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...

Ribbon Star

It all started a few weeks ago,

when this picture showed up in my IG feed.

I thought, 

"Oh that is gorgeous! I need some!"

(Y'all know how I love Art Gallery fabrics...)

Then I remembered

that I am not the sort of person 

who purchases impulsively,

so I did not rush to Etsy 

and buy some.

But I thought about that fabric

almost every day

for over a week,

and when I decided it was no longer an impulse purchase

and looked for it,

I found a shop that was having a 25% off sale,

and I didn't want to lose money on it,

so I stuck 4 yards in my cart,

because wouldn't it make a fantastic backing?!

And then,

thinking I might need a bit more 

for pattern matching such a large print,

I added another 1/2 yard.

While I was waiting for my fabric to arrive,

I saw this picture

and after oohing and ahhing over the gorgeous baby

in the matching sweater

I thought,

"Oh. 

that would look really nice in some of that fusion fabric...."

But I argued with myself,

"no ~ you bought that to be a quilt back..."

But then I remembered that 

I bought an extra 1/2 yard!

(I'll worry about the pattern matching business later)

and started scheming,

and drew up a pattern.

When my fabric arrived

and I set about finding my fabrics to go with it,

I realized that my typical stash building with fat quarters

was not going to work for this quilt.

And it seemed foolish to buy more fabric,

when I already have quite a lot,

just to make this one quilt

that I really  have no use for.

So I decided that I would save all of the fabric 

for a backing

and not make that sweet star quilt.

And I was going to follow through on that plan.

Really I was.

Except that,

I had already decided how I was going to quilt it.

And when you already know how you are going to quilt something,
and you smack are in the middle of
Operation Up My Quilting Game,

it sort of seems like you should make it,

don't you think??

So.

On Tuesday,

a little before lunch time,

I ran to Fort Smith real quick

and found a Grunge fabric that matched almost perfectly

and got to work.

By late afternoon,

I had a quilt top.

And by late Friday morning,

she was ready to go in the wash.

I'm so tickled with how Ribbon Star turned out;

it's just as I pictured.

I still need to perfect my feather technique

(tips appreciated!)

but they are plenty passable.

And my swirls,

though not perfect,

look pretty great.

After I quilted the first ribbon section,

I giddily told Tyler,

"I am actually getting good at this!"

Which feels really nice.

I'm not sure yet

 if I'm going to list this one in my shop

or save it to donate somewhere else.

But I sure am glad I 

dropped everything

and made it.

Linking up with MMM's DREAMi
and Amanda Jean.

Sparkle, a finished quilt (and a coupon code)

Did you ever see the episode of Psych,

where Shawn 'channels' an actress,

and he's sing-talking and dancing,

"I dazzle, and I stretch...."?

That.

Is my baby sister....

She

is

a nut!

When I gave my older sister her quilt last year,

Alicia 'reminded' me 

that I still hadn't given her a quilt.

(I haven't given most of my other siblings a quilt yet either,

and only one of my parents.)

She's reminded me 

again

a couple of times since then,

and when she bought her first house this summer, 

I thought it would be the perfect occasion

to finally (as if!) make her quilt.

Alicia is gorgeous, 

and feminine, but not girly.

She's fierce, and determined,

but she is also a clown.

She's one of those people who walk into a room

and everyone notices.

Her eyes positively sparkle.
Especially when she laughs.
And she loves to laugh,
and make other people laugh, too.

She's not really a patchworky quilty person, though,

so I knew her quilt would need  to have a lot of negative space

and I was leaning towards 

a few columns of different sized 4 patches on point,

sort of reminiscent of a beaded curtain

when I saw Allison's bee quilt

and knew instantly

that prisms would be perfect for Lish.

(With the pesky little exception that it required paper piecing...)

Moda's Basic Grey Grunge fabric was the obvious choice
for all this wide open space,

and I quickly decided on cream,

then found a shop that carried both Grunge and C&S Netorious

(I was hoping to use silver netorious for my prisms)

and asked if the grays matched.

Tracy wrote back that she was out of the silver at the moment, 

so she couldn't be sure,

but she had a metallic Essex linen that looked great

with the cream Grunge,

so I had her set up a private listing.

As soon as the fabric arrived

(which was fast!) 

I started cutting.

I'd already printed off the damn papers

and figured out how I needed to cut my fabrics 

so they'd fit,

but I wouldn't have tons of waste.

(let's just leave it at - I didn't quite figure this correctly...)

I also wanted to keep everything going in the same direction

(at that point, even though I'd ordered the linen,

I was hoping to use silver Netorious,

which I already had,

and it has a obvious up and down / sideways)

so I drew arrows on each paper piecing pattern

so I'd know which way to orient my fabrics.

It turned out that Silver Netorious 

does not play nicely with cream Grunge

(the background is more taupe than gray)

so I was happy that I'd ordered the metallic linen

just in case.

The first 2 days of (paper) piecing were awful,

but since I'd already cut the fabrics for all  52 units,

I had to persevere.

Plus - it was for Lish. She'd persevere for sure....

Eventually, 

 the paper piecing didn't hurt my brain quite so much,

and I think I even managed to make about 20 

without any mistakes!

(I know - they're all of 3 pieces.

You'd think I could have made all 52 without mistakes...)

Once the units were pieced,

sewing them together was a breeze,

but

just like my previous PP escapades,

my seams did not match up as perfectly

as when I piece traditionally.

(what the heck?!)

At some point,

I realized I was going to be short on grunge,

so I sent out an SOS to Tracy,

and she got me fixed right up.

While waiting for the fabric

I added a layer of wool batting to the strip of prisms,

sewed around them all with clear thread,

and then trimmed away all batting 

that wasn't under the metallic fabric.
Then when I added (bamboo) batting to the entire quilt,
the prisms would all have two layers of batting,
making them more puffy.

I had planned on using minky  

(or some sort of cuddly fleece) for the backing

(so it'd be less quilt-like...)

but I couldn't find one where the color was *just* right,

so I changed direction and found a wide backing fabric 

that I thought went really well.

Lily helped me baste both quilts 

out in the house in mid July.

She said she has never been so hot in her life.

(I, on the other hand, have been hotter at least twice)

My sewing machine went to the shop right about then,

because there was no way I was going to attempt quilting

when it was misbehaving so badly.

(when I got it back - it was better than new!

But sadly, that only lasted for a few days

before it started acting up again - though not as badly)

While I was waiting for it,

I started piecing another quilt,

using my old beloved Janome.

Once I got the machine back,

before I started quilting,

I drew up a quilting map
(which I mostly followed(ish)
but things didn't always translate perfectly
from 8x10
to 60x80...)

and then used my hera marker to mark my hand-quilting lines

around the prisms,

and also to mark my ghost shapes in the grunge.

(I guess, though, that they aren't terribly ghosty, 

since I hand quilted them, huh?)

And then I started quilting.

and marking

and quilting.

and marking and quilting some more,

for about 6 weeks.

(

Until one day I was done.

I am really quite pleased with how it turned out

(very much like I envisioned it, actually!)

but one of my favorite parts is the verse I added

which wasn't in my original plan.

"By wisdom a house is built

and through understanding it is established.

Through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures"

Psalm 24:3

How absolutely perfect is that?!

Alicia.

I love you!!

I am so proud of you, and am so happy to be your big sis.

Congratulations on your house purchase!

(and on being the owner of this fabulous quilt... ;-)

I hope you create lots of wonderful memories

in your beautiful new home.

kiss kiss. hug hug

Linking up with the Bloggers' Quilt Festival

and Kelly at My Quilt Infatuation

and AmandaJean

p.s.

I was so pleased with the service I got from Private Source Quilting.

As I've mentioned before,

shopping for fabric online is tricky business,

especially when it comes to color matching,

so having a shop owner who will go the extra mile for you

is a big blessing.

Not only did Tracy go the extra mile 

in helping with fabric selection,

she also gave me a coupon code (TRACYLOU)

 to share with you all,

good for 15% off every order over $25

and good through the end of the year!

(I'm not being compensated in any way - I just wanted to share the shop,

and asked Tracy if she'd throw in a little gift for y'all,

and she did :-)