the end of November

I haven't checked my e-mail in over a week.

And now I'm scared to.

I get about a hundred e-mails a day;

most of them are junk,

but there are some that I'll need to tend to,

and weeding through it all takes forever.

~

Remember my china cabinet??

The one that I had to drive the trailer

to go get!?!

We finally painted it

and moved it 

to the spot that it's been waiting for its whole life

💛

It's a tiny tad more 'French's' mustard than I'd have preferred,

but I love it anyway.

As soon as I find the china 

that we bought in East Berlin

while it was still a communist country

I'll fill it up!

~

As you can see,

we also put up the Christmas tree

(and plugged in the frasier fir fragrance...)

though we have yet to put any ornaments on it.

~

no - that's not true.

There is the Operation Christmas Child ornament 

that Lexi picked up when we worked our shoebox shift.

~

For several weekends,
Tyler has been working on our stair rail

and we finally got that finished and up this weekend, too.

I love it so much!!

~

I may have gone a bit overboard,

but I've finalized the fabric pull 

for my new commissioned project.

I'm hoping to get my first block made today,

and after that,

I'll aim for a pair of blocks every work day

(double that when the blocks are small and simple)

I estimate it'll take 4-6 months to complete.

~

Along with other leftovers,

Mom and Bill gave us 

both the ham bone

and the turkey carcass

 after Thanksgiving,

so we had a delicious ham and bean soup yesterday

and our (almost) annual day-after-Thanksgiving

 turkey noodle soup.

They were both scrumptious,

but now I am ready to get back to not eating carbs!

~

I only have four more granny circles

to turn into squares and join!

(obviously, this was taken a few days ago...)
I use an empty candle jar to keep a row of circles contained and in order :-)

I discovered there is a thing called continuous join as you go

which is ever so much better than join as you go

which is better

by far

than joining afterward,

so that has sped the process up considerably.

I couldn't find an exact tutorial,

so I sorta cobbled together bits and pieces

from various blogs and videos

and muddled through

until I figured out a good method.

I should probably write it up 

so I can use it if I ever make another one...

Sleeping Porch, Squares

So.

Continuing in our Sleeping Porch Series,

(3 different quilts, made with the same line of fabrics,

Heather Ross' Sleeping Porch,

and some Art Gallery Fabrics' Specktackular, in gold)

next - we have Squares.

This one was a bit of trickster.

When I saw this quilt,

I knew it would be perfect to showcase the unique SP fabrics.

Instead of piecing it the way Shannon did,

(sew a corner onto 4 squares, then join those 4 units into a block)

I thought to myself,

'why not just applique those squares on?

that would be so much faster,

plus - no seams in your beautiful fabrics....'

I am here to tell you 

that it is not faster to applique those squares
on point

onto larger squares,

even if you don't calculate in the time it took 

to prep the squares

(also - do you know how hard it is to press 4 sides and 4 corners

into a perfect square??)

I took to Instagram to see if I was ignorant of some all-important

applique knowledge that would speed up the process,

but no,

the consensus was - it just takes a long time.

I foolishly thought that so many people enjoy this applique thing,

surely it doesn't take forever;

but I was wrong.

Applique takes for-ever.

But look!

Invisible stitches!!

Once I got the darn 2 1/2" squares sewn on,

sewing the 10" squares together into a completed top

was nothing.

Because I had anticipated

 I would have very little labor in this quilt

(cough cough)

I had decided to splurge on a yard and a half 

of the moths on green

for the backing.

I may have seriously underestimated my time,

but y'all,

that backing was a good idea,

because this quilt is positively the most delightful quilt

I've ever felt.

It is so light and airy;

it's the quilt angels dream about, I'm pretty sure.

After lots and lots of practicing,
I free-motion quilted feathers around all of my squares,
and I must say,

I am really quite pleased with how they turned out!

Then I added hand-stitching to all of the appliqued squares
with magenta perle cotton
and inside that,
machine quilted 4-petal flowers

I finished off the quilt
with pink lawn,
machine attached on the back,
and stitched down on the front
with big stitch hand quilting.

At approximately 40x48,
this quilt is perfect for growing with a baby for many years,
and it'd also be a good car quilt,
or even a small lap or wheelchair quilt.
It's beautiful to look at,
but honestly,
this one is far too scrumptious to hang on the wall!

Sleeping Porch Squares is available in my shop
😊
(and 100% of the profits
will go towards buying a sewing machine for Rahab's Rope)

Sleeping Porch, Diamonds

I know I just introduced you

to the finished Sleeping Porch Series,

but I wanted to give each quilt 

an opportunity to shine, on her own, if you will.

For Diamonds,

I made 80 half rectangles

using

  Heather Ross' silky Sleeping Porch cotton lawn

and Specktakular, in gold, by Art Gallery

and arranged them with Lexi's expert help.

.

As I mentioned before,

I wish I would've tested before sewing up all 80,

because my corners did not match up 

about as often as they did.

I let go of some of my perfectionist tendencies, though,

because even with some sawed off points,

I think Diamonds is very striking.

(It'd actually look great hanging on a wall,

but gosh - I'd rather see a quilt getting used and snuggled)

Instead of quilting with a walking foot, 

I used a ruler foot and my add-a-quarter ruler

(which would have been far more enjoyable

 if my machine wasn't so finicky!)

I didn't mark anything, just picked certain 'landmarks'

as quilting guides.

And, of course, 

I added in a bit of hand quilting.

I hope the recipient loves that touch as much as I do....

I used a thrifted sheet as the backing,

to keep costs lower.

The bonus surprise

was the quilting looks really great on the back.

I decided to keep with the soft and silky theme,

and bind it with lawn,

so it's extra nice for little fingers to rub.

I hope the little one that gets this quilt

sleeps well under it,

plays and grows and learns new things on it,

and loves it to bits.

💛

Sleeping Porch Diamonds is for sale in my shop 😊

Sleeping Porch Series

Or,

as I like to call them,

the 3 Sisters.

A few months ago,

my friend, HydeeAnn, started a series of quilts.

She used different fabrics,

but made the same pattern.

When I got my bundle of Sleeping Porch fabrics,

I knew I wanted to do the same thing,

only - different pattern
same fabrics -

and my Sleeping Porch Series was born.

First up, 

was Diamonds

Bold, flashy, beautiful diamonds.

Next was Squares.

I thought she was going to be the easy one, 

the quick one,

but I thought wrong.

For all of her simplicity,

she took way more time and attention than I'd planned.

But -

with bamboo batting

and that lawn backing,

and the quilt top being 91% lawn, too

she is the dreamiest of them all.

Last, but not definitely not least,

we have 

Sparkling Stars

(because I obviously don't have stars out of my system yet 😏)

She took quite a bit of time,

what with all that piecing

but the quilting went pretty quickly

and, man!

I could just look at her all day long.

And guys - guess what??

They are all available

in my shop.

Yes!!!

I have a shop now!!!
(Free advice gratefully accepted)
It's called Lily and Lex 💗

and, of course,
100% of my profits will be used 
to buy sewing machines for Rahab's Rope.


linking up with Amanda Jean and the Finishers 
and Julie over at Sew,Stitch,Snap, SHARE