Two UFOs done!

 

Good morning!  It's actually warmish here by Vermont standards, in the 20s.  Apparently, we're going to have a little snow later.  I'm heading to the quilt shop to drop off another quilt to be long armed and to pick up one that's ready for trimming and binding.  Marie is a speed demon.  Sometimes I wish it took her longer, but I know she thinks hard about what she's going to do with a particular quilt and can't stand to wait before working on it.  

I did quilt this sampler myself, though, with my walking foot, and am pleased with the result.  The pattern is called "Optimism" by Aby Dolinger who ran a block of the month during 2025.  I only made 12 of the 16 blocks and then used cut offs from the blocks for the two borders.  

I love the red binding, and the back is soft, pieced cotton.  I'll be giving it to a neighbor who is moving to a nursing home as soon as bed is available.  She is younger than me, so it's a real tragedy.  Paul and her husband go out to lunch frequently as a sort of respite.  

And here is what I'm calling the "Orange and Black Sampler," which includes blocks of the month from my local guild.  I made blocks in the color prescribed for the lottery each month last year and then another for myself in the orange/black color way.  I used the polka dotted fabric for the back and added a solid(ish) black binding.  Quilter Marie was impressed by the border, which was just made of 4" blocks divided by a solid 1" strip.

I still have a lot of the polka dotted fabric (which shows up as gray) left for future backs as I bought almost a full bolt from a friend who was closing her shop.  I think I paid $8 for the bolt!  I am planning to make another quilt this year using a black background and bright colors, so I have already decided what to use for the back!

Both pictures were taken at the guild meeting Tuesday night.  In winter, it's hard for me to take outdoor photos because they involve Paul holding the quilt on the porch and me standing in snow with my phone.  We are too wimpy for that these days!  But, at guild, we are lucky that one of the members always takes photos to post on Facebook for people who missed the meeting.

Friday already

 Here we are at the end of the week and I have not finished quilting the Optimism sampler.  I got side tracked with other things as usual.  Yesterday morning I made some oatmeal cookies to give to Chris for his birthday.  It was a recipe I've used many times and which Larry Brown, former printer extraordinaire downtown, called "the best" he'd ever had.  Somehow I left out a crucial ingredient - 2 cups of flour! - resulted in a soggy mess.  I tried to correct them for the next batches but they still weren't up to par.  Still, Chris was happy to receive them.  We took him and a friend to lunch which was nice.  

Afterwards, I got engrossed in a great book, The Correspondent, by Virginia Evans, and read steadily all afternoon.  Thank goodness my Kindle didn't run out of power which often happens if I'm enjoying a book.  It seems to like to run out just when I reach the final denouement.  

This book is told through letters by a 70-something retired lawyer and mother who has been writing letters all her life, including to someone who is, as yet, not identified, to whom she never mails.  Epistolary novels like this and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society are one of my favorite genres.  "Everyone" seems to be reading this novel, and I can see why.  There's not a lot happening, but somehow you just want to see what does.

Last night we watched the movie The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, which is based on another book I enjoyed a few years ago.  Even Paul enjoyed the movie about an elderly man who decides to walk across England in an effort to keep a friend alive when she falls ill with cancer.  The woman who plays his wife is well known and recognizable as Mrs, Crawley in Downton Abbey.

I have a doctor's appointment this morning (if the roads look driveable - so far they look a bit slippery), and then there will be some grocery shopping perhaps.  I'll get back to quilting and look forward to reading more.  Happy weekend!

Christmas is over

We took down the Christmas village "tree" yesterday, as well as the wreaths outside.  They are all again stored in the basement closet under the stairs.  All of our Christmas cookies are gone, but we still have quite a bit of candy left that I'm eating just a little of daily.  I have a doctor's appointment Friday when she'll measure my A1C - after that, the sky may be the limit (or not depending on what she finds).  

Yesterday the temperature climbed to 52 so a lot of snow and ice melted.  We even took a walk around the neighborhood for the first time in weeks.  But we had snow overnight so it's back to winter driving and walking conditions.  Our January thaw appears to be over.  I hope it's OK to drive tomorrow morning so I can rejoin the aerobic walking group.  

Today I'll do a little housekeeping and then get back to quilting the Optimism sampler.  It's going to be a fairly free week, so I may even get it done if I work on it steadily.  It's fun to do each block in a sampler just a little differently.  The black and orange quilt is back from the longarm quilter, so I'll have two quilts to bind by machine soon.

Finishing stuff!

Thursday I drove over to the quilt shop to pick up the black/orange throw Marie had quilted and to give her the blue and white snowflake rail fence throw to quilt.  I love the way the black/orange sampler turned out and will put a black binding on it soon.  I have one more top to take to Marie whenever the back arrives from Connecting Threads.  It's the blue and white speckled Triple Barn Star top that ended up being 72" x 72".  It's waiting in the closet for its back.

I got last year's block of the month Optimism top out of the closet and decided to make two borders for the sides so that it would end up about twin sized.  This was a pattern designed by Aby Dolinger whose BOMs I've followed for the last several years.  Her instructions are always spot on, and, being a sampler maven, I've enjoyed them.  

The question for me last week was whether or not to participate in Aby's 2026 BOM, and I guess not because I couldn't get up the energy to gather the fabric even though I have a very nice background all set aside.  I have too many other quilts I'd like to work on this year.  I'll use that background in one of them.

I made the two borders for Optimism and then pieced a back.  I bought another batt Thursday and started quilted that sampler myself.  Before I got to that, I made a couple of blue Traffic Jam blocks (a Pat Sloan pattern) using my box of 2" squares and cutting a few more blue squares.  This will be another monthly project for me this year.  I need to reduce my collection of blues and greens in particular.  I will most likely use a thin neutral to sash the blocks when I get sick of making them this year.

Besides finishing sandwiching, pin basting, and quilting today, I'll spend a little time with Louise Penny's latest mystery, The Black Wolf. "Everyone" else has finished it and I'm still about 1/3 of the way through.   Louise sure knows how to build suspense, though!   

I also have to write up the Friends of the Library meeting minutes and do a few other little things online.  The sun is shining but it's quite icy out, so I doubt if I'll get a chance to take a walk.   And then there are still a few Christmas decorations I need to take down...

Working on this and that

 This morning's roads were icy-looking so I decided not to go to aerobic walking.  Naturally, the sun came out later and melted everything, but I wasn't taking any chances.  I ended up working hard in the sewing room.   I sandwiched and pin basted the Lily quilt, which I started quilting after lunch.  Before lunch, however, I made two blocks of the month for the Optimism quilt designed by Aby Dolinger.  They are all 15" finished so the quilt will go together pretty quickly in the fall.  I'm shopping my stash (as some say, "inventory") for this one.

My last quilting thing today was cutting up my brother Axel's green and cream shoo fly quilt that I made him in 2005.  It was beautifully quilted by my friend Mary with feathers throughout.  When we visited him in Wisconsin a year and a half ago, I took it home to see if I could repair it.  Alas, it has too much damage - I think he sat on and washed it a lot.  So I cut it apart and will make him some placemats.  I thought I could salvage the center, but it is too far gone.  The center looked salvageable, but it has some very weak spots.

I have made Axel two other quilts, so I don't feel that bad.  One he has on his bed, and the other is in his storage closet, protecting a painting he moved three years ago.  I hope it's OK.  If (when?) we go to visit him again this summer, I'll see if I can find it.  Meanwhile, I'll make miles of binding and bind off sections of the green quilt and mail the "new" placemats to him.

Blocks and strings

 I made a few blocks of the month on Friday and also worked with string triangles.  Basically, just refreshing my "sew-jo" after finishing the Bigfoot top and before starting a real project.

Here's the guild December block of the month, a nice Ohio Star.  I'll take it to guild to enter into a lottery.  Maybe I'll even win the batch.

Then there are the first two Optimism blocks for the quilt along devised by Aby Dolinger.  I'm using colors she suggests in her very clear instructions.

I also made a bunch of triangles out of my seemingly endless string basket and then created two table runners.  These are both basted and ready for quilting.

Both are 12" x about 20".  I'll take them down to the florist's to sell and take any Christmas items that haven't sold home this week.  Luckily, we are having "seasonal" temperatures in the 20s but with little bursts of snow daily.  The snow plow guys are probably happily getting overtime.