What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Our Thanksgiving holiday ended yesterday morning about 9:30 AM when we hit the road to drive home.  It wasn't too bad till we had to exit 35W to 35 just north of Dallas. It was stop and go traffic a significant part the drive from Dallas to OKC.  What normally takes us about 8 hours to navigate took 11.  Other than the drive back, we had a wonderful holiday with Grad Girl.  We did small business Friday and shopped in Brenham for stocking stuffers.  Than on Saturday we went to The Texas Renaissance Festival.  

Something different for us ...

It's been a couple of weeks since I've posted a Monday post on just stitching stuff.  The eclipse trip, along with prep and recover from knee surgery has limited my sewing room time.  So my stitching efforts have been focused on my long term travel project.  My goal was one full thread of stitching time each day while we were on the road. The first top wing of the butterfly was finished off last week.  

Since I had to go off my anti-inflammatory before surgery, it was really uncomfortable to manage the stairs, so I kept to the ...

For those in the US, I hope you had a wonderful holiday and that everyone else had a wonderful weekend.  We ate a lot last week.  Both Grad Girl and My Guy are incredible cooks. I did my part with chocolate pie, pistachio salad and brownies, all family favorites. I really need to get with my exercise program over the next few weeks so I can endure a repeat round of feasting at Christmas.  

I did get some time in the sewing room before leaving it for holiday prep and hanging out time with Grad Girl.  But I don't ...

This is the layout idea for my 

20 Plus Crochet Squares Sampler

After making for of these cute 5 inch blocks from the

Granny Flower Granny Square Free Pattern @ Lullaby Lodge

My crochet kitty inspector has approved this plan.

I am slowly working on Basketweave Block #2 for my 

 Squares Sampler Afghan ~ Started Here. 

I have not made much progress with the second block as I am having a day when my health issues are troubling and I have been resting when I have not been sitting with Mr Scrapatch. and watching the football playoffs.  I will get it done when I get it done.  This is a no-stress activity for me.

We had temperatures in the 80's for both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, it certainly didn't feel like a typical Xmas holiday.  Hope your holiday was full of family and fun. Ours certainly was.  

It's week 52 of 2021, so this will be the last stitching stuff post for the year.  I like to close out my stitching year on December 31st, so I'll have the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022 in next week's post.  My stitching week didn't go so well. I spent all of last weekend working on company ...

Stitchy Weekend ~ Part 2

This weekend I have been able to stitch the daily block and one of the blocks that I need to complete to catch up with the daily posts for the 

 October Halloween Stitch Along @ Pine Needles

I am really enjoying this stitch along.

Ghastly ~ Day 17

I decided to add black cross stitch eyes to the ghost

and add a few stars to the sky to add some sparkle to the blank space.

Today I also stitched the 

Boo ~ Day 9

where I decided not to extend the witch's broom ...

The calendar grid is done for my 

 October Halloween Stitch Along @ Pine Needles

This has been a time consuming design change for me

as I am a slow stitcher but I am very happy with how this is working up.

in the extra space in the bottom row

and am stitching that now.

I will probably fill in this space with a few more spooky stitches. 

I have gotten a few days behind on the cute little daily blocks

but they are quick and fun so I am hoping I ...

My Bats & Boos Quilt, clipped and ready to bind. 

Today I added this bright check binding to my quilt and am slowly hand stitching the binding to the back of the quilt.

As always, Katniss is my faithful quilty kitty inspector for this part of the process.

This is one of my favorite parts of making a quilt.

I love sitting and hand stitching.

My favorite moment is taking that last stitch on the back and turning over my beautiful finished quilt. 

Hopefully, that will be sometime tomorrow.

Linking up tonight with 

Slow Stitching Sunday @ Kathy's Quilts

where there ...

Every year at this time, we add some fall mums to our garden 

and I pull out this quilt and do some very slow stitching.

Here is this quilt on August 15, 2020

This is the quilt before I started the embroidered leaves:

Linking up again this year with 

Slow Stitching Sunday @ Kathy's Quilts

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

Hello There, 

Thank you so much for visiting my weekly blog!  We are reflecting on Matthew West's song, "Truth Be Told", books I'm reading and going on my weekly Gratitude Journey.  I hope you enjoy your visit!  

The Cycle of Comfort Part 3:  Come as you are

Lie #3:

Hello There,

This past week has had a few more challenges than usual. I know I'm not the only blogger who faces challenges in life, but wow!  I sure admire those of you who can blog consistently despite life's curve balls!  My hat is off to all you!

However, I must make changes to meet these unpredictable challenges.  After much thought, I've decided to write one post a week and continue linking up to all my usual parties.  

Another change is I will be posting daily on my Instagram account (user name:  miaismine22).  This account is private ...

This week went really quickly.  All of last week's meetings got moved to this week, so I didn't do much else this week. If I wasn't in a meeting, I was getting ready for a meeting. That also meant we were late getting home a few nights this week.  I just barely managed my 15 minutes of stitching time a couple of evenings.

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/Feb = 27/27 days
• 15 minute days/2021 = 56/58 days
• Success rate = 96.55%

Today, I am slowly stitching my binding to the back of my quilt. 

Of course, I have a lot of kitty help with this.

Katniss is snoopervising.

Nutmeg thought my beewax thread conditioner was a toy 

so I put it tried to put it away in the little tin. 

Nutmeg is helping me by taking it back out. 

With such good help, I hope to be done soon.

Linking up tonight with 

Slow Stitching Sunday @ Kathy's Quilts

Are you Slow Stitching Today? 

Week 50 of 2020?  Just two more weeks (and a few days) left in 2020.  That's not a lot of time to finish or start all those projects that were on our to do lists for the year.  It gets even harder to work on those to do lists when you have those extra holiday chores, like present wrapping and baking pop up as well.  Sometimes even just 15 minutes of stitching time is just not going to happen. 

This was another of those weeks where holiday preparations and family time trumped my stitching time. 

• 15 minute days/week ...

It's been a week with a lot of uncertainty on both the public and private fronts in our house.  So it was a stressful week on a couple of fronts. The family stuff got sorted out yesterday to a good ending. So at least that stress is gone. So it wasn't the best week for stitching.  When it gets really stressful, a good book is a better distraction and spending even just 15 minutes in the sewing room just doesn't appeal.  How did you fare this week in finding both the time and motivation to stitch?  

 The work week wasn't horrible, but getting back to the office on Monday after a few days of vacation wasn't fun.  Thankfully, only one late night to play catch up.  So it didn't greatly affect my ability to work in my 15 minutes every day this week. How did you do at finding a few minutes to stitch each day this week?

It was a good week for stitching, there was about an hour of stitching most nights. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/October = 17/17 days
• 15 minute days/2020 = 261 ...

 We spent this last week hiking and just hanging out together.  We both had vacation that needed to be used, so we rented a cottage in Eureka Springs, Arkansas and socially distanced somewhere else for a few days. That may seem risky, but at least Eureka Springs has mandatory mask rules. We don't have that here at home.  I took plenty of hand stitching to work on while we were away. It wasn't hard to find at least 15 minutes to make a bit of progress on that front.  How did you do at finding at least 15 ...

 Saturday’s Song: The Cross Has The Final Word

That is why Jesus died on the cross - for our freedom!

Accept Him, serve Him, love Him, trust Him!  Live out your freedom as you follow Him!  Oh!  I am so grateful that He's taken my pain, my past, my sin, my life and has replaced it with love, forgiveness and freedom!