Today is Linky Tuesday over at Freemotion by the River so be sure to hop on over there and check out the different blogs that are linking up today.

I have a couple of finishes this week.  On Sunday morning I finished THE bag by finishing off the carry strap and adding the zipper pulls, there were 6 of those.  I also gifted it to my daughter-in-law and she loved it, as you can tell by the picture below.  If we hadn't sat down to eat I think she might have held on to it all day. 

Another finish was the December clue for the Midnight Mystery quilt by Cheryl over at Meadow Mist Designs.  I had finished one of the blocks earlier, but yesterday I finished the rest of them and they sure are pretty, even if I say so myself.  Here is what they look like all laid out in a row with the two half squares on each side.  I'm looking forward to seeing what January will bring.  I don't press them until I work on the next clue as they are big and we live in that small 5th wheel so they get put over the back of my chair.

I have also been doing a little embroidery in the evenings learning different stitches.  The one I did last night looks simple, but trust me, it wasn't.  It was the cable chain stitch and it is the long line of stitches on the far right, many are uneven.  I think tonight I'm going to work on the Feather Stitch.  I tried it last week and it just didn't come together very well.  I have joined up with pintangle.com in learning these stitches.  The step-by-step instructions are very clear with lots of pictures.

I had a text from my daughter on Sunday requesting I make two cross-stitched Christmas stockings, one for my granddaughter and another for my future granddaughter-in-law.  First I rushed down to the craft room at our clubhouse here at the park and went through many cross-stitch magazines and books and not a Christmas stocking pattern to be found so home I came an did the online thing and finally ordered a booklet from Amazon with 4 patterns.  The wildlife one I'll make for my granddaughter it is in the upper left hand corner that you can barely see.  It has a bear, moose, eagle, wolf, and deer on it.  Still not sure what to make for the other one, but I'm sure I'll find the perfect pattern.  The booklet will be here tomorrow and then I'll see about ordering a nice linen and whatever floss I don't have.  Oh, by the way, these will be made for Christmas 2016.  No one could possibly get them done by this Christmas, not even superwoman.

 

Here is a very blurry picture of the ones I made many years ago.  The one on the right was done in 1989 for my daughter and the one on the left for my grandson done sometime after 1991, probably 1992.

Today, I plan on digging out my Grand Illusion quilt and see if the fabric I bought for the backing will be enough.  If not, I'll need to do some piecing.  I'm hoping to take it to my quilt guild on Thursday and get it pin basted.  Maybe I'll get it quilted before we head out on our travel adventure.  Here is a picture of the top that I took in April before we left for Idaho.  Yes, it has been sitting around for a bit and it's time I tackle it.  I would like to do some custom quilting on it, but the more I think about it, it wouldn't show up with such a busy pattern.  Any ideas of how I should quilt it would be very welcome as I'm new at this and don't have a clue.

I had ordered the paper templates for the New Hexagon Stitch Along that I have been working on so it is on hold until they arrive.  I was using up too much printer ink printing them out so I ordered them on Massdrop and they should be here before Christmas.

That's about it for now, happy quilting.