Christmas and the Celtic Solstice Mystery......

The paper piecing project...

Tractor joe calls our niece Amanda Panda. So, just days before Christmas, I was paper piecing. As I worked on it, I was absolutely sure I would NEVER do it again.

It is confusing.

And messy. But I kept going. 

Here is the finished mug rug. I think it is about 8 by 10 inches.

(the free pattern is here)

It is supposed to be a 6 inch block, but when I printed it....

it was more like 8 inches square. This was okay, some of the sections are so small!

Amanda loved her panda, and as the pain of this subsides....

I may even make another one someday.

The Money Tree....

I wanted a tree to dispense dollar bills that I had taped together into a roll. Only I had no idea how to make one. I opened up a box of never used Christmas decorations...

Found an angel to use instead.

This was for a 20 something nephew. He had the biggest frown of confusion as he followed the directions on his gift.

Just in case he only lifted the tag, I wrote "the dress, not the tag"

I cut a slit in the tube so the rolled money would pull out. He pulled about 10 bills out right away. I told him that I should have added "as needed"  so he re-rolled them and put them back in place.

I think he liked it. 

The mystery continues....

(intro to the Mystery quilt)

We are at step 5 with Bonnie's mystery. I am still sewing that step together.

I had a few done, so I played with all the sections.

This could go in a lot of different directions. I'll just wait for the reveal now.

And hopefully finish up Step 5 today.

tea towels.....

Sophie is having a tea towel challenge.

(click here for link to tea towel challenge 2014)

When it first came up, I wasn't sure....All I could picture were the tea towels with calendars on them. I had NO idea there were tea towels that didn't have calendars.

I found one online that I really loved. It was $20.00. 

Wow...... did I want to spend that much?

For a towel???

Then I found these retro looking ones. 

They came as a 4-pack. I thought they were adorable.

(and cheaper)

I could use one and give the rest to my middle son for Christmas. He needs kitchen towels and loves to fish. But when they arrived they were in a fabric envelope. I cut that apart....

I plan on making some mug rugs from it. He will also get all four towels.

It will be nice practice for the real towel.

The challenge towel,

the one I really love....

After thinking and thinking, 

I ordered it.

The Iowa tea towel. 

I thought about using old embroidery and cutting it up,

I have thought about using selvage edges,

But now I don't know. I have time to mull it over, not a lot, but some time yet.

bags and the mystery quilt......

Last weekend I painted on canvas. I put a white wash over this yet. It needed to be a little softer I thought. Then I cut it up into three sections......

This was the first finished bag. I have one more that needs handles yet. 

And one more piece of canvas that can be sewn into a bag.

Also last weekend I started the Bonnie Hunter Mystery.

click here for INTRO PAGE and links to steps so far

My colors are different. Using red instead of blue. Using yellow instead of orange.

The backgrounds are all whites to creams.

Step Two...the green is blue and the yellow is orange in mine.

I have no idea if these colors will end up working. Time will tell.

I'm in the middle of these chevrons. Hope I get them done today.

bindings finally done.....

It is cold and windy, so outdoor pictures were done quickly. 

Under the roof (out of the wind) out back. Tractor joe agreed to hold them all up one at a time. Now I wish he had put on better shoes. You can see that his slippers have a hole.

New slippers are on his Christmas list. His sister will get this quilt.

I have been calling this one mini-me. It is made with left over Block Lotto blocks. I wanted it a little bigger so I made some blocks, but didn't use plaids. It is for my cousins grandson. It is just like the one I made her last winter.(a picture of hers is here)

Last, but not least, is the scrappy trip. It is a wedding present for a nephew that was married last summer. We thought we were in a group gift. Then AFTER the wedding we found out there was NO GROUP gift. We were on our own. Last winter I thought about making them one, but never got it done. So, they end up getting a quilt after all. 

This is the third scrappy trip I have made. I love this pattern by Bonnie Hunter!

I am so thankful that the bindings are done! My least favorite thing to do!

birds....

I have been going back and forth on projects. With a day off from work, it was time to sew bird blocks together and make a center. Right now it is 42 x 54.

Both the birds and big hearts are block lotto patterns.

(low volume hearts, click here)

and

(for the bird directions click here)

No, I didn't win these. I had made my blocks for the drawing, and then kept on sewing more birds because I loved them. I will put a narrow black border on this and them some blue and red nine patches will go in the border. 

The little red hearts are basically 4 patches with the four corner triangles added. 

One more cup of coffee and then I will think about what to work on today.

my cousin's scout quilt......

My cousin Gwen started a quilt this past summer. Actually TWO quilts. One for her son and one for his friend. Her idea was to use all these boy scout words.

She went out and bought Tonya's Word Play book and studied that.

She quizzed me about making letters. 

And then she started cutting and sewing.

She didn't stop until she had all these words!

She flew in from New Mexico for the weekend and brought all the words for one of the quilts.

We laid it out on the motel room floor. So the lighting isn't very good. It is actually brighter in real life. The background is whiter and the words are red, blue, brown and black.

Gwen is at the filler stage. 

Her husband wants her to make some fluer-de-lis emblems.

She thought pine trees in the gaps.

I thought stars, so she has a few of those from me.

We thought maybe a few American flags here and there.

She would like to add gold/yellow but isn't sure how. My mom says yellow stars mean a fallen soldier. So she threw that idea out. 

I just had a thought....what if the background of the stars were the gold and not the stars themselves. 

What else? What are we not thinking of?

Austin, Minnesota, home of Hormel and Spam....

Last weekend, Karen's baby was married up in Austin, MN. It was also the weekend for the Quilt Show here in town. Karen left me three of her quilts. I took a picture of them before taking them over to the show. We missed the show on Saturday, but I did help set it up Friday night. The lighting in the gym is awful, so I have no pictures. 

The reception was at the Hormel Historic Home. We were in the banquet hall behind the house, but the house was open for us to go roam around. Beautiful old wood work.

I love Spam, so that is what I had for breakfast Sunday morning...

Scrambled eggs and Spam. We talked about going to the Spam Museum.

But only stopped long enough to find a geocache and take a picture. 

I want to go back, it looks like a fun place to visit!!!

There is a cache at the rest stop on I-90 headed west. We stopped and I went walking in the woods. There was no clear path, just heading in the right direction with the GPS. Bushwhacking through bushes and fallen trees. I went alone, tractor joe stood on the edge and waited for me to come back out.

Cache found, we got back in the car to continue our ride home.

It was cold and rainy outside. The windows were all up and the heat was on. It took about 15 seconds for tractor joe to accuse ME of stepping in dog poo.

Right about then, I started to smell it. It was a horrible, gagging smell.

I needed to roll down the window for fresh air.

Even COLD fresh air was welcome at that point.

AND....it wasn't me! He had stepped in it himself. If he had gone into the woods with me, this might not have happened. We pulled off at the next exit and he did some major scraping. The rest of the ride home was much more pleasant.

I made 16 more of these string blocks. I have no idea how I will use them. I added them to the stack.