Finishes for 2024

This year's finishes was a real mishmash of stuff - a handful of postcards, various quilted objects, a few wall hangings, a baby quilt and a throw quilt - along with some not quilted objects. 

Irish Chain postcard, water bottle holder, flowers for my hair
More postcards: Milky Way, Birdhouse and Time Flies

I have been really enjoying Project Quilting - this year's challenges resulted in most of my mini pieces.  I created four new postcards, which were a blast to dream up and assemble.  I finally made a water bottle holder for myself (that's been on my project list for years).  I also completed two wall hangings - the citrus one was one of the challenges, whereas Marmalade used up all the leftover citrus wedges.  My last mini piece(s) were flowers for my hair to go with my dancing outfits.

Blogiversary #14

 Happy blogiversary to me - I'm 14 years old!  

The year flew by!  A bunch of baby guinea pigs, good family get togethers, a chunk of time spent with my mother, a summer spent digging in the garden.  Not enough time sewing and I wanted to spend more time with my friends - but looking back it was a good year doing things I enjoyed with people I love.

Thank you, readers, for coming along for the ride.  I appreciate your comments and feedback (both written and in person!).  I'm looking forward to another year of family, friends, piggies and quilts.

I Like Thursday: Happy Boxing Day

 

Another year nearly over.  One last I Like post for 2024.

I've been enjoying the wood stove in our sunroom.  Still learning how much wood to put in and when.  I've spent a few relaxing afternoons watching the birds and the fire.  Ahhhh... very zen.

Lightened Layouts

These are the same Midnight Garden layouts as I posted yesterday with just one fabric replaced.  Looks different, doesn't it?  I used a grey that I had in my stash.  I don't have enough to put in this quilt.  If I run with this, I think I'll get something just a tiny bit darker, or maybe a large print.

Solid Middle

Block Layout Tryouts

I have completed 448 diamonds for the Midnight Gardens quilt.  Whew!  And goodness, they'll all need to be trimmed.  But before I start doing that, I need to know how they'll be laid out (it makes a difference which side I trim first).  I had intended to spread them all over the floor, but realized it would be better to take photos of a single block and lay them out on the computer.  

In doing so I discovered a few things.  First, I may nix the idea of using different combinations that I had considered last month.  That might have worked if this was a scrappy quilt.  I'll play some more with that when I get a chance.

It's amazing how the same pieces in a different orientation change the whole look.  I found that some blocks I really liked weren't as nice when all put together.  I captured five different layouts. 

Crispy Christmas (Sixteen Days Old)

 

The Rice Crispy Boys!  Back for one last hurrah.  They must be big boys now in their forever homes.  But look at how cute they were at sixteen days old when I took these photos last March.  

Snap takes up more room in that box than he did in the prior photo shoot. 

Diamond Piles and Rounding Errors

 

I have stacks and stacks of diamonds.  They are spread across two rooms in various stages of completion.  I've lost track of how many I've cut (I think I have an extra 14 for some colors).  Oops!

I spent the week cutting and stitching them together.  Right now I have only 40 or so finished ones.  The majority are pinned ready for stitching and ironing and another 100 left to pin.  Eventually I will end up with two sets of 224 complete diamonds. 

Crispy Christmas (Nine Days Old)

 

Do you recall the Rice Crispy boys from last spring?  We did a couple of photo shoots with my little coffee cups.  Adorable!  But what is as good as baby guinea pigs in tiny cups?  Baby guinea pigs in Christmas wrapping.  So we had a little Christmas in March!

They were only nine days old for this photo shoot.  So tiny! 

Hmm... how tasty is that box?

X Marks the Spot

I spent a few hours cutting initial blocks, creating custom templates, remeasuring and testing the plexiglass templates.  I felt I wasn't getting anywhere fast, but I knew I'd start making progress. 

Cutting the strips just an eighth of an inch wider and using the template let me stitch together and trim down to perfectly sized diamonds.  Success!  I also figured out how to consistently get the points to line up (well, 13 out of 14 - not bad).  Took way too long to do those...

however ...

Templates

I started the test block for the Midnight Garden quilt and soon realized it might be tough to keep the pieces square and true.  One way to helps this along is to cut some of the pieces a little large.  That requires them to be cut down to size before they all go together.  So I made a set of four templates to help with the process (they're hard to see - but plexiglass to the rescue!).  One triangle to help with the fussy cutting, another to enlarge; the diamond will to trim those pieces down the size and the big triangle will ensure the block will be square.  

Now that I've finished baking holiday cookies and got most of my cards sent, I'm hoping to spend some time working on this!

I Like Thursday: All Sorts of Cookies

A quick little I Like post full of cookies to share with Lee Anna's I Like Thursday.

This year Thanksgiving weekend was focused on cookies.  I made cookie dough before Thanksgiving, baked cookies the day after Thanksgiving, then attended the family cookie swap party on Sunday.

I dusted off an ancient recipe for date filled cookies to swap.  I remember the cookies were always really big, so I worked to make three smaller rolls.  I had to make extra filling to accommodate the larger surface area - but they came out quite nicely.  The other goodies will be gifts - stuffed figs, caramels, berger cookies and white chocolate dipped ginger molasses cookies.

The Girls Are Gone

The Powerpuff girls have all gone on new adventures.  The house is startling quiet now that the last two have departed. 

Buttercup left us a week ago - adopted to be a companion to another guinea pig that had just lost her cagemate.  I had some apprehension about splitting the trio.  Buttercup was the most person-oriented of the bunch, often hung out with Blossom and forced Bubbles to split her time harassing the two of them.  We had a very noisy week once she left.  Bubbles constantly pestered Blossom and Blossom had no qualms screaming at her.  Poor Blossom spent a lot of time getting ousted from cuddle cup, cozy, hammock and hay simply because Bubbles could force her to move (not that Bubbles actually wanted any of those things).