Staying Home

You too, I hope? Nothing much going on here. I make face masks. We walk the dog sometimes. I've been doing a lot of healthy cooking. This means I need fresh food. As often as I can, I try to get my groceries delivered so I can avoid shopping.  For awhile now, many of the stores around here have not had any available delivery times. You load up an online cart and you can't get a delivery date. Or you get one 10 days away and by the time it comes around they've run out of everything on the list. Frustrating. This morning I logged into Amazon just to check and what do you know - Whole Foods came through - Yay! We have a store near us and they had a delivery opening for today. Who ever thought I'd be so excited about getting my groceries delivered?? Put a smile on my face too. 

Weekend before last I was organizing my fabric and sewing room and finally said "Enough of this - I really feel like like just playing around with my scraps and making a little something."  And so I asked my Facebook group if they wanted to join me in a sew along to make a small project.

First, we made some four patches using 1 1/2" scrap squares -

Then we added a little quarter-square triangle block to the pile -

                                            

                                        

Sew the blocks in strips. Next, add sashing between the strips - 

Sew on some borders and Voila! A cute little mini made in a weekend. I've always loved this reproduction brown fabric left over from one of my larger quilts and it was fun to use it again. Makes it look like a little antique doll quilt.

You can find the pattern in the Facebook group files. I called it the 2020 Stay at Home and Sew Mystery Doll Quilt.

I made a few tops this year but can't seem to actually finish any of them. I'm feel like I'm more in the making mode than the finishing mode.

These are all free patterns in the Facebook group files.

 Right now I'm finishing up the pattern for the final installment of the 2020 Mystery quilt. This is as far as we've gotten. It snowed a bit here a few weeks ago.

Over the weekend I was working on the applique for the border, which is the next step, and realized I forgot to make a second heart. The hearts, plus all of those little 3" blocks you made earlier, will be combined with some additional applique to make the border.

If you're participating in this Mystery, stop by the FB group files or visit my website on Friday, May 1, to get the last pattern and see how everything comes together. The applique part for the border is really cute. I hadn't done any applique for awhile so it was nice to take some quiet time and do some hand sewing. I always show up for deadlines, hah! Maybe I need to put "Quilt those little quilts" on my calendar (with a reminder) in the coming weeks. Mostly, I am anxious to finish the Mystery quilt so I can get back to making some quilts I started last year before I got sidetracked working on the new book. Which is still supposed to come out in the fall. I just finished editing the page proofs and it is looking fantastic. I'll be excited to show you more in a few months. 

Aside from getting some sewing done, the other good thing about staying home is I've gotten quite a bit of reading done. This book was one of my favorites. I had read Setterfield's book Once Upon a River last year and liked that. I also read three more Ann Patchett books, Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout and a couple of pretty mediocre mysteries when my attention span was sorely lacking. 

I hope all of you out there are doing well. Stay safe and healthy!