Last week, as predicted, not much progress. Every day, I had to drive somewhere, except Thursday, and by then I was kaput. When you live in the middle of nowhere, going somewhere usually involves a four-hour round trip. I did get good news on two routine health appointments, so apparently I still have many sew days ahead of me to make up for the lost week!

No worries– I can always find something sewing related to jabber on about. This week, I thought I would show you The Last of the Subscription boxes– I cancelled everything. Then I’ll share six or seven past boxes I’m finally hoping to get done this year.

This was the last “Little Box of Figs” for the 2025-2025 season. Little Box of Figs is put out quarterly by Joanna Figeroua of Fig Tree Quilts– who doesn’t love her fabrics?

The price was a stiff $95– part of the reason I’m not doing mystery boxes anymore, but I think the value was worth it. Problem is, I already have most of these things. I know it must be really hard to think of new items for sewing subscription boxes, but I have a ton of small starch sprayers, clips, and pins. The thing that looks like birthday candles are little disposable sewing machine cleaning brushes. I guess my machine might argue I really need those. 🙂

I knew the Portofino fabric collection was going to be featured in this box, and I was so excited for it. We did get a mini charm pack– just look at all those luscious colors! Joanna always puts a big and a little project in each box. The mini-charms were to make the little pincushion shown in the above photo.

Now to the highlight of the box. For the main project, we only got four of the Portofino fabrics and to my eye they appear to be the least bright ones. This is the same dirty trick Fat Quarter Shop played in the box that made me decide to cancel my Sew Sampler Subscription– “Laguna Sunrise” was the featured fabric– the collection had every color of the sunrise, but we got fat quarters of only five of them and one was gray!

We keep bees on Sugar Meadow, so you’d think I’d be up for that table runner, right? But the black is way too harsh for those colors, and every bee needs a stripe, don’t you agree? I think if the flowers had been a knock your socks off bright fabric, the black would have worked. I guess I will just replace it with a brown and add a strip if this ever gets sewn.

One thing I have to say– the fabrics look brighter in person than they do on the pattern cover. So here’s one of my maxims for you– complain all you want, but subscription box patterns always look better completed than they do in the box! 🙂

So that’s my year of Figs– out of four boxes, I’ll probably end up making two of them. If you like Fig Tree fabric– it’s for you– you do get all of the fabric to make the top, unlike other boxes. But beware! You have to sign up nine months ahead of time ( I believe it is early fall) and the spots fill up in a couple of days. You won’t have any competition from me– I would much rather have spent my $95 on a beautiful set of Portofino fat eighths.

Let’s not shed any tears for the demise of my subscriptions! I have an atticful of old boxes that I still want to make. This year, I thought I would try to make one of these smaller projects every two months– making the Sew Sampler box EVERY month was a bit much. So this way I can work through some of them and it’s a relief new ones won’t be piling in, frankly.

Here’s a couple of “Frivols” kits I want to make. This was a Moda monthly series five or six years ago. I have completed five of them so far. There’s only one or two I will have to force myself to make–hee,hee– I love them most all of them.

The bottom tin has nine scrappy bear paw blocks and American Jane fabric. I love her stuff. (It gets silly to say that– I love it all!) I wanted to make six placemats and a table runner with the other three blocks for my picnic table in the last house. We had a deck that was magnificent– it wrapped around the back and side of the house and the view was conservation land– a forest– on those two sides of the house. Fortunately, I still have a forest view and the picnic table, and I still want to do this. I remember my summers by which table runner we were using that year! As soon as I finish the butterfly baby quilt, I’m starting it.

Then this looks like an easy one to zip up– stars. I’m not going to say this would also make a perfect baby quilt, lol! Subsequent grandchildren will need to have the same number of quilts, so I better be careful with that.

All of the frivols kits require you to buy the background fabric, but both are white, so it should be very easy to find something. You can still pick these up on eBay– I think they originally retailed for about $45, and if you pay attention, you might be able to get a bargain.

Then here are three of my favorite Sew Sampler boxes, still patiently waiting to see if they ever get any attention. This one had Coriander Quilts fabric and is probably about three years old– it’s red and green, a bit Christmassy. Some of the other items are still in the box–yep, another pin cushion, another tiny bottle of starch, and another thread cutting thing– yay!

I’m a sucker for a leaf quilt, are you? Around the same time, the pattern in the middle came out in American Quilter magazine. I did like the stems on that one a bit better. Wasn’t that organized of me to tear it out and put it in the box? We’ll see what happens– in just seeing them again now, I think I like BOTH of them!

Then here’s another, even older box. I still really love this. I won’t even mention what a great baby quilt it would be. Anyway, I’d love to finally get to it.

And another winner! This was a “Liberty Box” also more than a couple years old. Everyone loves a house quilt, right? So I’d love to be working on this for Fourth of July. And what a relief. It doesn’t look like, well, you know, a baby quilt. It’s a keeper for me!

And here’s another one I’d like to get to finally in the fall. It wasn’t a Sew Sampler box– I just bought a kit. This could easily be made into two table runners– I don’t have a table this long anymore, and it would make great Christmas gifts.

It looks to me like the background fabric is included here– it’s hidden below.

So there, I did finally make a yearly goal. And if I consider my butterfly quilt the Jan-Feb installment, I’m right on time. I did get some cutting done last week for it. It’s possible it could be done in the 18 days I have left. I am feeling a bit overwhelmed right now– too many things going at once. Maybe I should just take one and finish it.

Moonbeams is awfully close as well. Next, I am making two fancy borders with square in a square blocks. It’s not one that goes together easily for me and I need 30 of them.

For San Francisco Stitch Co., I finally finished the next installment of the tiny village series– it is “On the Mountain.” I wanted it in January, but it isn’t anywhere near late here; we’ve had whiteout conditions. So no, that isn’t a mound of cotton balls– I took a hit for the team and went out into 20 degrees for this cute photoshoot. The piles from snowplowing are well over my head at this point. We have a bet that the icy center of these mounds will still be around on May 1st!

One of the chalets is free, and the upgrade kit also includes this little flat scene. I’m hoping to make an arched display board, so like the tiny samplers, you can swap out your scene each month.

So that was my short week! Let’s go back to the Little Box of Figs– it was worth it, just for this bee pin!

I can see our hives from Quiltopia, and I am afraid my little friends are not going to make it this year. It. Has. Been. So. Cold. We added insulation boards and a ton of sugar for them. Did you know they generate heat by buzzing? They are inside there, awake and alive all this time– we hope. All we need is a few good buzzers to keep our queens going and they will bounce back in the spring– that’s why I called this post, “God Save the Queen!”

Have a wonderful week.
Carol