2021 Monthly Recap: October

Happy Halloween!  A bit later than normal because of the Bernie's Mittens Quilt-Along post (pattern on sale until midnight tonight!), but still an accurate picture of my month.  I spent all day today riding roller coasters and saying good-bye to our local amusement park until next May, and now I'm manning the candy dish while the kids are out trick-or-treating.  No homemade costumes this year, but they are still carrying the bags I made them years ago when they were toddlers! 

Quilt Tally
WIP List at beginning of month: 13
WIP List at end of month: 13
Untouched in 2021: 4
Active QAL Projects: 3
Kid Projects: 2

Quilts Finished
Summer Scrap (June 2021)

Sew Happy Banner (September 2021) - A fun mini quilt I made sewing along with the Fat Quarter Shop.  I reduced the scale of the pattern by half to make a cute banner.  It's hanging in my family room for now but will get moved to my sewing room soon!

Quilts Started
Macaron Mystery Quilt - I love Cheryl's mystery quilts and this is my fourth time participating (Morewood, Magnolia, and one that pre-dates the blog [I didn't notice the piecing mistakes until I was over halfway done quilting it.  Oops.  This is still somehow one of the most-used quilts in our house.])!  This newest pattern calls for two background fabrics, and I'm going for two very different types.  The first is "colorful low volumes" - ones that never seem to match anything in my stash when I am sewing. And the second is "black and whites that have been around forever" - again, ones that never seem to match my scrappy projects.  To offset the craziness of the background fabrics, I'm using solids as my feature fabrics so the eye has a place to rest.  The number of blocks with each background fabric is wildly inconsistent - I'm using up one entire fabric piece before moving onto the next one.  I'm a little late starting, but all caught up now - these blocks are the clues for September and October.

Bernie's Mittens - I started my third Bernie's Mittens as part of the Bernie's Mittens quilt-along! Week two started today, and we'd love to have you join us!

Quilt Progress (3 WIPs touched)

Sudoku Quilt - all the hard work is done! The top is pieced and the whole thing is basted with a wonderful flannel back. This is not a Halloween quilt (it's inspired by my husband's high school mascot, the Tigers), but the colors mean it would have been a timely finish this month. I'm a little disappointed that it's not completely done, but it took me over five years to get to this point so another month to finish it really isn't that big of a deal.

Blocks made for both my memory scrap quilt and leaders and enders quilt.

Miscellaneous Accomplishments

In addition to a group quilting project with my guild that I will share later, I made plenty of masks and coasters.  I was hoping to have a few cross-stitch finishes as well, but ended up with only one, Spot On, from the first Caterpillar Cross Stitch Club Box.

The rest will (hopefully) come next month, along my brand-new Zephyr pattern!  Thanks for checking out my progress!