One Week Back...what have I done?

I came back a week ago today (Sat) arriving about noon without my bag. We arrived to a lot of snow and intense cold. Just like a lot of people in the USA are experiencing today. However, thankfully my bag arrived on Sunday and the process of putting it all away - and getting started back sewing began.

Most of my bag(s) was full of fabric, and since my shelving units are full, I needed to work on reorganizing and getitng it in there as best as I could.

However, I did do a lot. I did finish that big granny square Japanese fabric top which was mostly done.

Really anything I finish now was probably already mostly done before I ever left for the states. I do sew reasonablly quickly when I can focus on it alone, but I’m doing all kinds of things right now.

So, let me share you the smallish things I’ve done this past week.

I cut a lot of strips for charity tops - there are about 10-15 tops and all their border strips in each of the boxes shown below. I will use the same overall pattern - and most of these tops came from Fran. However, there are some panels (Spiderman, Batman, Mickey Mouse) as well which are roughly the same size.

I started working on using up some of the little strips that Ewa and her mom make for me which i found in my sewing room or fabric room. I wanted to clear some of this out and came back with some new enthusiasm to do so. I’ve finished a few tops which are waiting on some final pressing before I can take them to the church upstairs and store them in my trunks. once they are ready to go, I love storing them hidden away, as they wait for their turn.

I started a couple of new projects. The first uses a 5” pack and a free pattern by Corey Yoder

 
 

and

the other is a king size top that I’ve just managed to get the fabrics cut for. It’s called Fat Quarter Frenzy and will be for my son and his wife who live currently near Columbia, SC. Jessica told me she liked it, as Lori Holt showed hers using her low volume fabrics, and I decided to just go for it. I’ve also chosen fabrics for a queen size for us as well, as I want to use some of these fabrics for a quilt for us. I’m using some Lori Holt but also some Polish fabrics and others that I just like.

Remember my goal this year to try to use up some of my more beloved fabrics - at least one a month. Well, this one will be the one for January, I guess, as at least some of these are fabrics I’ve had for literally years and things I bought years before we had a store. These are some cuties here.

I also finished making the blocks for the Plaid quilt which I started a while ago - maybe late November/early December? These are all Lori Holt fabrics and I’ve finally finished making the blocks. I hope to get the top together pretty soon. The last photo is the one found in the book. I’ve not started putting it together yet. This one - MY version takes 182 blocks, so it will be a queen size and not the size in the book. I’m making an attempt to not have any repeats of her fabrics. Unbelievably, I think I’ve done it.

I also started a new quilt that I pulled fabrics for in December. All I’ve done for this one is start to cut the tree trunks. It’s a free pattern by Moda called Branching Out. I’m trying to go for a “Blue Spruce” forest of almost 100 trees. I will have to make multiples of the various prints.

 

I also made up a design for using up these 9 patches, which are sitting in my sewing room. I want these to get used and so finally worked up something I like. But I’ll save that for later. It will be part of my 2.5” squares series of quilts.

 
 

My Applelicious quilt top nr 2 which is waiting on the border.

I also pulled out a second Apple-licious quilt by Lori Holt (thisparticular one is for me) because I gave away the first one to my DIL, Jessica, in SC, but I wanted mine a bit bigger anyway.

I have the center made but didn’t know what to do about the border. I’ve finally made peace with just adding the border as designed with adaptations to the size changes I’ve made - and possibly making a different apple quilt which has a bit bigger apples so it would be a faster quilt.

My original Apple-licious quilt finished up a bit ago.

And I think that’s about all. Each of the things I’ve mentioned has taken hours. Probably by far the quickest thing was the quilt top finish and the decision about the Apple top - which was pretty much just computer work.

Oh, and I did get up my nerve (I don’t like driving in the snow), took my husband’s truck to the findings store and picked up a bolt of batting today. I called the store yesterday and asked if they had my batting in. They told me they didn’t have any and didn’t know when it would come in. With that news, I ordered some which will be delivered on Monday.

However, my local store called me Friday afternoon and said they got it in and so I took the truck the half mile or less to the store and picked up a bolt of 50 meters. I need to get started on my charity quilts for 2026 as I have no plan on waiting to do these til later in the year unlike other years. :) I hope to be done by June—so it’s time to get going—but really didn’t have much batting needed for this effort. So I don’t mind that I will get another bolt on Monday - that’s fine.

Oh, one other thing I didn’t mention because it’s not quilting related, but took a bit of time - as it was my turn to make sure the church is clean for Sunday, so I went out on Thursday. Unfortunately for me, even though I let the van warm up 25 minutes, it still died on me multiple times on my way to the building, which totally stressed me out! If you aren’t aware, a diesel doesn’t like cold weather and the fuel can get thick, making it prone to quitting every time I put on the brake which was every intersection or when I changed gears (we have stick shifts) . Needless to say that is a bit stressful. I actually let the van run another hour for additional warming up while I was at the church building, but my husband came and he drove it and let me drive his truck home after I called him almost in tears. Having the van die at the stop light and not sure if I could get it going again was indeed not nice - esp. since it has been SO cold.

So, there you are. My week in review, sorta. Obviously there are other things I didn’t mention, but this is most of it.

Thanks for coming along with me on this journey!

Have a great day wherever you are reading this!

Becky PetersenComment