattern because I liked the star design and thought it would be fun to quilt. For some unknown reason it sat on my shelf for quite a while before I finally decided to open the package and get started. It was a relatively easy pattern to put together as it wasn’t very big (48”x48”) and was made up of 1/2-square triangles. The biggest challenge was to be sure that the points stayed pointy. This was easily accomplished by taking care when pinning the blocks and rows together. The quilting ended up being a bit more of a challenge as I really wanted to do parallel lines in all of the grey sections. I started in the top corners and that worked fine, however, the diagonal lines in the star were quite another matter. After several attempts I finally gave up and just did pebbles instead. Feathers were added to the print fabrics to complete the design.
The third project that I finished was another Connecting Threads kit that I had purchased at the same time as the Sparkle Plenty kit. This one was a cute Advent calendar called “Snowed Inn”. I had just finished one to hang in our home and thought it would be fun to make another. And I love quilting panels because I just get to play with fun thread colors and designs. On this panel I stitched a variety of designs including pebbles, loops, wishbones, ribbon candy, and stipple in white, black, lime green, bright red, and denim blue. The adorable mittens were quick and easy to make using Lite Steam-A-Seam 2 and batting.
A non-quilting project that I completed is also worth noting. Every one in our immediate family has a cross-stitched Christmas stocking (except for Tom and that is because I made a felt one for him when we were first married and have never made a different one). So the addition of Kevin to our family meant that he needed something other than the "Boyfriend Stocking". This is a project that I generally work on either in the car when we are traveling or in the evening when I am watching TV. I particularly liked this one because it includes different colors of beads.
I also completed 15 customer quilts and seven Quilts of Valor during these last three months. As busy as the fall was this year the sewing room helped to keep me sane providing some much needed therapy some days! Do you have a place that gives you relief during busy and/or stressful times? I hope so!
As I look back on 2019 I am reminded of many memories made with family and friends and I can’t wait to see the adventures that are awaiting us in 2020. Here’s wishing you a very Happy and Healthy 2020 as well.