'Tis the Season

We had grocery shopping to do yesterday morning, and so I wasn't able to get to my sewing until late afternoon. Fortunately, the items on my to-do list were not time-consuming. My stitching cats helped me finish off the binding on the Scrappy Snowflake. You see here the Stitching Cat and the Emergency Back-up Stitching Cat. One must always have a ready supply of stitching cats on hand while sewing on a binding.

The Snowflake ends up at 14 x 14 inches.

Here's how it looks from the back. I used fabric from the cut off end from another quilt. You might also recognize this fabric from the embroidered and beaded Snowflakes quilt finished just a few days ago. I got my money's worth from this fabric.

 

As I've mentioned before, I have a short wall between my kitchen and dining room where I like to hang these little wall hangings. I've been endeavoring to make seasonal runners, toppers, and wall-hangings for that area in the house. I think I have most of the holidays and seasons covered now. I'll hang this one after Christmas. As a quick and dirty method of hanging a small quilt, I break off the ring tab from a soda can and sew it on.

Then, I run a bamboo skewer (the kind used for shish kebobs) through the binding at the top. It will fit between the stitching at the corner, and then I feed it through like elastic. For larger quilts, I sometimes run two through so that they extend from corner to corner. It keeps the corners from sagging when they're hung on the wall.

There was still some time left in the day, and so I finished off the little quilt top for Mrs. Claus' Cookie Team. The embroidery pattern is available as an instant download from Crabapple Hill Studios. When I had all the borders added and squared it up, it finished at 13 x 13 inches.

I did it quilt-as-you-go while adding the borders. Here's how it looks from the back.

And there was still time left, and so I finished sewing on this scrap binding. I've been hitting the jackpot with scrap bindings the past couple of days. I had exactly the length I needed for this.

Today will be an NBS day. I'll finish hand-sewing the binding on Mrs. Claus' Cookie Team, and then I'll move on to the Flannel 4-Patch rag quilt. Some of my quilts are getting moved along faster than they would at a different time of the year. I'm trying to finish off all the ones that can be used right now, this winter. I'm making this one for Mike to use. He likes flannel. It needs three more rows of blocks, and then it will be ready for clipping and washing. I might enlist Mike's help for the clipping part.

That will probably keep me busy for most of the day. If I can get it finished off, I might start at the top of my WIPS list, making another block for the Vintage Linen quilt.

After that, I'll get back to work making blocks for the Shop Hop 2.0 quilt. I've been making these blocks one at a time, but I'm going to start making them three at a time, just to move this project along. I'll need to embroider the names and places before I can make the next three blocks.

I have 12 blocks finished. I want to make 25 for this quilt.

Just FYI, and in case you're wondering, as I have been, I contacted Jenny of Elefantz yesterday to inquire if there would be more Books & Roses blocks. She told me she has the designs drawn, and she'll release them later this month. I have three more of these to make to add to the ones I've already done, and then I'll await the release of the final two.

I was fully prepared to sew the ten blocks I have into a runner, but I'm glad to know there will be two more to finish it off as a small quilt. I really love her feminine and delicate embroidery designs.

So you can see I'll have plenty to keep me busy on this NBS day. It's going to be a good day. What's going on in your sewing life?