Stitching Recap for January

I went into January with some rather lofty stitching goals.  I was hopeful, although not thoroughly confident, that I could tick them off the list, as we didn’t have a lot of plans for the month.

I’m very happy to say that everything was done, and even a little exceeded. That can be put down to a couple of Chooky Zoom sessions, on New Year’s Day, the evening before Australia Day and on Australia Day.  The best way to spend time in exceedingly hot weather.

So, what did I achieve?

(Do you like my button border?  I used to paste one I found on the interweb, but I can’t get it to go into my posts now, so created my own from some of my button collection.)

We’ll start with the new projects that I have already started in 2026.  

These first ones are all projects that will be worked on over the next year.

RAINBOW SCRAP CHALLENGE

I started two new projects, the Black and White Potato Chip blocks and the solid crosses blocks, and have added my crumb pieced blocks to the list.

I am continuing to join in with Betty’s group quilts.  We were requested to make a strip and send to her.  Well, I have ended up making three.  Two have been posted (the blue and purple) and the third will get sent down when I have another to add to the envelope.

I have started another project….of course I have…… It is a little Christmas tree skirt from an Anni Downs kit.  The grand plan was that this would be my hand stitching project for the next little while at my stitching days, starting this month. 

Well, thanks to the Zoom sessions, particularly the one on Australia Day, all the motifs have had their appliqué added and have been stitched.  That is more than expected.  I now have to work out what I do next on the pattern.  The motifs will have to be appliquéd down, but I’m not sure how much I need to do before that stage.

Oh, and I may have had another start as well.  I have been seeing some cute Blossie Baskets by Craftapalooza and there is a stitch along.  Of course I had to join in.  It is a nice, quick, simple project.  I started and had all the hexies stitched at my stitching day on Wednesday.  I finished it off on the last day of the month.  So, that is my first start that has already been finished this year.

That’s five starts already for the year.  That doesn’t look too promising for ending the year with less projects on the go than at the start of the year.

Now to the UFOs that were worked on.

First up, the Spiked Granny Square Rug that has been hanging around for too long was finished.  Now I can start a new knitting project, guilt free.

Then it was time to play with Elly May.  Four quilts have been completed and ticked off the Quilting Queue.

Five and Dime

Secret Garden

William Morris

Wensleydale

Last year, while on a day out, we popped into the op shop at Portland and I purchased this little book for $1.  One of those purchases that you can’t resist, but when you get it home you wonder why, as you probably won’t use it.  Well, I’m using it.  It is perfect for recording the details of all the quilts that I quilt using Elly May.  Size and name of design etc.  It has proved to be just what I needed. Happy dance.

The other UFO that I worked on was my Leader and Ender, being Bonnie Lass.  I managed to make a further 40 units.  I now have 220 of the 392 units made.  I could have made quite a few more, but ran out of cut pieces of fabric.  That needs to be addressed. 

Therefore, other than the Leader and Ender, I’ve concentrated on one UFO at a time, and finished it, which is a nice change.

HOW I FINISHED UP

Five starts for the month.

Six finishes for the month!  I consider anything that was not completed at the end of 2025 to be a UFO.  Therefore, I have completed FIVE UFOs!  My goal is to complete twelve this year. Go me! I only completed five UFOs in all of 2025.  

I now have one less project on the go than at the start of the year.  That’s a good start.

How did I go with my wish of 15 minutes a day?

January =   30/31

Year to date =   30/31 = 96.77%

Not too bad.

Finally, I  managed to empty 4 spools of thread, to add to my pretty jar. 

All in all, January was a very good start to the year.  I am under no illusions that the year will continue to be as productive, but I’ll take a win when I can.

The First Week of January

They say that how you start the year is how it will continue.  For me, I hope that means lots of stitching, as New Year’s Day was spent joining in on a Zoom sewing session with Chookyblue that went for 14 hours.

After 28 girls joining in on New Year’s Eve, there was a large number popping in and out again on New Year’s Day.  This photo was right at the end before we all signed off.

The project that I worked on was putting together the Wensleydale Quilt top.  The poor girls had to put up with lots of cursing and wingeing, as I struggled to get the points to match, as they don’t nest, due to the construction method.  Some were restitched up to five times.  However, I did get there in the end and I am satisfied with the outcome.  I know I may be a bit pedantic, but I do want it to look nice.

It will now wait patiently until I quilt some other simpler quilts before I tackle the quilting.

Next on the stitching agenda was working out what I want to make for Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  In the end I have chosen three projects.  My grand plan is to get them kitted up now, so that I can quickly make the blocks as their relevant month arrives.  I have chosen ten colours to work with for each.   That way I only have to make blocks for ten months, and will have two months to finish the quilts.   If the colours don’t quite align with the nominated colour, that’s too bad.  

Firstly, I will make a quilt with my six inch crumb blocks.  For the size I want I need three of ten colours.  I already have some made from the last couple of years, so that shouldn’t be too hard.  I decided that I will just make them into a shadow block and went ahead and worked out all the details.  It was only then that I watched  Kate at The Last Homely House and discovered she had made the exact same quilt that I intend to make, although her blocks aren’t quite as crumby.  Obviously, great minds think alike.  I have pulled the fabric for the shadows, sashings and borders, but still have to cut them out.

The second one will be a variation on the Potato Chip Block. I just found a photo on Pinterest.  I’m sorry I can’t credit the maker or designer, as I don’t know it. It will have a centre of two black and white prints, which will be surrounded by one round of the colour.  I need 48 blocks, so five for most months, but just four for two months.  I have gone ahead and cut all the black and white strips, which didn’t make much of a dent in the collection.  However, it did mean that I have now tidied up the black and white tub, which was a good outcome.  When I look at it, I really do wonder why I didn’t just use a square in the centres, but it doesn’t matter.  It will take a little while to get all the different scrappy bits cut.  I will persevere.

The third one is going to be made from solid colours.  This is therefore going to be more of a Rainbow STASH quilt rather than a Rainbow SCRAP quilt. The pattern I have chosen has a cross with two tones of the colour.  Of course, I had no trouble having enough colours.  

My once tidy sewing room became a big, colourful mess during the process.  Once again, the solids tubs had a nice tidy up when I finished cutting, which is a good feeling.  I still have to cut the white background and grey corners.

I will hopefully have some completed blocks to share in the next week.

I did have to break my wish of only using fabric that I already had.  I had plenty of the background for the two quilts, but didn’t have a suitable grey, so visited Spotlight.

Now, I have a question I would really like some feedback on.  How are the patchwork fabrics displayed in your local Spotlight?  In the Bathurst Store, they have changed their layout.  Where there used to be all the solids together, all the blenders together, the aboriginal together, the novelties together and any specific ranges together, now they are all jumbled together by colour.  It is an absolute nightmare trying to find things.  It’s like how some people arrange books on a shelf by colour rather than author.  Obviously not readers.  I digress.  I asked about it and was informed that it was instructions from higher up, and not the store.  However……..the store at Orange is arranged like they always were.  I’d be really interested to hear if it is across the board or just Bathurst.

Now back to our regular programming…….while I was in the Orange store to buy the grey homespun I noticed that their clearance table included their Liberty fabrics.  They were all designs that hadn’t been in Bathurst, so I bought up big.  The original price was $30/m, clearance was $6/m, but with their sale they were $4.80/m.  13.3metres came home with me.  That is cheaper than homespun and some will even be pretty for backings at that price.  Win, win.

Yesterday was our first day back at my Patchwork Group, so I needed some hand sewing to work on.  Yes, I have started yet another project. 

I bought this kit quite a few years ago, and having seen Lin make her version last year, was inspired to finally get it made.  

I traced all the stitcheries on Tuesday and just worked this simple one yesterday.  My next job is to prep all the appliqué and get them stitched down.  It is a fairly simple project and will be ideal to take along.

That’s all I have done in the sewing room, but I am happy to be getting everything prepped to make the rest of the year easier.

Meanwhile, Mick has been enjoying watching the Fifth Ashes Test in the cricket.  The Sydney Test is the Pink Test to raise funds for the McGrath Foundation, which provides cancer care nurses.  We always buy our “virtual tickets”.  The third day, Tuesday, is the Pink Day where everyone dresses in pink and they make special presentations.  Mick joined in, despite being in our lounge room, rather than at the cricket ground.  His shirt even has cricketers on it.

We had a quick trip to Orange to deliver some chairs Mick restored on New Year’s Day.  (Hence my visit to Spotlight up there.) His sister has an outdoor setting with wrought iron ends that the wood had rotted on.  Mick has fixed them for her.  He had to test one out once he had it put together and delivered.

Our garden has been producing plenty of veges.  I am picking and freezing about 500 grams of beans a day at the moment.  The garden doesn’t like the extreme heat we are experiencing at present, but it is doing OK.

I was surprised to see these strange mushrooms in one of our plant pots.  The spores obviously were in the potting mix.  No, we won’t be eating them.

I have tried my first new recipe for the year.  It wasn’t really all that different, but we will count it anyway.  Quiches made using a wrap instead of pastry have been popping up on Instragram, so I gave it a go.  Very simple, and they come out of the pie dish nicely.  A win, that I will probably do again.  A slice would be good to take for lunch.

And that about wraps up the week.

It’s Starting to Look and Feel Like Christmas

Only two days until the man in the red suit visits all the good boys and girls……and grown ups too, if they still believe.  We certainly do.

This year our decorations are fairly similar to the last couple of years, with just a couple of variations.  Our twiggy Christmas tree has normally sat on my Granny’s trousseau box, but during the year be bought a lovely leadlight bow fronted china cabinet and relocated the box.  Where to put the tree?  In the end, we just moved it fairly close and popped it on a stool, covered by a table centre that I received one year in the Secret Santa Christmas Swap arranged by Chooky.  Perfect.

There are just two new decorations on it this year.  Firstly, a little Bilby that I bought when we visited Charleville earlier in the year.

The second is the cute felt Christmas tree which Lou sent to me for our annual swap.  There are many decorations on this tree made by Lou.  Probably enough to have their own tree, as we have been doing this annual swap since 2009.

While I’m at it, this is the one I sent to Lou this year.  We both seem to have thought of the theme of trees.

This is what our dining area looks like this year, minus the trousseau box.

The other change this year is the addition of the little tree that Mick made for Mum to showcase her handmade decoration collection while living in residential aged care.  It now fits nicely atop the china cabinet, which holds many of her items.

Here is a bit of a closer look.  If you pop over to this post, you can see how they were all displayed in her room.

Now to the sitting area.  The mantle piece is pretty much the same as usual.

The lounge room is also pretty much the same, featuring our large tree with more special decorations collected over the years.  Some I can date back to our first Christmas together, while others have been collected on some of our travels.

I made the light hearted comment to Mick that we have done well not to buy any additional decorations this year (other than the Bilby)………I shouldn’t have……

When Mick put up our outside lights, one of the strings of the icicles that go around the gutters didn’t work!  Blast!  Fortunately, we were able to source some just the same as the other existing ones……….Then when he went to hook up the star over the garage door it didn’t work either!  What?!  Obviously, nine years is the use by date for those two strings.  No worries, off to Bunnings again to get another replacement.  So much for no buying decorations.  I should have shut my mouth.

Anyway, the outside, including our tree in the lounge room, all look good from the street.  “Skippy” and “Mervyn and Muriel the Mooses” all took up their usual positions. 

The bottom end of our street is looking very festive. When we moved here it was the top end that was all lit up, but times have changed, kids have grown up and it now seems that all us oldies down the bottom of the street have been the ones to put the lights up.

On Sunday night we hosted the neighbourhood Christmas party in our back yard.  It has become quite the tradition we all look forward to.  One of our neighbours is a very talented crafty person and she gifted us a resin angel that she just whipped up that day.  Isn’t she gorgeous.  We now have to find a special place to hang her where she will show up nicely.