Holiday Catch-up

Good morning, my friends! It's been a while since we've chatted. Yesterday's post was my "Best of," and so we haven't had a chance to catch up on current events for a while. You're probably going to want to fill your coffee cup for this because I have lots to show you. I hope everyone had a nice Christmas. We've just about run the bases on 2023. I'm ready for a new year, aren't you? So, let's have at it. What's been going on here at the Three Cats Ranch? Well, I'm so glad you asked.

First, I finished up the binding on the Heartland Barns quilt on Christmas Eve. It ends up at 64 x 64 inches.

Here's how it looks from the back.

Sadie was on standby in case I needed any help with this.

Since it was Christmas Eve, Smitty was scanning the sky watching for Santa Claws.

While I was sewing that binding, I was baking a Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding. This was my contribution to our family's Christmas dinner. We added some store-bought caramel sauce as a topping, and mmm, mmm, mmm. 

I happen to love bread pudding. If you like it to, then this is a good recipe. It was first published in Bon Appetite in November of 2002.

My contribution was small compared to the spread Erik and Mae laid out. It was all delicious. Erik smoked a huge prime rib. Side dishes included mashed potatoes, roasted root vegetables, burgundy mushrooms, a mixed green salad, and a couple of different kinds of bread. Mae also laid out her signature charcuterie platter ahead of time.

Christmas morning, I finished off the last block for the Domestic Affairs quilt, "Make Time to Listen."

Here are the 12 blocks I have for this quilt. 

It'll probably get sewn together fairly soon. There are other projects on the list of blocks that need to be sewn into quilt tops, but I've been working with the oldest projects first. This one is up next.

Finishing that quilt block might have left me in a stitching emergency situation, except that I still needed to sew the binding on the Purrfectly Pieced quilt. During the afternoon on Christmas day, I stitched around the first two corners.

It's a small quilt, and so I knew it wouldn't take long to finish. It seemed a good time to get the first of the Girls' Getaway blocks started. The first block is the largest of the quilt. The embroidery pattern came in four pieces that needed to be matched up and taped together.

Here's how the block will look when it's finished. This picture is from the pattern cover.

When I had it all taped together, I pinned it to the fabric for tracing and coloring.

And then I went to work getting it ready for stitching. This took several hours.

And then I took the first stitches while we watched the news last night. While I was stitching, I realized I'd missed coloring the tree trunk on the right side of my hoop. I can fix that easily enough. I'll probably find other areas as I go. There was a lot of coloring on this one.

Then, yesterday morning, I finished the Purrfectly Pieced quilt. It ends up at 32 x 36 inches.

Here's how it looks from the back.

And now it is on permanent display on the second floor of the Three Cats Ranch Stairwell Mewseum. You can see there are still plenty of slots on the mewseum walls. I guess I need to make more cat quilts.

Smitty was getting tired of all this hand-sewing. He was anxious to get in some machine work. Men and their machines. 

So, I indulged him by sewing the little "Christmas Lights" stitchery into a finished quilt top. It ends up at 12 x 12 inches.

There wasn't enough of the snowman fabric I wanted to use for the back. Instead I had a piece of this snowflake fabric that was just the right size.

Also, I found a scrap of binding plenty long enough to use, and so there was no need to cut any more strips.

And that pretty well brings me up to date. I've reached my list of WIPs now, and so I'll start at the top of the list with the seventh "When Quilters Gather" block. This one is called "Choosing a Palette of Fabrics." It turned into a bit of a fiasco getting these enlarged. With persistence, we got 'er done.

Here's the book's picture of how this block will look when I have it finished.

It's a grocery shopping day, but I should still have some time to work on this later today.

A couple of weeks ago, my friend and quilting fairy godmother, Ila, put me onto a free-motion challenge quilt-along from Angela Walters. Quilt-alongs are a good way to practice free motion quilting without feeling like you're working too hard at it. I've done these in the past, and they're kind of fun. I'll be doing the Dot-to-Dot challenge, and this is the panel we'll be using. It arrived in yesterday's mail.

Also, I was one of the lucky recipients of this limited edition button. Cool, huh?

The quilt-along won't start until next month, but I'll take some time between now and then to sandwich my panel so I'll be ready to start when the time comes.

This is how the kitties have been spending their days. They've put out the Do Not Disturb signs, and they would appreciate it if you would not pester them for snuggles.

Time and place, People.

And that's about it from here. As I mentioned, we're going to the grocery store this morning. We're also going to make a stop off at our favorite neighborhood MacDonald's (read that our only neighborhood MacDonald's) for our favorite Egg McMuffins. Also, we're going to make a trip to Home Depot. Since we moved our piano out of the basement, a whole wall has opened up. Mike agreed to let me display some of my larger quilts there. 

We're on the hunt for a curtain rod with the clipping-style of hooks. I have them in my sewing room, and it's a quick and easy way to hang a large quilt for display. Most of my quilts are given away, but there are a few I simply can't part with. Now, I'll have a way to show them and change them out with the seasons. Lastly, we'll be heading to the recycling depot to do some glass recycling. It's a run-around morning, but then we'll be able to stay in until after New Year's.

So, okay, my friends. I hope things are getting back to normal at your place. Of course, the official "holiday season" won't end until January 2nd. Keep a low profile until then, okay? If I have anything to say about it, we're all going to live to tell the tale when it's over.