Quite a lot has happened in January that I want to note, so when I look back over the year; I can remember.  Sheila had her knees replaced on January 5th.  We had a lot of snow and drivers were getting stuck left and right, so I bought a 2014 Subaru Outback that had a little over 11,000 on January 6th.  Mom came and stayed from January 3rd to the 21st .  Matthew had 9 large polyps and several other small ones removed on the 21st.  Lucas had tubes put in on the 22nd. I haven't sewn much so far this year. I am taking Sheila to therapy 3 times a week.  I get to sit and read while I wait, so I am enjoying it.

I did finish the top of the Grand Illusion Mystery today.

I won't get to quilting it for a while because I am still quilting on Blue Moon,  I did decide to use some of my little scraps and try some wild and goosey blocks that many quilters are talking about on Quiltville Open Studio.  Here is my first block.  I am amazed by a quilt made out of this.  Time consuming for sure!

 I quilted on Blue Moon for an hour and 15 minutes.  If I kept at it someday it will be finished.

Just in case you are wondering what a polyp looks like...not anywhere comparable to a quilt!!!
Matthew had 9 this size removed from his nose and sinus cavities and then some smaller ones.

Grand Illision Clue 5

Grand Illusion Clue 5

I finished up clue 5 while watching Bonnie Hunter's webcam about 8 hours after it was live.

Bonnie Hunter's mystery

Here is my quilting partner, Gabe.

I am machine quilting Blue Moon. a kit I bought at the Bernina quilt shop.  I am using a wool batting for the first time and it is showing more depth to the quilting, especially on the back.  It is so large that it is not a great deal of fun manhandling it. I am using Sulky30 weight variegated thread on top and plain regular weight navy in the bottom.  I am having quite a bit of thread breakage.  Once again....not a great deal of fun.

 

Love to Read??

Let's Read

I created a google spreadsheet of the 2015 reading challenge. The reading challenge is Here.  If anyone wants to join, feel free to email me (etuss45@gmail.com), and I will add you.   It is a list of 50 different books which may diversify your reading.  As the challenge states, you don't have to read all 50, so join us,  Since it was suggested by Kim to two of her teacher friends, we started during Christmas vacation.  We might get to know some new authors.

I got my computer back from HP.  They replaced the hard drive, so it has been time consuming to reload everything,  I have been posting as frequently as I had planned because I just couldn't figure out how to get the pic from the ipad onto the blog (on ipad),

I finished the first 3 clues of Bonnie Hunter's mystery Grand Illusion a day before clue 4 comes out. I am getting anxious to see how all of this is going to go together. I don't have prints for my neutrals, and I think I am going to like it.  

I worked on this little mug mat.  I am not real excited about how the edges turned out, but it will be functional  There are some others in the set.  I wonder if I will do them????

I did a bit of Christmas shopping.  The traffic was pretty crazy.  I still have stocking stuffers to buy.  Gifts are mostly done.  I have some binding to put on place mats and have to make another trip to the bank.

I am working on Christmas presents (can't show those at this time)  in between working on step 2 of the Grand Illusion mystery quilt.

I am using Bonnie Hunter directions #2 for the block.  The seams are not matching no matter how I pin or sew.  I have unsewn and resewn several times and just decided that I would live with them being a little off.



Here are some Christmas wallhangings that I put up:

I am catching a cold, but decided to stay home from exercise and sew........  I discovered that I do like the bigger 6.5 easy angle ruler when I am standing up cutting.

So, I am all done with the 100 units.  I have 40 of the 80 half square triangles that we are to set aside.

Boy, my yellow squares sure look orange.  I will have to look at the colors on my phone.

I posted a picture of this when the top was done  Now it has been machine quilted on my brother VQ3000 and bound.  I am bummed that I missed quilt cam tonight for no good reason.  I could have been sewing my binding while watching Bonnie Hunter on quilt cam instead of watching Netflix.  I can't remember when I started this, but I think it was last fall.  It is a pattern from Bonnie Hunter's Spring Fling book.  I did buy a couple of fat quarters of red and my friend Marge gave me some of her reds. I didn't count the fabric in my used this year yardage except for the back because I layered it after my start date of January 27, 2014.

Here is a close up of the quilting.  Once again I forgot to put a label on.  

I used a variegated red thread and like how that turned out.  I was going to use a 30 weight sulky, but I am glad I used a 40 weight thread because it stands out enough.