Starting Celtic Solstice Mystery

Usually when Bonnie posts her mystery quilts I sit back and watch as each step is posted. Then when the big reveal is posted I wished I had played along.  So this year I am doing just that.  This will be the first of her mysteries where I follow the steps as they are posted.  This afternoon I took a break from my regularly scheduled quilting projects to cut out all the pieces for step one. I am going to tackle the king size version!

Now i'm off to the sewing machine....

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3rd Finish for Q4 FAL

I was working on my Starry Night Quilt in hopes of having it ready for Christmas, but I had some cat interference and then I ran out of white quilting thread.  So what is a girl to do when the closest shop that sells white Guterman thread is 30 miles away?  ....

She gets out her yellow and pink threads and quilts up a different project on her Fourth Quarter Finish Along list.  

This is my Schnibbles Leap Year quilt.

I made it when I was playing along with Another Year of Schnibbles.

It was cold at the park today, but the sun was nice and bright.

My daughter's artistic view of how quilts should be displayed.  :)

I really like this yellow fabric, but as I started quilting it I made a mental note to myself to watch out for fabrics that have something "imposed" on them instead of it being part of the print. 

 I'm not sure what this white overlay stuff is, I usually see it on white on white fabrics, and I have been good about avoiding those but I didn't think to look for it on colored fabrics. So when I saw this yellow in the discount bin I didn't even think about it being like those white on white fabrics that my machine hates so much.   When my needle hits it a glob of white stuff head on it jerks slightly, makes a big hole, and gets me off my groove, which makes my next few stitches out of whack.

And sometimes it will make the machine skip stitches.

What ever that white stuff is, it is too thick in places and my needle doesn't like it at all.

Sometimes, it will just flat out break the thread as the needle goes down.

The fabric is pretty and feels nice to the touch, it just doesn't make for fun quilting.

This must be Sheen's favorite spot.

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November FNSI

When I signed up for "Friday Night Sew In" I commented that I was going to sew the night away.
What I really did was "press" the night away.
Each stack below has 10 blades in it.  That makes a total of 400 blades that needed be be turned and pressed.

Who knew turning and pressing 400 wedges would take most of the night.
All these blades will end up making two quilts, one for me and one to give away.  

I did want to get some actual sewing done for FNSI so I stayed up long enough to sew one full Dresden plate together. It was nice to be working on this Christmas quilt and the one I posted yesterday.  I have spent most of my time quilting for others these past couple weeks so it was fun work on a little something of my own.  

Click here to see what every one else worked on last night for FNSI, (scroll down for the link ups).

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Christmas Top Done

After fiddling with different layouts for my Half Square Triangle strips, I finally came up with this layout.

The top is made from nine big star blocks, but when they all got sewn together a whole new pattern emerged. Perhaps I can do some quilting to emphasis the stars.  

Tonight for Friday Night Sew In, I am going to tackle my Dresden blades.  I have quite a few left to press before I can even start sewing them all together.

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