What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

The binding was finished at 10:30 last night while I was finishing up the second batch of Chex Mix.  I'll measure it and take its full photo today.  It is big so it will cover my double design wall in the basement.

I usually use the mini pretzels in my Chex Mix but all that was available at my local store was regular size pretzels and these little pretzel sticks.  Batch one just about fills a gallon zipper bag.

Now comes the hard part, dividing up all of the cookies for several families and getting them into containers.

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I started  the day by baking the English Toffee Squares.  A few family members like nuts on them and the rest prefer them without.  I am in the without group. Look! I took the picture before I started eating them.

Late in the afternoon I baked the shortbread cookies, a favorite with the grandchildren.

Now it is time to start making the Chex Mix.

Four corners are done but I have about 30" more to hand stitch.  I had 3 sessions of hand stitching between baking and vacuuming.

They are predicting light snow twice this week but no white Christmas.

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I made the chocolate spritz yesterday.  I started out with trees and the second tray had other shapes.  One of the shapes was a fail and broke up when I tried to get them off the cookie sheet, more for me to eat..........

I did get a lot of stitching time on the binding.  The bottom corner shows up as blue but it is gray there too.  The combination of my lighting and the camera's ideas made this happen.  I start my bindings 6" before a corner so I have 3 corners finished.  I have 2 sides and 19 ...

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Last night I started the hand stitching on this binding.  I only got half of one long side done but I will stitch a little every night.

In the morning I ran the dishwasher (and emptied it) and did a load of laundry.  In the afternoon I made some fudge.

I also got the pale pink Spritz made.  The second tray got a little too brown on the bottom but that is the way I like them, so some of these are for me.

My rain gauge had a half inch of rain in it from Saturday.  Then there was ...

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There are decisions to be made on the other projects I have worked on lately so I sewed the binding onto the big neutral batik 16 patch quilt.  This one was 72" x 96" before it was quilted so the binding will take a while to do.  I'll start the hand stitching today between other things I need to do.

On other projects, I found 3 light Christmas fabrics I can cut 2" squares from so I can use up the remainder of the dark squares.  I also took the floral star blocks off the design wall in columns ...

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The brown fabrics are so neat on their shelf.  That is because I took them all off and sorted them while looking for another choice for binding.  I didn't find any but I like the neatened up shelf.

I got the neutral 16 patch quilt trimmed and confirmed that the gray will be the binding.  I wish I would have found a piece of medium brown but none of the pieces that matched the quilt had enough yardage.  

Last night I sorted the 2" squares of Christmas fabrics that were rotary cut over 20 years ago.  I am planning ...

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I spent a lot of time looking for binding for this neutral 16 patch quilt.  The light fabric at the left is the backing, the gray design and black with stars are the binding choices.  The gray one is in a few of the blocks in the quilt.  Most of the other fabrics that I found that might work were too small to cut the number of strips I will need.  My only other choice would be to use a variety of strips.  I need to trim the quilt first so I can think about the right choice.

I decided ...

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The binding was finished around 9 last night but I decided to wait until today to take its photo.

That gave me time to piece 2 more stars before I was done sewing for the evening.

Today I need to cut more light squares and triangles for the star blocks which will happen while I'm doing laundry.

The temperature was in the 20s again yesterday so the only time I was outside was to get my mail.  20s will continue all week except Wednesday when they are promising us a day in the mid to high 30s.  I think ...

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I'm not a football fan but I turned on ABC to watch 10 p.m. news last night and there was still 2 minutes left in the game, Georgia vs Georgia Tech.  At 11 p.m. they were in their 8th OT.  So....I got more stitching time in because I had to see who won and it was Georgia.  Those guys must have been so tired...31 straight home game wins, score 44 - 42.  I scored half of a long side and half of a short side in stitching, so I have 1 1/2 sides left to ...

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Five more stars are added to the design wall.  These are 12" stars so 35 blocks would make a 60" x 84" quilt top.  I could stop at 24 blocks for a 48" x 72" quilt if I get bored making blocks.  There is always the option of a border too.  I have 5 more combinations ready to sew and I might get them done today.

I worked on the hand stitching of the binding on this one a couple times yesterday.  I have one short side and a half of a long side done.  I already have 2 finishes ...

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The first two star blocks are made and I love them.  I didn't get any more pieces cut yesterday but I did pull some more light fabrics.

After cutting for 3 floral quilts I still have this much left.  None of this is Kaffe collective, it is mostly florals purchased from the 1990s to 2005.

This is a top view of the 2 big bins.  I need to sell a lot of it, probably for $5 a yard but need to decide how to group it and what size pieces to cut.  Any suggestions would be appreciated, especially if ...

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I don't have any charity quilts to share this week so we'll start off with some random things. I pieced this fun hat using the Harico pattern from Feerie Telle. Piece with some pretty small pieces from my giant bin of fleece scraps.
I created my November cover sheet for my diary. Colored pencils and ink.
I used my long arm to create some fun texture to create fabric for a costume for an upcoming gaming event. This project is still in the works.

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I had 2 goals yesterday: renew my driver's license and finish the binding on the pink/gray quilt.

First the driver's license;  Illinois is the only state in the country that requires adults over 75 to do a driving (road) test every time they renew their license.  I was 78 the first time I had to do the road test, 82 the second time and now I will be 84 in a week for the 3rd time.  So I got a 4 yr. license the first time, over 80 they only give a 2 year license and starting ...

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I named this quilt "Sunday Only" because it was a project in 2022 that I worked on just on Sunday evenings.  I did do cutting of triangles on other days but all of the sewing was on Sundays.  If you check back to this post and scroll down you can see the antique quilt that was my inspiration.  I was about a third of the way into the quilt when I realized that all of the triangles in the antique one were marching right and I had been making them marching both left and right.  At that point I knew ...

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The binding was finished a little before 10 last night.  I'm looking forward to seeing it open and checking out the scrappy binding.  Photo shoot today.

Earlier in the day yesterday I trimmed the pink/gray zig zag quilt and cut the binding.  I'll start prepping this one today for the hand finishing of the binding.

There was almost 2" of rain in my gauge from 3 days of storms.  I'll check it one more time this morning.  We really needed the rain and I'm thankful we got that much.

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I have about 60" left to hand stitch on this binding.  Six of the different fabrics in the binding are shown here.  There are 3 more fabrics in the last 60".  I hope I can finish this one today and then start on the binding on the pink/gray quilt.

I decided to open up the panel that came with the Charley Harper fat quarter selection I showed a few days ago.  It might end up as part of a backing for a quilt.  It is 36" x 45".

 

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Another quick easy tutorial for binding.  Each time I vlog I learn something new. Still be kind with your comments.  

This tutorial is slightly shorter than the last binding vlog as I did not repeat some of the steps.

I quilted this wall hanging but unpick it as I did not like it. That was many years ago! 

During 'lock down', I thought it just needed a simpler style of quilting and to be finished. 

After quilting it, just sat in my UFO box. I have decided that this winter I am going to tried and complete as many UFO ...

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I was happy to find I had enough of this print for the back of the butterfly quilt.  It is used as the large wings on 2 of the butterflies.

I trimmed the 'Sunday Only' quilt and found the group of partial width Kaffe strips.  Some are over 30", others as short as 10".

After sorting through them, this the batch I decided to use.  I pieced one long strip and when I sewed the binding onto the quilt, I didn't need the last 3.

I originally planned to sew the binding on this quilt all by machine, but ...

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This Kaffe stripe fabric is the one I had been thinking about using for binding on my pink/gray zig zag quilt.  I looked last night and found 2 small pieces of it.

I think it will work OK and just add to the quirkiness of the quilt which is titled "1956".  The pink/gray combination takes me back to my sophomore year in high school in 1956 (yes, I'm really that old!).  The flowers will be in parts of the binding and other areas might just have the gray/white wide stripe.  This binding will probably be hand ...

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I thought about the stride thing yesterday with my KMs, and it's NOT the stride. I did measure that way back when I got a FitBit. I tried to verify it last night, but do you think I could find that in the app? Nope! 

The big issue is the translation from my FitBit records to the data on the Virtual Challenge site. It's sporadic, and I have no idea what's happening, but have a look and see what I mean. 

The data from the Virtual Challenge website for the last two days

For comparison, my FitBit ...

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