Mystery Monday Link Up and Design Wall Monday

What do you do after Christmas?

I sew. And sew and sew.

Did you know neutrals are my favorite color? 

How fun to spot my picture as part of Bonnie's collage!!

First I needed to finished clue #5 for Good Fortune.

I really like making this block.

I can't wait to see where it lives in this quilt.

I learned something while removing pages from my phone book.

I didn't knew there was a reverse directory in it. 

I had to look for my own phone number.

Bonnie suggests only working on 2 pages at a time.

I wanted to try 3 just for the heck of it.

It blew up in my face pretty fast.

2 pages sewn together meant the tape and the scalpel seam ripper came out.

That blade wouldn't cut melted butter so it had to be changed.

I love the removable Scotch tape for paper repair.

It doesn't get sticky and gunky when it's ironed.

Of course I don't apply the iron to the tape, 

only to the fabric.  

Like everyone else that is working on Good Fortune,

I cannot wait for the next clue. 

Next up this week will be cutting into some of these lovely sweater knits. 

I figure if I cut it out, it will get sewn up faster.

Pieces have been matched to the patterns.

Crossing my fingers for a new top or 2 this week. 

See what others are working on at 

Quiltville's Mystery Monday Link Up 

and

Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilt.

Mystery Monday Link Up & Design Wall Monday

Quiltville Mystery Good Fortune Step 5 

How fun to mix up all the colors!

I love pulling neutrals out of the bin.

I had fun cutting from the orange yardage.

I strip from each piece. 

I'm sure I won't be using all of this.

I am so glad I made sample blocks first.

I used my piecing machine to sew a couple gifts 

and that means taking off the seam guide, 

so when I put it back on, I had it so wrong.

I even questioned myself when I did it.

But it's all fixed now and these blocks are fun!

I finished my string blocks Thursday.

They were so much fun that I made about 20 extra,

I knew part 5 wouldn't happen for me until after Christmas.

I'm excited to check out the link ups this week.

Quiltville Mystery Monday Link Up 

and 

Small Quilts and Doll Quilts Design Wall Monday

Merry Christmas

Mystery Monday Link-Up and Design Wall Monday

No sewing has happened in my house since Tuesday and 

I am not happy about that! 

I plan to make up for it in the next couple of days.

I spent the weekend at my daughter's house with her kiddos.

I asked if I could go stash diving for oranges and yes I could.

My darling daughter needs to up her orange game.

But thank you for a few more orange fabrics.

This is a horrible fluorescent light picture of my orange yardage, 

but how about that texture!

I still need to get out my orange scraps, strings and strips for even more oranges.

I'm pretty excited about this clue. 

But first I will get these finished.

This is where I left off on Tuesday.

I can't wait to fill up this bin.

I'm linking up at

Quiltville Mystery Monday Link Up 

and 

Small Quilts and Doll Quilts Design Wall Monday

Have a great week!

Mystery Monday Link-Up and Design Wall Monday

Good Fortune Clue 3

I have all of my squares marked with 2 lines each.

Frixion pen and Bonnie's Bonus Buddy ruler are an awesome team.

Again, I go to my Scrap Users system for my strips and squares.

I will always be thankful for the strip swaps that I have with my friends.

I spent Sunday afternoon on the couch in front of the tv.

Netflix had the new movie Dumplin' 

and I settled in to watch it.

I've read the book so the movie was a bit more sweet. 

I love my zebra lap desk but had to be careful to line my corners on the black 

so I could see where they were.

No greens were cut on Sunday so and

they may not be cut until Monday evening.

Monday is shopping with hubby day. 

Check out all the fabulous mystery progress and design walls by visiting

Quiltville Monday Mystery Link Up

and 

Small Quilts and Doll Quilts Design Wall Monday

Design Wall Monday and Mystery Monday Link Up...

...All Rolled Into One.

It's that time of year again.

Quiltville Mystery Time. 

Oh how I love a Quiltville Mystery.

For me it's all about trust.

I trust that Bonnie has designed another fabulous quilt in Good Fortune

 andI am not hesitant at all to jump in with both feet.

No hesitation on my part at all.

I love the colors she chose for this year.

I love that there will be lots of orange.

I love that I have lots of fabric in my stash for this quilt.

I love that I could add some new fabrics to my stash and into this quilt.

I'm excited to be almost finished with Clue 1.

Just a bit more spinning and pressing.

Then I will spend the rest of the week working on another project while

I patiently wait for Friday.

I have been a Bonnie fan since right after she started Quiltville.

One day she shared her Scrap Users System and I had to follow.

So when clue 1 said to use strips of red and neutral,

I went right to my bins and pulled out my red and neutral strips.

My strip bins are full from years and years of strip swaps.

For years at our retreats we swapped neutral 2 1/2" strips along with some colors.

Then we added different sizes into the mix.

Thanks to my friends, I have a wonderful collection of strips in all usable sizes.

Pretty soon there was a small mountain of strips sewed together.

Oh the fun I was having!!

Then I couldn't stand it any more, 

I had to cut some strips into units and make 4 patches.

Then I had to count to 10, spin those seams, press and pin.

Pretty soon, I'm left with just a few piles of 10 that need to be spun, pressed and pinned.

I will be working on this baby quilt later today.

It's always good to have a fun project to work on while I wait.

Fill you cup and enjoy your morning in Blogland.

I just betcha there will be lots and lots of 4 patches. 

Small Quilts and Doll Quilts Design Wall Monday.

Mystery Monday Link Up at Quiltville.

Design Wall Monday

What a fun, full week I've had! 

My plan was to quilt and quilt I did.

Tuesday was a good day to channel my friend Julie and get some basting done.

I set up my basting tables and basted 4 quilts,

2 baby quilts, 1 twin and 1 queen.

I had one already basted and on the machine with the quilting started.

When Ernie is away hunting for the day,

I take advantage of no interruptions.

This is the Calendar Wall Hanging that was 1st up.

I can't show it to you until I share it with the gals at Christmas Club.

I'm so happy to have it finished finally and can't wait to hang it.

Next up is baby quilt 1.

I don't know who designed this block. 

I've searched and searched but have no idea.

It was fun to sit down at EQ7 and figure it out.

Baby quilt #2

These will both go to a local charity.

I loved digging in my strip bins and using up strips from our swaps.

It was also fun deciding on backs for these.

I wanted fun and bright (and fabric out of my stash!).

My next retreat is next weekend.

I had already planned to work on Virginia Bound from

Bonnie Hunter's book Scraps & Shirttales.

My string bins are overflowing and I've wanted to make this one for a very long time.

Friday I decided to cook up my last Blue Moon pumpkin

and get the puree in the freezer.

My friend Pam gave me 3 of these,

I gave 1 to Crystal.

I saved the seeds from my 2 to share.

She saved her seeds too.

We are going to have plenty of pumpkins next year.

Isn't it pretty.

I don't think mine is going to last very long.

Hubs has decided he really really likes pumpkin bars.

We celebrated this weekend with Leland.

He's in the blonde in the middle.

Happy 9th birthday Big Guy! 💗

My plan for this week is to take a short break from quilting.

I'm going to make some doll clothes for some special girls

 and a couple sweaters for myself.

Then it's back to quilting.

This is the next quilt to be quilted.

Have you watched Angela Walters' on You Tube?

She has a series on Dot To Dot quilting.

That's what I'm going to do on this one. 

Or we can say that's my plan. 😉

Check out other design walls around Blogland at

Small Quilts and Doll Quilts Design Wall Monday.

Design Wall Monday

No quilting happened this week.

Fabric was touched, sorted, cut and kitted.

I did sew up a new shirt so the serger and coverstitch machine were used, 

but the sewing machine remained off all week.

I'll try to remedy that this week.

I took 2 bins of fabric and rulers with me to the beach.

I used my Easy Center Square and Essential Triangle Tool to cut my square in a square parts.

These will be used for a border on a UFO.

(There is enough cut to border 2 quilts! 

Why stop when you are on a roll.)

Easy Peasy with the right tools!

Bonnie has an awesome tutorial here if you don't have the ruler.

(Quiltville is my first go to for tutorials.)

I was one of the lucky ones and was able to grab the Easy Center Square ruler 

when Bonnie was selling them.

I also used lots of 2" strips to cut a small quilt.

All the parts almost fit into a quart zip bag.

These are my leftovers.

They will go into my Scrap User's System and the garbage.

Garbage on the left, Wild & Goosey parts, 2" squares and strings and strips.

I love taking fabric to the bus and coming home with projects all kitted up.

The only sewing I did at home this week was on the Mischief Quilt.

I have all the rows clipped together.

It's one row at a time,

trying to stay organized and in order. 

This picture is all the blocks for the first row.

There is a safety pin it the top left corner of block one.

The unsewn blocks stay clipped together with a binder clip, 

the next block is taken off the stack and sewn to the right hand side.

I try to stay organized, really I do. 😉

Check out the design walls shared today at

Small Quilts and Doll Quilts Design Wall Monday.

Design Wall Monday

Last week we went to the beach for a few days.

One afternoon we went for a drive along the ocean.

In Washington, you can drive on the beach.

It was super windy and rainy but that's fine with us.

Because we were only there for a couple of days,

I just took a cutting project to work on besides my knitting. 

I needed to cut more half square triangles for my newest leader/ender project.

Last year, Lisa Bongean shared Triangle Gatherings.

I printed off most of the patterns and I'm glad I did.

They are no longer available on line as she is publishing them in a soon to be released book. 

I love using my Marti Michell template for cutting my HSTs.

I just snip off that dog ear as I'm cutting them out.

I took pictures with my phone of a couple of my completed blocks 

but for some reason unknown to me, my phone and blog aren't syncing up. 

I'll have my tech guru work on that for me.

Why did I choose this for my new leader/ender? 

Because a few weeks after Jamestown Landing was finished,

I found a bin with oodles of blue and neutral HSTs that I had forgotten about.

And I am in Use It Up Mode!

Since each block uses 16 HSTs, 

and I have lots of blue and neutral strips from swaps,

this was the perfect project.

I already have my quilt designed, 

using these blocks with cool connector blocks.

Speaking of connector blocks,

 I decided to pull out my Garden Party #2 connector blocks.

These poor things have been shoved away since last September.

Since we are headed back to the beach this coming weekend,

I will take these and my new l/e with me to work on.

I love sewing at the beach in the evenings while we watch a movie or 2. 

Or all day long if the weather is nasty!

Check out all the quilty goodness today at 

Small Quilts and Doll Quilts Design Wall Monday.

WhooHoo, I figured it out all by myself!  

I lay the blocks out on my little design board.

Then sew them into quarters, 

then in half, then the whole block.

When it's finished,

it goes into the page protector in the notebook.

I think I have blocks 9, 10 and 11 layed out ready to stitch.

But I might hold off until I have more variety with the HSTs.

Quiltville Mystery Tuesday Link Up

I'm just getting started on part 5 of On Ringo Lake.

All clues for this mystery are available for a limited time at Quiltville.

This clue was released Friday but I was deep in to Christmas happenings

and playing with some quilting.

I knew I'd have the rest of this week to get my parts sewn.

I pulled out the appropriate size neutral strips 

(most received from our strip swaps)

to use with my Go Cutter.

Then I cut into my blacks for the geese

and got to crankin' and cuttin'.

All the pieces are ready to sew. 

Machine was given a once over with the dust brush and the oil bottle.

A few bobbins were wound and a new needle inserted.

I've got Alias Grace on Netflix ready to push play.

Check out all the progress at today's 

Mystery Tuesday Link Up-Part 5 at Quiltville

and see the fun my friend Mary is having at her sew in. 

Hey Mary. 🙋 

Design Wall Monday and Mystery Monday Link Up

I am loving each step of On Ringo Lake, the current Quiltville mystery.

(Link found at the top of her page.)

I never count when I start cutting pieces.

I'm a guesser.

I always guess wrong. 

Usually I start way under and then go way over.

I love having the extras in another project or pieces for the back.

 I want to cut into these piles today.

And the pile of neutrals that are waiting their turn.

Christmas shopping is top priority today.

I have my driver and shopping companion. I am ready with my list.

We'll have a great time and a late lunch out, 

be home in plenty of time for him to go to his meeting.

I will cut and sew and press until he comes home.

 I press and clip into 10s.

I am having so much fun visiting old fabrics,

using up the last of the chunks that I haven't yet cut for my Scrap Users System.

(Have you ever read the Scrap UsersTestimonials?-Mine is there. 😃 )

So many fabrics pulled from my blue and neutral strip bins.

So many fabrics acquired through swaps with friends.

Today is link up day and my favorite day in Blogland.

Quiltville's Monday Mystery Link Up Part 3

and

Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts

Have a great week everyone!!!

Monday in Blogland

Design Wall Monday and Quiltville Mystery Monday on the same day! How great is that!!!

I wait all year long for Quiltville Mystery/Black Friday.

Clue 1 is released and I sew and sew and sew.

Expect this year.

This year I had the flu so I watched from the sidelines.

But I pulled out my bin of 2" strips and knew I would be OK.

My friend Trina and I have been swapping 2" strips for quite a while

so I have some really fun strips and lots of variety.

We never know when the other one will hand over a little bag of new strips.

Saturday I sewed strips together.

I cut my long strips in to smaller pieces for variety.

I sewed and sewed and sewed.

(That's a nod to a special little girl as she talks about her Auntie 

who is very busy as she sews and sews and sews.)

After many breaks, I ended the day with 60 fun four patches.

Sunday was more productive with more four patch fun..

I now only have a few more to press and I can call step 1 complete.

En Provence is off to a great start!

All information for this mystery is available at the top of the 

Quiltville blog page in it's on tab section..

It's a fun link up day today.

Judy L's Patchwork Times Design Wall Monday

and 

Bonnie's Quiltville Mystery Link Monday Link Up.

Bring on the coffee...I've got some reading to do this morning.