F.A.R.T.

Good morning, my friends. If you don't recognize that acronym in the title, then you should know that it stands for Fabric Acquisition Road Trip. That took up most of the day yesterday. We were up and out early to run some errands, and then we made the half-hour drive south to The Cotton Patch, where they have a "backing day" at the end of each month. Bring in a finished quilt top, get 25% off any backing fabric. As it turns off, they were celebrating "Small Business Saturday," and so everything in the store was 25% off. Even better!

So, I was on the hunt for a backing fabric for the Merry, Merry Snowmen.

I expect to be quilting this in a neutral color of thread, and so I wanted something neutral for the back. (I'm not a confident enough quilter to do anything that's going to show up easily.) This one seemed like a good choice. The colors don't show true in the photo below. It's a tan with darker brown snowflakes.

Also, I've been asked to make a Christmas table runner for the family member of a friend. She sent me a sample picture of what she was looking for. I found this free Nordic Star Table Runner online, and it was pretty close to what she asked for.

Ever since this was requested, I've been perusing Christmas fabrics. I pulled a few from my stash. Frankly, the Christmas fabrics I've seen online and the ones I've pulled from my stash have left me feeling kind of meh. The ones at the quilt shop didn't turn me on either. Nevertheless, I selected these. That's a flat white on the left.

Back home again, I took a look at what I'd already pulled, and settled on these fabrics for the runner. The one on the left below is a "fairy frost" white, and so it has a little bit of shimmer. The greens both have metallic gold in them. 

My plan is to do all the cutting for this project, and then kit it up to take when we head south for the winter. I'm going to make some other kits as well. RV sewing works best when the cutting is done ahead of time.

Fabrics selected, we made our way home. Along the way, we caught this pretty view of Mt. Hood. It was the first sunshine we'd seen in days, and so the mountain was a welcome sight.

Back home, I hadn't yet done my slow-stitching. Smitty joined me for that.

I took the first stitches for block 3 of Home is Where My Flock Is.

It reminds me to mention that I finished a good book last night...this one:

It's a wonderful story, mostly set in the Australian outback. Interesting and engaging characters. In my reading, I learned that sheep have a strong tendency to flock. AI tells me that it's a survival instinct rooted in their social and gregarious nature as prey animals. This behavior helps them stay together for safety in a group, as predators are more likely to target individuals on the edges of the flock. When a sheep is separated, it becomes agitated and will often cry out for the group. Knowing that, the name of the quilt project makes even more sense.

Okay, and with my slow-stitching finished, I managed to eek out one more block for the Stair Steps project. 

It'll go with the three I've already done.

I need one more to finish the row. It'll be all scrappy with no common color running through. Most of the patches are already cut, and so I should easily finish it today. When I have all five blocks, I'll sew them into a row, and then sew them to the rest of the quilt.

Also on today's agenda, I'll make a back for the Merry, Merry Snowmen. That won't take long. After that, I'll get to work making another row for the Gumballs quilt. I'm having fun with this project. Here's what I have so far:

I haven't started sewing the blocks together for this, but I believe I will when I have the next row finished.

With this being the last day of November, I want to do a little Christmas baking. Today I'll make some Gingerbread Biscotti. I make biscotti in all kinds of combinations, but the gingerbread is our favorite. It has bits of slivered almonds and crystallized ginger. Biscotti isn't hard to make, but it's made in stages, and so it takes some time. I have some other Christmas baking I want to do this year, but I'll do it a little at a time.

So that's a good day ahead of me. I need to eat some breakfast, and then get busy with my slow-stitching. I've missed several days of workouts, and so I'll get back to that today too.