Linking up with Slow Sunday Stitching.  It has been a slow stitching week as I think I've spent more time at Walmart than I have stitching.

Tuesday I had my first cataract surgery on my left eye and all is going well with that.  I saw the surgeon the next day and he advised me that when I see him again this Wednesday that if everything looks good he'll be able to schedule the surgery for my right eye.  Say a prayer that happens as we are still hoping to start our travels as soon as we can. 

Now for the fun part of my week.  I finished stitching the "Christmas Lamb" by Wooden Spool Designs and he was so much fun to stitch.  Don't you just love the pretty necklace and all his wooly (French knots) coat.

The next block is "Christmas Delivery" by Geoff's Mom Pattern Co.  All those little ornaments will be fun to stitch.  I'm hoping to get busy of this sometime this week.

Under my needle is my grandson's quilt called Scrappy Mountain Majesties by Bonnie Hunter and a free pattern on her website.  You can find all those patterns here.  Yes I'm finally getting around to quilting it.  Thursday I went to guild, put some tables together and was able to get it pin basted.  I didn't go with the hand basting as I haven't done that before and wanted to get this quilt finished and in the mail and trying a new process would take longer, at least for me.  I'm old and slow.  I'm quilting it by using my walking foot and a decorative stitch on my sewing machine.  It is a process that I learned from a Craftsy class by Jacquie Gerring entitled Creative Quilting with your Walking Foot.  She teaches may different ways to use your quilting foot; even several curve patterns and all with minimal marking.  A great class for sure.  If you are interested you can find her class here.  Right now it is on sale for $29.99, regularly $44.99.  It is well worth the money if you do your own quilting on a domestic machine.  I have taken many Craftsy classes and they are all excellent online classes. 

I've also just about finished my first fabric postcard that is going to a friend in Florida.  I'll post a picture of it once she receives it.  I am pleased with how it has turned out so you'll just have to check back to get a look at it.

I also finished up the November clue on my Midnight Mystery Quilt.  There was a oops in my piecing so my seam ripper and I had some fun together ripping out seams.  Nothing drastic, but a bit time consuming.

Bottom one is WRONG

 



All Fixed

I didn't get any EPP work done this week as I'm trying to get some of these other projects completed.

What's on the horizon for me:

• The Carry On! Travel Bag that is a Christmas gift
• The sewing machine cover that I posted a picture of here
• Rosette No. 3 of The New Hexagon Millefiore Quilt Along

In preparation for our travels, I have been looking at different small clear tubs to put my fabric in that will be stored under our bed in the little 5th wheel.  Right now my material is stored in a very large tub which is under my sewing table and two smaller tubs on the shelf in my closet.  None of those will fit under the bed.  I've also been looking at getting a smaller machine that will basically just do straight stitching.  My ideal choice would be a Singer Featherweight, but haven't found one locally.  Of course I just started going to swap meets, yard sales, and the local pawn shop.  Mostly just Brother machines so far, but I'll keep looking before resorting to eBay or Craig's List.

Happy stitching.

I'm linking up with Slow Sunday Stitching over at Kathy's Quilts so be sure to check out all the wonderful links. 

We went to an RV rally in Amargosa, Nevada which is only about 50 miles from where we live.  It was the first rally we have attended as the ones held where we used to live were always during the summer and we worked during the summer.  It was a lot of fun and we'll definitely be signing up to attend more.  We got there on Tuesday and came home on Saturday.  One of the fun parts was the raffles, door prizes, auction, and the 50/50 drawing.  Surprise of all surprises, I won the 50/50 which was $63.00.  WooHoo, more money for fabric; like I need more fabric.  We also obtained a couple things from the auction, a really nice set of knives from Stanley, and a couple RV things Miles wanted for our RV.  Okay, enough about non-quilty things.  While at the rally we did go over to the China Ranch Date Farm and got all kinds of date goodies:  date nut bread, date nut muffin, a date chocolate chip cookie, date and almond treats, and a date shake.  Yummy.

I didn't get a lot of stitching done, but one thing I did was fix Rosette 9 so it didn't look like the little guy from "Ice Age".  Here is the new Rosette 9.

Before

After

I did make two foundation paper pieced blocks for my quilt guild.  I really like the red, yellow and black one, but not so much the flower basket one although the lady at the guild in charge of this project loved it, which is a good thing.

I had been to the library recently and gotten 3 quilting books.  Our library does have to many quilting books and the ones they do have are pretty old.  One I read was "Prairie Children and Their Quilts" which is very good and I highly recommend it for those of you who enjoy a little history thrown in with the quilt patterns.  There are several pictures taken out on the American frontier with stories of life on the prairie, which as we know was not easy in the 1800's.  You can still get this book from here. The book is pricey so you might see if your local library has it.  The Kindle addition is a lot less at $9.99. 

Another book that I'm still reading and will probably buy is "Easy Machine Quilting 12 Step-By-Step Lessons From the Pros, Plus a Dozen Projects to Machine Quilt.  This book is amazing, but can only be purchased used on Amazon for very low prices.  The shipping is more than the book in a lot of the cases.  You can purchase it by going here. 

 

I also recently discovered Massdrop and purchased several items from them.  If you haven't every used them be sure to check them out.  Here are some pictures of the goodies I've purchased.  You join and then you can designate what group or groups you would like to be in.  Yep, I'm in the quilting enthusiast group and get periodic emails of the purchase options.  You can opt to purchase when it reaches the lowest price.

I have done about half the stitching on my lamb block for the Christmas Mystery Quilt Blog Hop and hope to get that finished up this afternoon. 

I also visited my local quilt shop last Monday and purchased the rest of the items I need to make the travel bag and read through the cutting instructions last night.  I'll probably go over to the clubhouse tomorrow and do the cutting as they have a really large cutting mat in the craft room which would expedite my cutting.

I'm on Instgram as jennifer433 and joined in a couple of swaps.  One was a fat quarter swap that I did with two other people and I've received my goodies from one and will pick up the other from the post office on Monday as it arrived while we were at the rally.  Another one was a charm swap.  You bought or had in your stash a yard of modern low volume fabric and cut it into 56 charms and set off to the creator of the swap who will sort them and send out to all those participating.  You get 56 different charms of modern low fabric which I really needed.  So, it has been an early Christmas for me this past week.  The next swap is a fabric postcard swap, but I can't post a picture of what I'm doing as my swap partner reads my blog.  I'll post a picture of it after she receives it.  It is the first time I've attempted to do one and I'm hoping it comes out okay.

I do have cataract surgery coming up this Tuesday which I'm not looking forward to, but the news is I will be able to see clearly again which will probably make a big difference in my quilting.  They'll be doing my left eye first and then about a month down the road they'll do the right eye.  My left was much worse than the right. 

Happy quilting.

I'm planning on linking up to WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.  Many thanks Lee.

It has been a busy week.  Last Thursday I attended the Shadow Mountain Quilters guild and it was fantastic so, of course, I joined and ordered my name badge, signed up for a class to make a "Carry On! Travel Bag".  They put on a quilt show in February, but if all goes as planned we'll be headed for Florida or already there.  One of the ladies I met gave me a 20% off coupon for The Christmas Goose which I had planned on visiting while in the Las Vegas area. 



Making this on November 12

 

Thursday afternoon we headed down to Henderson where my stepson and his wife live which is always a fun time.  Unfortunately, my daughter-in-law was having kidney stone issues so she wasn't able to do all the fun things we had planned.  My husband was kind enough to take to over to The Christmas Goose Quilt Shop where I was able to purchase some wool scrap packs, a small bundle of wool, and some remnants that I needed to make my November banner.  After a quick lunch at Dairy Queen we went over to Jo-Ann's and I found the fabric for the travel bag and a lot of other things.  Everything I purchased was on sale, plus an additional 20% off with a coupon.  That's always fun to save and then save on top of it.

On the road to Henderson (Las Vegas)

 

Goodies from The Christmas Goose

Fat quarters ended up being $.79 at Jo-Ann's with the sale and coupon.

 

While in Henderson, I finished Rosette 9.  I may be changing the white out as it totally reminds me of the character in the Ice Age movies with the big eyes and that is all I can think about when I look at it.

 



I've been listening to a lot of quilting podcasts which are GREAT!!!  Do any of you listen to podcasts while you are sewing?  If so, which ones do you listen to?

I'm also on Pinterest as jennifer433 so be sure to follow me if you are on there too.

We came home Monday morning so the hubster could watch the Denver Bronco game with his son.  We enjoyed that as Denver is now 7-0.  On the way home the dentist's office called and they had a cancellation for the deep cleaning I needed so off I went to the hygientist.  He was able to do 3 quadrants and I have another appointment on 12/4 for the other quadrant.  That should be the final appointment for a while.

Yesterday I cut all the rectangles I needed to add a border to the back of my grandson's quilt and got them sewn together and added to the backing.  Today I'm hoping to get the back and top ironed and laid out on the bed in the little 5th wheel so I can see about getting it basted.

This morning I cut out all the pieces for the next block in the Christmas Mystery Quilt Bog Hop.  I love this one.  It is by Wooden Spool Designs.  I'm be stitching on this today or tomorrow.  While ordering the block I found the perfect pattern for my November banner and ordered it too.  I pulled the majority of the fabric from my stash which is always a good thing.  The pattern is for wool, but because the banner will be outside I'm just using cotton for it.

Block for the Christmas Mystery Quilt Bog Hop

 

Banner for November

The reindeer block is probably finished.  It is supposed to have a string of lights (not real ones) entwined in the antlers, but I really like it the way it is now so I'm going to let it sit around and I'll decided in a few days if I want to add the lights or not. 

I've discovered Mass Drop and have ordered a few things from them.  I'll post pictures of those goodies when I receive them.

We had rain early this morning, but the sun is out now which is always a good thing when you have a dog that needs to be walked.  It was 45 degrees when I got up and I think the high is only supposed to be in the 50s.  I think fall has finally arrived in Nevada.  Oh, I heard there are some freeze warnings out too.

Hope everyone has a fun and quilty week.