One Monthly Goal - November

I just have time for a quick post today to state my One Monthly Goal for November.

This is such a busy time as a longarmer...we're right smack-dab in the season of the Christmas rush as far as longarming goes! 

But I do have to make time for a goal this month. 

I have a 3yr-old granddaughter and thought it would be nice to buy her a baby doll for Christmas...complete with a doll quilt.

When I started looking for dolls, I found a set of fraternal twin dolls. My granddaughter happens to be a fraternal twin so I couldn't pass up on the dolls! And we know what that means....two doll quilts are needed!

I figured I'd use some orphan blocks so as to speed this project along, if I had any appropriate orphan blocks.

Well, of course I do! These 3.5" blocks are some of many that I made a couple of years ago for a sew-along called the 365 Challenge(?). I became disenchanted with my design choice and let this project go.

There are even more of these blocks, so lots to choose from.

I'll try to use a few of these fabrics that were recently gifted to me, they should work for sashing...

So my goal for November will be to have the two quilt tops completed...then they will be ready to finish off in December in time for Christmas. 

I am linking up with Elm Street Quilts for One Monthly Goal, November.

Slow Stitching

 So Hallowe'en is done for another year....Covid-style this time.

I'm not a big Hallowe'en-ie, and where I live, out in a rural setting, I never get trick-or-treaters...except this year...I had a few grandchildren stop by for their modified Hallowe'en...

We were also treated to a rare Hallowe'en Hunters' Blue Micro Moon...

I have finished my Snowflake quilt top, which was half of my monthly goal for October...I did not finish the other project, which was the handquilting on my Shimmer quilt. I did not put a single stitch into Shimmer at all!

I know there is an error in the quilt top....and I have rectified it as you'll see when I post the quilt once it's quilted. Sometimes I'll leave things as is, but in this case it was easy to fix it right then and there. 

I'll get this quilted at some point soon....originally thinking that I wanted to use it in my living space in December, but now a son of mine has expressed a liking for this one, so that's him done for Christmas! I love that my family appreciates my hobby!!

On to Sunday Stitching!...

I've been working on my A Curious Journey BOM, designed by Susan Smith. I really don't want this one to become a UFO!

It's a mystery quilt, I get monthly instructions as to what to do next.

We were told that we would need over 50 QSTs, and were advised to work on them as we go along so as to spread out the work-load. 

Well....I've attached one border of QSTs to my centre applique blocks to see how they were looking (because I had my doubts about my fabric choices)....

Hmmm...not a very clear picture, but I'm sure you can tell that my QST border is a hot mess! I figure that I'm doing so much work with the applique on this quilt that I can't just leave this pieced border as it is. Dammit!!

In the top left of the picture you can see two practice QST blocks using patterned fabric and background fabric...I think that's what I'll go with. Or a soft yellow instead of the background fabric?...what do you think???

I am loving the use of Tilda fabrics for this quilt...I think it's going to be a very pretty quilt.

For this quilt we also need 24 Windswept blocks. I've been working on these in between the regular blocks and my Christmas knitting.

Here are my Windswept blocks, so far...

Getting there!! I'll poke away at these a bit more today for my Slow Sunday Stitching.

And to leave you with an idea of a soup to warm you up now that we are experiencing cool, blustery Autumn days, here is a soup we made in the Instant Pot this week...

It's Oxtail Soup, and just took 45 minutes in the Instant Pot, plus 15 minutes to simmer the veggies in IP once the meat was cooked. This worked to not having the veggies turn to mush by cooking them with the meat.

 I have to say...I've never bought oxtails, but every time I see them in the grocery store I remember how much I liked them as a young girl. We will definitely be making this soup again...and again!

I am linking up with Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching.