So Close . . . And Yet

Sew & Tell Friday

So close to finishing my grandmother's quilt! She pieced this entirely from scraps about 25 years ago, and did a lovely job. I was hoping to get it quilted and back to her for Christmas, but here I am, a week away, and I still have 14 lines of quilting plus the binding left to go, not to mention 1500 miles of mail trails. It has been fun working with fabrics from my childhood (I nearly always got at least matching shirt & shorts from everyone's leftovers.)

And yet . . . . I was going to try to power through it today, but it's starting to pucker. I don't want to mess it up! I ended up doing straight diagonal lines in order to quilt with the grain--this baby is full of bias edges. With more time, I might be able to get a few lines in highlighting the pattern as well.

I have a few other Christmas gifts to start finish, too. So I might set this aside a bit so I can work on it calmly. My grandmother is 92, and I want to do a good job yet get it back to her very soon.

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Happy Holidays to all ~ and peace through it all!

Gratitudes & Highlights

• Lovely, yet busy holiday season--we have snow!
• Awesome confirmation kids who raised $700 with bake sale for local adopt-a-family gifts--how much fun to shop with 20 kids & spend a total of $1200! They are learning the joys of serving.
  
• At least half a day to sew!
  

Sew & Tell Friday

::Nov STUD Swap::

I had so much FUN with this little quilt--I got the background finished fairly early in November, then I had a fantastic cold. Finally this week I was able to finish the yo-yos--only to find that the ones I'd made were not BIG enough (didn't take into account overlapping them).

Frantically, I made some larger ones and searched for buttons (I wanted to mail it on time to be in the Dec swap!). In the end, I was really pleased with the results. I didn't even want to mail it off! Nearly done with a smaller version (using the first yo-yo's) for myself.

 

November's theme is "Winter with a Twist." I have something sweet (candy border), something sparkly (lots of fairy frost and shiny thread), and something vintage (like--yo-yos).

Lessons learned:

1. Overlap yo-yos look cool.
2. One can spend oh-so-much time choosing buttons!
3. Backstitch rayon quilting because rayon thread slips out of knots.

Can't wait to get going on the December SWAP ~ Go Green!

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This has been a tough week, but my GRATITUDES are:

• Satisfaction in finishing a truly nice swap.
• Great meatloaf sandwich for lunch (it reminds me of Grandma)
• No need to shop much for Christmas gifts--most of my family is perfectly happy with HANDMADE!