I have no idea what got into me on Slow Sunday Stitching...

It was a cold gray week, there was no sun to speak of all of last week... there was a bit of an ice storm which did quite the number on several of the old trees in the neighborhood and even some snow...ugh... too early for snow in any shape or form or measurement!!!

If it is sunny I want to sit in the sunroom and cross stitch or read or knit... and if it is gray I'm not terribly motivated to get things done... but last week was different. I do not know what got into me but I retreated to my basement sewing room and dove into making a quilt...and not just one quilt but TWO quilt tops. I don't think that has ever happened before. Now they were both on the small side... 60" x 70" but they were both complete by Saturday night... including the backs.

But before I get to the new quilt tops I made let me share with you a pic of the quilt top I showed last week... the Fat Quarter Cubes quilt done in the Heather Ross Sugarplum collection.

Isn't this quilting pattern yummy??? It is called Peppermint Palace and features candy canes and peppermints which ties in wonderfully with the fabrics in this quilt that  features peppermints. The quilting was done by Quilting by David and you can see his website here ...and his Instagram account here. I am very happy with his work and the two tops I finished this week are already in the mail to him.  I really like seeing the quilts on his IG feed because you can get a nice sense of the scale of the pantos. 

So onto my quilty productivity... first I put together this top I'm calling Christmas Weave...

I used two different Basic Grey Christmas collections... Juniper Berry for the large blocks and Jovial for the smaller blocks... both collections have been maturing in a plastic bin in my basement for a while. The "weave" part is a Grunge called Ginger Ale or New Ginger ...can't remember which for sure. It is a muted gold with a splash of a verdigris green... I really like it and will be using it again...

here's a close up of some of the piecing...

I really like the forest print with the squirrel and the deer with cardinal perched in his antlers... I had to do some creative sewing with the smaller blocks ...those 4 patches have minuscule seam allowance ...good thing this isn't a quilt that will get a lot of wear and tear. I had cut up an entire charm pack of the Jovial for some other project and I really wanted to pair it with the Juniper Berry... and I made it work... this quilt is based on the pattern Rodeo by Villa Rosa Designs which you can see here.  My finished blocks are smaller and I rotated the layout... it is very quick to sew up even when you do add more work by making 4 patches with minuscule seams... I will make this pattern again some day.

And then this happened Friday/Saturday...I went downstairs with the intention of making blocks for this quilt... Jingle Jangle by Seamed to Be... you can get the pattern here on Craftsy. 

Sorry for the quality of this pic... it is screenshot as I couldn't figure out how to cut and paste it on this new Chromebook...gotta figure more stuff out... anyway I think this is a cute Christmas quilt... the plan was to use the strips from the Moda Santa kit to piece the HO HO HO's and use the green grunge from the Basic Grey Meraki collection as the background... this is  pic of the Santa panel kit...

I purchased the kit knowing there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that I would ever made all those log cabins... particularly when a bunch of them would be covered up by the big guy... so I was happy to find another project for the strips... I began this project by cutting ALL of the background for 12 blocks and 2 sets of strips for the HOs... well I was 2 HOs into the Jingle Jangle quilt when I got to thinking about the Santa panel... and thinking ALWAYS gets me into trouble... what if I combined the HO HO HOs with the Santa panel... I had a chunk of the grunge background that I hadn't  chopped to bits and pinned it to my design wall ... and then I added Santa and HO and well here's where it all ended up...

The background looks pretty much like a solid piece of fabric but there are seams for the HO HO HOs and that section was sewn to the bottom section. I think between the printed pattern of the grunge and the all over curly-q panto I picked for the quilting it will appear seamless... now I didn't cut off as much of the big guy as Moda did but part of him will get obscured by my 3 tier tray when I hang him on my living room wall ...so I made  adjustments for that.  Here's a close up of a HO...

That print with Santa's face on it is my favorite in the collection... and that minty green background is perfect ...IMHO...LOL   Now I do still plan on making the Jingle Jangle quilt. I went back to Homegrown Homesewn quilt store and scarfed up every yard of the Meraki Green they had on the bolt. Don't know if I will get it all done before Christmas but I should be able to assemble the blocks ...might as well sew up all those background pieces I already cut.

So that's what I did last week... I don't ever remember having such a productive week. Now I will say these tops were easy piecing for the most part...we won't talk about machine appliqueing that giant Santa head... the prep on him was a bear but mostly because I haven't done any machine applique for quite a while and didn't remember which fusible I like better... I bought Wonder Under...turns out I like Heat n Bond better... hopefully won't make that mistake again...

As for cross stitching I did get some more snow done on the WTN&T In Santa Claus land piece ... but you don't need to look at more white stitches... boring... and I almost got another scrappy sock done... these are all Opal sock yarns...

Just needs the toe... and then I can cast on a mate...Oh I wanted to say thanks to Anne L. who left me a comment telling me about WoolWarehouse in the UK... you can see their website here... they have a lovely selection of Opal yarns and I'm convinced that there are Opal collections that are only released in  the EU as I haven't seen them on any US websites...well I went and ordered 5 skeins of yarn from WoolWarehouse... and I don't know how they do it but they were way less money than I pay for Opal in the US...  each skein cost me around $8. 75... there was  shipping  was around $9.75 total for each skein... I've been paying $15 and up for a skein ... now I did have to wait about 10 days for delivery but it isn't like I don't have any yarn to knit so that wasn't a problem... I got several skeins with lots of  green and a cool purple one too...

This entire purchase for 5  100 gram skeins of yarn was $48.79... a very worthwhile purchase for me!!! Lots and lots of hours of enjoyment... can't wait to play!!

So are you ready for Thanksgiving??? It sure came up fast... I'm going to Costco tomorrow to get the meat for the prime rib dinner and Krogers on Tuesday for the other stuff...that will leave me Wednesday to prep and Thursday morning to cook as we are doing dinner at 1pm... should be very nice. 

I will be linking up with Kathy's Quilts today... but before I leave you I'll share a pic of the Dude surveying his kingdom... he's perched on top of a chair in the living room as it was too cold to be outside in the sunroom porch ... he misses it as much as I do... every morning he trots to the front door in anticipation of me letting him out there but it didn't happen... maybe a day or two this coming week will be sunny... I certainly hope so!

Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving with good food and good company!!

happy stitching-

carol fun