Looking back, looking waaaay back on a Slow Sunday...

 Hello... well my mood has brightened nicely as we've had several sunny days here in SW Ohio... I even needed to wear my sunglasses when I was out the other day!  And our temps are in the 50's and the outlook is for several more sunny days... I don't mind cold weather as long as it is  sunny... but my least favorite weather is gray and rainy... and we've had waaaaaay too much of that. 

So last week blew past me, pretty much like the month of January did... you start out on Sunday and poof before you know it, it is Friday and you are "where did the days go?"   I had a doctor and a dentist appointment which was offset by having lunch with friends ... and even a trip to my local quilt store. I don't think I've been there since last Fall.

Anyway I saw that a couple of people were reviewing what they got done in January... and I thought it might be a good idea... and it perked me up.

On the cross stitching front I finished a house for the Pinker N Punkin SAL... here's the hashtag for that #pnpsixhouses2024sal ...  and here is how I FFO'd it...

I used chenille trim around the edge and I'm doing my little pillows now by putting a slit in the back and turning them right side out and  doing a Heat n Bond heart over the slit... easy peasy.

 I did 2 small Prairie Schooler pieces from Button Up...

and I completed the Prairie Schooler Christmas ABC's... that's a pretty productive month.  I am pleased with myself that I was pretty monogamous with the PS  Christmas sampler  and I'm going to use that same tactic this month.

I pulled out this Prairie Schooler No. 45 Garden Samplers...

I started this as part of my "7 samplers  for my 70th birthday" back in September... and you remember how that  month blew up  with 3 trips to the ER and 2 hospital stays... it wasn't pretty... anyway I worked on this for 4 days and got a nice amount stitched. I'm going to be pretty monogamous with this one and I'd like to have it done by the end of February... I think that is very doable.  Now I do have a couple of smalls I've been eyeing... something for Valentine's Day and something for St. Patrick's Day... they won't take too much time. So I think this is a good plan!

Also in January I got a 2 socks knitted... not a pair... 2 different socks...

now the turquoise one did complete a pair, and the yellow purple one is the beginning of another pair, oh the heel of that sock is dark purple even though it looks black...  I'm happy with this amount of knitting for a month.

As for sewing... well I did work on the Dorothy Momo quilt but it is only about 1/3 complete... and I'm losing interest. I'd like to finish cutting the squares for the 34 units it still need and then I'm going to put it to bed in a plastic storage bin for a nice nap... naps are good!!  As for the tiny 9 patches, I haven't made any more of them... and as I stated previously I reserve the right to change my mind... I may get back to them... and I may not get back to them... 

However February is starting off with a bang for quilting... now I'm reaching way way way way back for this ...  this quilt first appear on my blog in January of 2011, and the last time it appeared was February of 2015... so it hasn't seen the light of day in 9 years... which is a pretty long time... but actually this quilt was started in ...drum roll please...  Two thousand and two... 2002... so 22 years ago... I think this is my oldest UFO but I could be wrong... there might be something older than that lingering in that closet of plastic bins but I'm not going looking for it today...

So here is its ... a Stack 'N Whack done with the Benartex fabric collection The Quiltmaker's Gift!!

There are 13 rows and 98 hexagons... I had 4 rows left to sew and it languished for years and years and years.  I still need to get a small border on this to control the bias on the edges but that's it. I picked up fabric for a back at my local quilt shop and it will be ready to go to Delinda for long arm quilting.

Here are some close ups of the blocks...

And here is the fabric all those hexagons were cut from...

It was a crazy quilt of motifs from the story The Quiltmaker's Gift. 

I do LOVE hexagon SNW's because each triangle set gives you 3 different options to chose from. 

The reason I even remembered this quilt top is I was having a conversation with a friend and I was telling her about some new fabric I had seen that I thought had potential for a SNW... it was this new to me designer Marcia Derse and this is the fabric...

 And here is a link to her fabrics on Windham Fabrics... she has a unique style. This is a lot more modern than I usually like but it caught my eye and has potential... still mulling it over...

I purchased one yard so I could determine what the repeat is ... it is a short one only 17".  You need  8 repeats to do a Lemoyne Star, but that only gives you 2 options for the layout, you need 6 repeats of a print to do a hexagon and that gives you 3 options for a layout, and  you need 4 repeats to do a square which gives you 4 options for a layout.   I have LOVED SNW since the first book Bethany Reynolds published in 1998 , Magic Stack N Whack Quilts. I even got to take a class with her years ago. 

Anyway I've collected fabrics for years that I thought would make good SNW quilts... Kaffe Fasset and Phillip Jacobs has a lot of nice large scale prints ...so did Jane Sassaman... here's my stash of potential SNW fabrics...

So I don't need any new Stack N Whack fabrics but  new stuff is tempting... like this soon to be released Kaffe fabric I just stumbled across yesterday...

Those curves will whack so pretty... I wonder if that is a yellow or a lime green highlight?  and I love that pop of purple... yeah...I'll be getting yardage of this one... think I may make really BIG hexagons... and yes I am hopeless... I have no restraint around pretty stuff! Good thing I'm not giving up shopping for Lent...

I got to thinking how many SNW quilts have I made over the years. The first one I made was in a class... we made the Lemoyne Star... my fabric had barnyard animals... cows, pigs, and horses... when I cut it up I ended it up with butts and udders... insert face palm... it was never completed. I've made a Debbie Mumm Christmas one, a Debbie Mumm Halloween one,  a Phillip Jacobs petunia one and one with a cabbage print that ended up looking like ruffly roses,  a Kaffe Fassett one, a Mary Engelbreit one and now this one with the Quiltmaker's Gift fabric...and there were a couple more that were started but never finished... and I still want to make some more...I like how you don't know what the block is going to look like until you decide on the final layout... each one is a surprise... a nice surprise... not like the property tax bill I opened last week... LOL

Well next week doesn't look too busy... Elliott on Tuesday and a follow up visit to the dentist on Wednesday. I hope to have some stitching time out on the sunroom porch if the forecast of sunny days and 50 degrees is accurate. I need to enjoy the nice days because I'm wary that there is still plenty of time for it to be a typical winter.  A snowstorm and sub-zero temperatures could still happen... but I hope they don't. 

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today...might go down to my sewing room and get those borders on or might head to the sunroom porch... gonna be a good day here and I hope it is for you too!

happy stitching-

carol fun