Two weeks worth of quilty progress to show you today– and I started two new things! (sigh) Let’s get right into it.

Fat Quarter Shop’s yearly FREE Christmas stitch-a-long started in July and I was resisting perfectly. But they had me at Rudolph! Yup, the third week’s installment was a reindeer. I so loved animals at an early age that my parents had to ban me from watching the classic Rankin Bass animated Rudolph show. When the other reindeer wouldn’t let Rudolph PLAY THE REINDEER GAMES, I cried my eyes out! I was able to to suck it up enough for the parent units to allow me to continue, and I made it till THE ISLAND OF MISFIT TOYS when the waterworks began anew– and it was decided I needed to go to bed. I never did get to see how it ended.

I guess I’m still just a softhearted kid inside– how could I say no to this block? In just a couple of years, I may be sitting sobbing, all over again, with my granddaughter and please let it be under this quilt . ❤

(Photo is swiped from Fat Quarter Shop’s website
and I will link it to the stitch-a-long.)

The first week was the words “HO HO HO.” Somewhere along the line, someone discovered you could make a cross stitch pattern out of quilt. Now they’re trying to do the opposite, which is make a quilt pattern out of a cross stitch, but it doesn’t always work.

Never underestimate the power of quilters to complain about free stuff– so many are complaining about readability on this project. I sprung into action with my graph paper and came up with this. (Added a little punctuation, too!)

The next installment was a holly border– I may add a couple more, since we must make things more complicated– and bigger– depending on the final layout which debuts tomorrow. I did all this in two days– and a few other things got done as well! Tomorrow the last piece comes out, which rumor has it is a sleigh, and I hope I can finish it in the allotted week.

I’m rationalizing starting a new thing if I just work hard to complete it AND if I use my stash. Fair, right? I have plenty of Christmas fabric– this is a set of fat quarters, “Countdown to Christmas” from a year or so ago. I still love it and I’m hoping to use the majority of it by adding a border or whatnot, which also serves my core mission of making things more complicated, and bigger.

A cute panel was wrapped up in the bundle– more HOs! Potential backing fabric? Or an additional quilt? As long as it’s complicated and big, I’m in, right? ❤

Now here’s my next start. The only quilting magazine I subscribe to is Better Homes and Gardens “American Patchwork and Quilting.” I like their patterns a lot and they seem to get content from some of the top designers. I have torn out and saved some patterns, but never actually made one. But this bright thing looks easy, doesn’t it?

Before we moved, I was in the middle of cutting a bunch of Pioneer Woman fabric into squares. I don’t know why I was doing that, but I do get a smile when I get a glimpse of my former self’s activities. They would be perfect for this. Plus, I have a friend who loves the Pioneer Woman’s dishes, and her fabric matches perfectly. It’s time to start planning Christmas gifts, didn’t you know? I do possess a Pioneer Woman plate or two myself– they are so pretty and I’m sure you’ve seen them in Walmart. They are the kind that chips easily, not appropriate for my kitchen– heehee.

The pattern is cleverly constructed so those large HSTs are made at the same time as the smaller ones in the border– there’s absolutely no waste. In no time, I had this:

I should be able to quickly finish the last three and assemble, right?

Then I bought this at the Maine Quilt Show. (sigh, again) I’m a sucker for pumpkins, as my friend pointed out.

It’s on the shelf for now, but the weather will be cooling soon…

On Carefree Highways, I teased you that I had made huge progress, and I did! Unfortunately, finishing 200 flying geese up does not make for a stupendous photo.

I did stop waffling on what cornerstone fabric to use– so I stitched up a sashing row, and now we’re getting a peek at what this baby is going to look like! Once I get a little farther, I’ll have to send the drone up for a picture– it’s big!

It’s full on row assembly now, and I’m going to stitch this with a vengeance– not just my hour dibble dabble at night, but I’m planning on spending entire days with the goal of getting this on the longarm ASAP.

On the business side, Berry Bowl Fillers are about to drop! Speaking of converting cross stitch to quilts, couldn’t you see that berry made of quilt blocks and turned into a king size quilt?

Real cross stitch is also moving along! I’m just about on page 3 of 4 on the Holly Horse stocking. I discovered a big oops! After oh, so carefully counting where the leaves should fall under the horses noses, that careful calculation was made from the wrong place. The leaves are five stitches to the right of where they should be. Picking it out is not an option, but I think I can just adjust the toe shape a little shorter. No one will ever now, except my millions of readers, hello! xox

I did decide to rotate my Sandy Orton Summer Sampler in on the weekends– I’m calling it Summer Saturdays. I need to fill in a huge rectangle of yellow behind those words– sounds easy, right, but it’s actually TWO yellows so you have to pay attention. It’s worse than flying geese, if such a thing occurs in nature. But after that is done, it unlocks cute areas in every direction– cherries, a beehive, the beach– so I’ll soldier on.

Finally if you were paying attention, I was supposed to be at the Bayberry Quilters of Cape Cod Show last weekend. I had just been feeling super tired after all the company last week. I had four days to recover, but I didn’t, I got worse. The night before I was supposed to leave, I had to pick up Mr. SFO about 45 minutes away late at night. He saw how tired I was, and it just didn’t seem like a good idea to get up at 6am the next day for a six hour drive. Mr. SFO walked away from a potentially life-ending car accident where he got t-boned at 50mph last April… we’re definitely still freaked out about driving. I didn’t tell you that, but you should know things on Sugar Meadow aren’t always perfect– in case it seems that way. (I smile as I say that, because I’m sure you all realize it is CHAOS here, heehee.) So I cancelled my trip.

Anyway, I’m starting to think my health issues are all because of the Canadian wildfires– our air quality is horrendous right now. Fortunately, today is the last day before it all pushes east, so we’ll see how I am tomorrow. So, as it turns out I may have felt better further south, instead of missing my bestie’s featured quilter show AND she ended up winning best in show with this beauty!

So that’s the story of my week. We can’t go back, we can only go forward, folks. August is looking to be a very open month for me, and I intend to make the best of it, whatever happens, here in Quiltopia.

xox
Carol