Happy Thanksgiving

Greetings all and Happy Thanksgiving. I hope amid all the political and social media turmoil that you find some peace and share kindness today. I don't think I've ever before spent so much time in constant prayer for our country, our society, and my friends and family. I pray for peace and reason to overtake the hate and malice in which our country seems to be drowning. There are days when I feel assaulted on all sides because of my opinions and beliefs and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Please remember that you are not alone, that you are loved, and that with love and compassion we can change the world for the better. Be the reason that someone is thankful today.

Prepping for Thanksgiving

With hosting Thanksgiving this year, Jack and I took the opportunity to fix up a few things around the house that have desperately needed attention. Thanks to my father-in-law coming over to help, the garbage disposal and the kitchen faucet have been replaced. I love my new faucet. It not only works, it is secured properly, the hose doesn't jam, and it looks much nicer. Additionally, Jack hung up the storage racks for my essential oils, which were previously scattered all over the house for various uses, and fixed the fake "wood" beam that decorates the family room ceiling.

The anniversary present that my mother-in-law made us now adorns the wall of our family room. Our house is not magazine quality with professional art installations. We choose instead to decorate our house with handmade blankets, wall quilts, and other expressions of love from those we care about.

The crafting things are all packed away as I await the arrival of my guests. I find myself ahead of the game, with an hour or two to spare. Because the house is now spotless, I'm looking forward to a weekend of crafting, relaxing, trips to the movie theater, and quality time with my niece. I will either be putting some serious time into a couple quilts I want to finish up right quick or a cross stitching marathon of The Castle by Teresa Wentzler. I will studiously be avoiding all the insanity revolving around Black Friday shopping. What are your plans for the holiday weekend?

Slow Sunday Stitching

This weekend I've been working slowly on my Teresa Wentzler piece, The Castle. Patience is certainly a virtue with TW's, given all the quarter stitches and blended threads. I think this pattern has more blended colors than unblended.

I was able to finish off the wing on the right and fill in a lot of the backstitching on the castle.  The castle part is almost complete, so I will likely focus on that next.

I have since packed away all my crafty projects until Black Friday. I am planning on hosting Thanksgiving this year and life has conspired to keep me from preparing prior to now. However, starting on Black Friday, I will have six days off of work to spend however I desire. This includes nascent plans for a Doctor Who marathon day and sleepover with my favorite niece.

Linking up to Slow Sunday Stitching @Kathy's Quilts

No Nano & SFS Report

How to describe November so far? Between being sick, fighting a cough that won't go away, the whole election fallout, planning and cleaning for Thanksgiving, trying to prepare for my first Modern Arnis test, and the passing of a family member, crafting is at a minimum and NaNoWriMo is only a distant dream.

While I was sick, I started Reflections by Dimensions, having replaced the black fabric with some hand-dyed. I had purchased a couple different hand dyes, desperately hoping for a really dark navy blue but the medium gray blue seems to be the best that can be done on Aida. 

The end result might not be as striking as the original, but I do think that its very pretty. This is a confetti heavy piece that seems to stitch best using the parking method.

The crochet blanket now has more than eight skeins and its wide enough for my bed, so now I've started making it taller. Its actually too big to get the whole thing in a photo on my living room floor. I will explore other photo options next time I take a picture. I'm thinking an outdoor option will be my best bet.

My October Stitch from Stash Report is as follows:

October Budget: $25.00
Spent: $39.87
Earned: $13.00
Rollover into Nov: -$1.87
November Budget: $23.13

We're halfway through November and I've bought no stash despite all the pre-Black Friday sales, so I'm optimistic that I'll be able to remain in the green this month.

Quiltspiration

I'm home sick this weekend with something vaguely flu-like. So of course I have to go poking around online for more projects.

I came across the Jinny Beyer Quilter's Design Board. Jinny Beyer has a few hundred free quilt block patterns available on her website and a web-based design board that allows you to see how it would look in a quilt. The one that caught my eye was #213 - Jeweled Scrap Quilt Block. 

There are templates available for traditional cutting and piecing, including those annoying Y-seams. I thought I would prefer to do this block with a paper-piecing template, so I recreated it in EQ7. It has more pieces than the original but no Y-seams. I spent the morning playing around with color variations. 

Here are a few of my favorite renditions.

  

The paperpiecing template I created is available HERE  for free. It is the template only and comes with no instructions or yardage calculations. The template is for a 12 inch finished block.

ITS THAT TIME AGAIN

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