Year End Bits and Pieces

Oh, my!! Please ignore all these blue words and search links. Blogger has come up with something new: inserting search links. Apparently, my pinkie finger keeps hitting the pencil thingie while I'm typing and all these links are appearing. It seems that I can't cancel them unless I notice them immediately. How ridiculous! Okay. Carry on. Here's the real beginning of my blog post... 

Whaat? I haven't posted anything here since the beginning of August. What's more is that I haven't done much sewing either. We did have many spots of joy this past fall--two vacations (one on Lake Huron and one on Lake Michigan), train trips to watch our grandkids' volleyball, and choir and band concerts, bike rides and hikes, a birthday shopping trip with one of our grands and then holiday fun. Those activities were just spread out enough that I didn't feel like starting new quilt projects in between.  And, to be honest, there were times when I just didn't have the motivation to create. I did more reading than usual--some to educate myself, but often for escape to try to distract from numerous discouraging and maddening events in the news. And--confession here--a little too much doomscrolling.

But I did make a few things and I want to make sure to record them here before the year ends. 

First up, three more placemats from the scrap bins. I made these at the end of August and beginning of September and brought them on vacation to stitch the binding on. No photos on location, but here are some I just took on the guest bed. They will be donated to Meals on Wheels in the spring. 

Closer looks:

This one has some favorite old floral prints along with green prints collected over many years. The back is strips of the same fabrics.

Such a quick way to use up scraps and make a two-sided placemat.

I had a bunch of pieces of blue, both modern and very old. This time I made a striped front. (I was really in a hurry because I wanted a take-along binding project and this was just a few days before vacation.)

The back was one of the final scraps of a quilt I made for a niece and her husband more than 24 years ago. Another way to speed up this little project.

The third quilt--maybe I made this one first before my need for hurry set in--was from leftover bits of a quilt I made for donation a few years ago.

And another quick backing.

Lighting is a bit dark here. I squiggle quilted all three placemats (because hurry, hurry). For this one, I used variegated rainbow thread. During the evenings on vacation I stitched the bindings down by hand. Each placemat is approximately 14 by 18 inches.

During November, I always make Christmas ornaments for my Grands based on their Halloween costumes. I have been doing this since my oldest was not quite 1 year old (She's 14 now), so it's definitely a tradition. I've made them in various ways, (tiny quilts, modeling clay, cross stitch) but my favorite is with felt, as I did this year. This year's batch is a penguin, Benny the Bull mascot, and Jack Skellington and the Pumpkin King from Nightmare Before Christmas. I used online coloring pages to help me make my patterns. Not quilting, but a fun sewing project. Unfortunately, the bottom two ornaments haven't been delivered yet because their owners had the flu and missed our get-together. Hopefully we'll see them soon. (I am confident that they don't read my blog so I'm not spoiling the surprise.)

 

A few weeks before Christmas, I heard that a nearby quilt/gift store was collecting handmade stockings to fill with PJs for foster children. They published a simple pattern online. With a quick browse of my fabric bins, I found a few pieces that would work to make three stockings, some with some extra piecing to make them fit, but it was easy sewing done in an afternoon. 

Here they are from one side

And here, showing the different other side of one of them.

They aren't quilted, but are from quilting fabric, so that also counts as a project, right?

Finally, I made a last minute project--a head rest cover and two arm rest covers to protect my husband's new dark green recliner delivered just before Christmas. We found the perfect twill fabric at a new-to-me sewing store. I quilted three rectangles onto batting pieces and then lined them with fabric from my stash. and shaped two of the rectangles with buttons to go around the arm rests. 

I was thrilled to find the fabric I was hoping for. The store is delightful--a small collection of quilting, garment and decorator fabric. A good upscale replacement for some of the things I used to buy at a certain big box store. The store apparently specializes in sewing lessons, which thrills me, as it is the greatest hobby that everyone needs to learn, amIright? And Gramma hobbies are going to save our sanity.

Speaking of which, my granddaughter asked her parents for a sewing machine for Christmas this year. Yay!! She took it with when visiting here and together we learned how to use it. She wanted to applique some flowers on a hoodie, so we did that too, all in an afternoon and a morning. I had to learn a lot right along with her. I had only minimal experience with fusible web and had never used a zigzag stitch. She caught on quickly to everything. We looked up manuals online and watched a lot of videos to learn about threading the machine and using it. She finished the whole project while she was here. L is an entirely different kind of maker than I am. I'm a planner, she's a free spirit. I followed her lead, and it was so much fun to watch her. 

Sewing with L was so much fun, it might just be the motivation I need to get back to quilt making again. Winter is a good time for that.

I was going to include some photos from our vacations (pretty scenery and barn quilts) but this is getting long, and I still need to do one more post of my end of the year wrap-up. So, I'll just leave you with this photo of Darryl the squirrel checking out our fake wreath (they are not impressed). Maybe I'll post the other photos in some future posts.

So with that let's say goodbye to 2025. Here's a little dumpster sketch I drew on my grocery list this morning to help us do that. May 2026 be a better year in every way. Keep hopeful, keep quilting.

I'll link up on Sunday with Cynthia at Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap.

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