December in the Studio

How are you coming with your Christmas preparations? I can’t seem to get in gear. We did take down and pack away all our autumn things, now condensed into one 18-gallon orange and black tote bin. However, I didn’t have the energy to pull out all the Christmas bins. We must have 6-7 of those, two just for ornaments. My plan is to go through them and get them reduced down to two, maybe three bins, but I’m just not feeling it. Maybe one day next week when I’ll have more time. We’ve finished most of our Christmas shopping which, frankly, is just gift cards this year. I hope to get the out-of-state ones mailed off next week. I have my annual physical on Monday and then we have dentist appointments on Wednesday morning. Other than that, my week belongs to me! 

I sewed about 25 more string blocks, but as I said last week, if you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. But what I can show you is the flimsy I sewed together in about a half hour on a whim one afternoon. Even my squirrel projects are having squirrels now...

The string blocks are 6”, so this quilt top is roughly 42x48”. It’ll go into the queue for basting/sandwiching. This week I did baste Scraptastic Stars, but I haven’t quilted it yet. It’ll be a finish for next week. I also finished the Gumby quilt top, and it will be basted this week along with the strings above. Pictures of that next week, too.

But what have I been working on? I did finish this little quilt for Quilts for Kids, that I made from some of my gray (dark neutral) scraps. This is the second quilt from the gray bin, in keeping with the use of dark neutrals and finishing up for the last couple months of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I really like how this quilt turned out. It measures about 48x56”. It’s pinned up (not evenly) on my design board since I don’t have a two-armed quilt holder-upper anymore, LOL.

I added orange scraps to the grays for a little zing. I think they’re spread out well enough to provide some interest. The quilting is just a simple stipple.

I made some “modified” zipper blocks (above) to fit the 6” size needed in the far right column. The top two sets of gray/orange blocks in the checkerboard column were orphan blocks from QFK and pretty much set the color scheme for the quilt. 

I really hope to tackle my brown and black scraps over the next couple months (yes, even into 2021) to whittle those down. Still waiting for inspiration to strike there, though.

In the meantime, I started on the final quilt I want to finish as a Christmas gift. This is for my son Ryan.  The columns are sewn and pinned up on the design board. The camera makes them all look so bright in this photo, but in real life they’re more toned down and very rich-looking.  The first three columns (to the first black strip) are sewn together. 

Here's a closeup of some of the fabrics. Due to the large size, I had to add other fabrics to the originally-intended fabrics purchased. You may notice some of the Dan Morris prints (the gold to the left of the black strip and the blue/brown to the right of it) making an appearance. I tried to keep the piecing random and color-balanced. However, there are three places where like prints abut (or nearly abut) each other. Oh well. That’s part of being random, isn’t it?

I want to give a shout out to Angie, who sent me a box of fabric cuts that she no longer sees herself using. The box contained lots of kid-themed fabrics and will be perfect to use for Quilts for Kids. Opening the box was an amazing early Christmas gift. Thanks, Angie, for your generosity!

I can hardly wait to tuck into these fabrics!!

Alfie and Darla are waiting patiently for me to hang the Christmas stocking with care. They’ve finally taken to their beds (Alfie’s on the left is heated). I took their old kitty quilt and cut it in half and bound the exposed edge. So, they’re both content now.

 

Darla

Alfalfa

Have a good week, everyone! Stay safe and healthy.