A Quilt Finished, A Living Room Unfinished

What is a living room called when you don’t live in it? It’s just another room, or in our case, a Room Under Construction.  I knew it wouldn’t be done by Thanksgiving, but I still have my fingers crossed for Christmas.

What I forgot about, however, is that instead of hosting Thanksgiving for our family (kids are married and go to in-laws, etc), we have Fiesta. Fiesta is on the Saturday or Sunday after Thanksgiving, and everyone comes for Mexican Food (so, by the end of the month, we are sick of turkey leftovers AND Mexican food leftovers, LOL). But there will be no Fiesta this year. Because....

Yes, Alfie is inspecting (lower right)

This picture was taken a week ago. It took our contractor the better part of a working day to level out the sub-floor (long story having to do with the height of the cement base of the former hearth). But after this picture, he was able to get about 25% of the hardwood flooring down. The cats love to thunder around on this floor (subfloor and the new hardwood); their toys roll really well. This weekend we hope the living room flooring will be done and then we are expecting the custom cabinets and mantel to arrive, all of which will flank and surround the fireplace. That means Thanksgiving weekend will see a lot of activity of the construction variety, if not the family celebration variety.

In between painting the hallway walls, trim and doors (ongoing), I did manage to sew another litter of cats this week; the penultimate litter. Green. Now there is just one pink litter left to sew before Kitty Quilt #3 can be assembled. Why not join us over at Angela’s So Scrappy blog for Scrappy Saturday? The participants of this year’s Rainbow Scrap Challenge are all putting together their rainbow quilts!

If we ever have a Rainbow Scrap Challenge Slumber Party, Sally and I will be the ones sewing these kitties in our sleep!

This week I also finished a quilt. The quilting on Magic Carpet took For.Ev.Er. (It finished at 75x84”). After looking at several pictures of other finished quilts online, I realized that the color choices and piecing pattern would dictate what stood out and what receded, so I just  ended up choosing some basic quilting styles for each color.

I am not crazy about the lines on the bright pink, but they are staying. Other than that, I am quite pleased with how it turned out.  Below is a detail shot of some of the quilting I did. Keep in mind that I am a quilting hack. But practice makes better, and I’ve been getting a lot of practice lately. This quilt is also a finish for my Finish Along 2016 Quarter 4 goals. My list is here, and this is #5 on my list.

Now I am working on the quilt for my DIL Kim. I got half of it quilted yesterday and plan to finish the quilting (and maybe the binding) today.  This is also a Christmas present. I’ll do a separate finish post for this one later this week.

On Wednesday, my cousin Kim came over and we basted two quilts; the above orange peel and my RSC Sampler. I will start quilting the sampler this week and hope to finish it. If I can do that, I will begin on the final litter of pink kitties and baste my Cozy Christmas quilt this week.  Luckily, my new 25-yard roll of batting arrived last week, so I am good to go for the season.  :-)

I am on track to finish everything in time for Christmas gift-giving. Christmas presents for family will be quilts and gift cards, so that is covered. Presents for friends and neighbors are jars of apricot jam, prepped last summer. Nothing to decorate for Christmas (except put up a tree? that would be nice....)  So, all I need to do is keep the house relatively tidy and SEW. Not a bad prospect....