December Duo-ings

‘Twas the day before Christmas and all of the projects which needed to be finished, are and then some, so I am saying, I’m done with December. I had a pretty productive month with five Finally Finished quilts and two Flimsies. It helped that I spent more time at home than the Grandparent house although I did miss my darling Granddaughter but we were playing it safe by staying home for two weeks after Thanksgiving. As in November, I once again have dueling “Duos” which included Doll quilts and a Dirty Dozen which puts the “D”in December, along with Delightful. (It’s that time of year when the photos are all interior shots; no snow but it’s cold outside).

First up, were the two Christmas quilts which needed to be finished before we left for the Grandparent House on the 12th which wouldn’t have been hard to do except I was deterred by some recently purchased fabric but more more about this distraction later in this post.

The Christmas Hoot and Loot quilt has been in the makings for the past several years with indecisions if I should make a Staggered Strips and Squares quilt but decided against it so the pinwheel and eight-patch blocks were made last year. I finally decided this year that the Hoot and Loot green fabric would be cut into 8.5” squares rather than using long strips or rectangular blocks.  The eight-patch blocks were made mostly from a jelly roll of Me an My Sisters Red Dot and Dash. Sadly these were cut last year and if I knew my Bee Sista Jan was looking for this, I would have happily sent this to her. We have a Me and My Bee Sista fabric friendship.

Surprisingly, when it came down to quilting it, I couldn’t decide on the backing since there was nary a Christmas fabric in my stash and I was determined to use something from my backing vault so this is what I came up with-not very exciting, right.  Also, how to quilt it was a challenge and decided on wavey cross-hatching with straight grid lines so I didn’t have to do any marking which is a pain to do when I can’t depend upon the blocks.  I used a green thread for the top and for the bottom I used an Aurifil thread in Natural which I love how it blended with the back.  The binding is the red dot fabric used in the pinwheel blocks which is almost or at least a twenty year old Piece of Cake fabric line.  

This quilt measures 56”x72” and is now hanging around the Grandparent House which was not the plan since I was envisioning this being thrown around the floor by the darling Granddaughter.  The Hoot and Loot quilt is covering the red and black quilt which normally drapes on the ladder and sort of has a Christmas tree effect,  doesn’t it?

While I was finishing the Hoot and Loot Christmas quilt with just a few days left before leaving for the Grandparent House, I still had to make a quilt for the darling Granddaughter.  The plan was to make one using the leftover blocks but I was sort of tired looking at these blocks plus I thought it wasn’t too exciting for a little girl.

I had hanging on my design board some 4” HSTs made with Lori Holt’s Cosy Christmas fabric and the plan was to make two zig zag table runners.  I thought of using these for her quilt but it would only measure 32”x40” which be way too small for my very tall for her age Granddaughter.  I then had an epiphany that if the HSTs were placed horizontally and I could find a perfect fabric for the sashing to make it longer, this would work.

No surprise that I found an aqua mint with red pin dot stripes in my stash which is also a 2016 Riley Blake fabric like Lori Holt’s but from a different designer.  I love when I buy fabric with no project in mind and finally am able to use it.  Plus, I found this right away and knew it would be perfect. When this happens, I feel vindicated for buying so much fabric and let Hubby know about it.

I decided to use fleece instead of batting and backed it with a red star minkee which was leftover from another Granddaughter quilt from Christmas past, another nice happenstance in making this quilt.  This quilt has weight which is perfect since she likes her compression blanket.  I quilted vertical squiggly lines with red thread.  I named this quilt Holiday Hearts and it measures 40”x52”.

Holiday Hearts was well received and immediately shared with the darling Granddaughter’s dolls and menagerie. Remember this image of the other quilt on the floor which inspired another duo of quilts to be mentioned later in this post.

Upon our return from the Grandparent House on the 17th, the next project I needed to finish was my #4 of Country Threads Dirty Dozen QAL which is my I Love London, the flimsie made almost six years ago. This was the last of the 2016 Flimsies waiting to be finished and happy this one is off my plate now.  I made this after I had accumulated London fabric from different lines which was popular around the time I retired eight years ago.  I always dreamed of going to London since it holds a special place in my heart because my father had fond memories of this city (not the devastation-but taking violin lessons while he was on furlough)when he was stationed somewhere in England during WWII.  Sadly, I don’t like flying and my trips are limited to places where we can drive to our destination.

Here’s a close-up of some of the prints which are quite fun.  The pattern of this quilt was based on the center 18” square of the I Love London print and the surrounding square/rectangles measure 4.5”x6” finished.  You can see the crosshatch and grid machine quilting I did in blue thread and I would like to mention that I wanted my crosshatch lines to be nice and straight and spent the time marking it with a Hera marker. Unfortunately, my lines were not straight and veered off course several times because I couldn’t always see the markings.  I guess you can see Hera marks better on solid fabrics.

I seem to be having mishaps with batting and backings lately and this quilt was a testament to this being that I had purchased 108” wide backing for this quilt but somehow cut into it to back another quilt thinking I had enough. I didn’t so I had to piece it together to what I thought would be the right size and still wasn’t enough so I sewed the blue/white ticking stripe which still only gave me an one-inch left to spare on both sides. Whew! This quilt measures 54” square and the stripe binding was from one of the fabric lines.  Even though the quilting is a little wonky if you look at it close enough which you may notice since this quilt is designated to be a picnic quilt or maybe a tea party quilt—something that can be laid down on the floor or ground-which brings me to the subject of the darling Granddaughter and the earlier photo with the quilts on the floor. 

During our last visit, she has been taking table toppers, place mats and even picking up the kitchen floor mat to place over her dollies, stuffies and any other toy she deems as needing to be covered.  Most of the time the toys are laying on the floor.  I don’t like seeing my quilts laying on the floor since at times, we have two to four dogs at the Grandparent House at one time and two of them are shedders. I was thinking of some of the small toppers at home I have made which would make suitable doll quilts and remembered these two quilts above which were made from Little Quilts’ panels and I started hand quilting them over twenty years ago.

What’s funny about Little Quilts is that my Bee Sistas this year had a conversation about them starting with Wendy who had posted about their book being her first quilt book and then turning out that three of us made the same little quilt pattern.  But that didn’t spark me to finally finish these two quilts, it was the need to give the darling Granddaughter a proper doll quilt.  I thought I just needed to bind the quilts, but the Star quilt on the right still needed to have some of the leaves hand quilted with my still intact big stitches skill.  I think I did this when it wasn’t acceptable but it’s hard to do fine hand quilting when using perle cotton or three strands of embroidery floss.  As for me being the big believer that calico is going to make a big comeback, I found the right blue Little Quilt fabric in my stash, just enough to bind these two quilts.  I thought Pipertown was going to be my oldest UFO finish for this year, but it turns out these two quilts are going to have this distinction.  Jan, previously mentioned in this post, commended me for remembering I had these quilts and finding them which I have to admit I had them stored in a clear bin under my quilting desk and were hard to miss. I’m rethinking about giving them both to the darling Granddaughter; I want to keep the Star Quilt to hang in the hallway outside her bedroom since I find it precious and don’t want to see it laying on the floor. Hopefully, she won’t yank it off the wall.  These panels really are nice and with some quilting, it looks like the blocks were pieced and yes, the yesterday colors still make my heart sing.

And now for the third “duo” quilts for December which are these two flimsies which were the distraction that deterred me from the finishing of Christmas quilts.  I guess these quilts could be called DREAMis  and the squirrel’s name would be Bernie since these two would not have been made if I hadn’t bought some of the fabrics from her. To put it in a nutshell (such an appropriate use of this word since we’re talking squirrel), after I made the quilt flimsie on the right, I realized the colors reminded of the yellow dot fabric seen on the left quilt so of course I had to find it which led me to the Julie Comstock 23 fabrics which I already had cut several years ago to make another Jack in the Box quilt. I then had to make this quilt since I seem to like sewing in duos. We’re not leaving for the Grandparent House until after Christmas, so I thought I could quilt them but decided I would add them to the Flimsie pile.  For the past two years, I’ve had no flimsie carryover but this year I have a dozen.  I should mention I have 29 Finally Finishes but still surprised at the number of Flimsies which will be waiting to be a Finally Finished in 2021.  I still think I should relax for the rest of the year.  

December wasn’t going to be “Done” until I finished sewing the last two blocks, Buff Breasted Sandpiper and Cardinal, of the 2020 Color Challenge QAL which I have not been on schedule as in the previous months. I bet you can tell by the colors which block is which bird.  I have to say after I finished sewing the Cardinal block, I felt like playing Angry Birds and not because there were so many patches.  Turning these blocks into a quilt is definitely on my 2021 To Do list.

So I’m finishing this lengthy post right before the start of Christmas Eve which will be quiet.  I appreciate you stopping by to read this post and I’m still not sure if Bloglovin will pick this up. Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and may you be blessed with a very healthy and peaceful New Year and also may all your hopes and wishes for this year happen in 2021.