Week 47: Night Flight and Pumpkin Quilt #5 Finishes

Hello and welcome to the Morning Latte.

I had a nice steady run of posts going but due to being

quite under the weather, I skipped last week.

~ Method for fighting back ~

Hubs and I spent some quality time together in front

of a toasty fire--tissue box between us--watching football

and getting most of our Christmas shopping done.

The "crud" dragged out but by the end of last week, we were

on the mend and were able to make the happy trip to our

lot where we met the builder to stake out our home.
It was a very exciting moment.  Very. 

It was also just wonderful to be outside in the fresh air.

I almost never get sick.  Most of the time I just refuse to

give in but this zapped my energy so much that I didn't golf

for a whole week. <gasp!>  I still struggled to sit still so

I spent lots of time at the sewing machine getting lots done.

Before I go through my to-do's, I want to share yet

another project that never even made it to the list.

I sped through a FIFTH pumpkin quilt!

(Does it seem like I just keep showing this thing??) 

The need arose and I very quickly popped out another.  

Tired of seeing them?  I love pumpkins but after 60 of these

blocks, I'm pretty tired of making them!

At least for this year...and maybe next.  But I do have

some other ideas I want to try out yet with that pattern.

At least I've been getting some extra scrap-busting in.

Rather than use background fabric for the stars as the

pattern designates I chose to use up some scraps on

these latest quilts.  Seeing a drop in the "neutrals" jar

has motivated me to hit my scrap jars more often

when planning out quilts.

And now back to the regularly-scheduled quilt plans:

1) Finish Night Flight; quilt, pic and list:  DONE!

Night Flight (78X90)

The pattern, Morning Flight, is free from Andover Fabrics.

(I just found it weeks ago but for the life of me, I cannot find

it so I wonder if it just got pulled?)

 Trying to photograph jet black is a real chore.  Etsy has editing tools

that helped out for the listing but these pics aren't the greatest.  

I wish I could show the bold, striking colors and contrasts

in a much better way but I have more quilts to work on

instead of toying around with photos.  I'm sure you can

all picture how pretty this really is?

  I could have switched to a method that makes multiple geese

at once with no waste but I was trying to use up the small pieces

 left from all of my recent fall projects.  So once again I found myself

 with a mountain of trimmings.  I already have thousands...er, tens

of thousands?!?  I sure don't need more so I put them in a border.

I tried out lots of variations but in the end, this is the one that

worked with all that flying geese movement. 

To use up 16 more, I put churn dashes into the corners.

A quick search of Andover fabrics (so the black would match)

on one of my usual sites landed me the most perfect backing!

It has the exact colors and is even called Autumn Woods.

2) Start next quilt

Like the rest of us, I get pretty annoyed at Christmas commercials

in October.   I really should get annoyed at them in November but

I can't help it.  Years ago, I gave up and declared Nov. 1 as open

season for Christmas music.  I think it's the quilter in me--we have

to be ahead of the game.   I'm always quick to point out, however,

that it's only soft, instrumental Christmas music (no singing);

I wait until after Turkey Day to bring on the heavy stuff.

Well that was my long intro to "Hey, I'm starting a Christmas quilt!"

How about this pattern?

Star Patch by Missouri Star
(Also found in BLOCK mag, 2018 vol 5; Is 6)

I believe this is my 3rd go at this quilt but the first one I made

is a real favorite to snuggle under (great size!).   And every time

I do, I think of how much fun I had making it so of course I want

to give it another go.  I didn't put much thought into whether

my jelly roll would work well for it; I just dove in so time will tell.

Snowkissed by Sweetwater / Moda

I got this jelly roll on sale; months later, I found yardage

on the clearance rack so I'm set on border and backing.

However, I didn't have enough of any contrast fabric so I made

more use of scraps and small yardage bits on those star legs.

This quilt is cut out and piecing is now underway!

(And oh, dear!  The trimmings with this one!!)

This brings me to my fabric tracking!

2025 Purchases:  200.55
2025 Used:  208.24
2025 Net:  -7.69 🎉
*Net since beginning tracking:  +251.94

*I think I've been tracking for 3 or 4 years now?  I never made any

initial count of my fabric--impossible!  I just started keeping

track of what came in and what went out.  I do hope

to get THIS number into the negative some day as well.

Finally getting a year into the negative is a great start!

3) Packing / Move efforts

Well, we sold the dinette set.  This was very bittersweet for me.

I struggled to let it go--memories!--but in the end, we got a

good price and it went to a lovely lady.  It looks gorgeous in

her 1900's bungalow, fitting much better than it did in ours.

Style-wise, it's like it was made for that home so I am happy.

This forced me to pack up our entire dining room so I made

great progress here!  Thanksgiving dinner will be enjoyed on

folding tables but, eh, nothing a large tablecloth can't fix.

Week 47 Goals

The week ahead will be more about getting ready for the

upcoming holiday.  I want to spend time with family, not

working in the kitchen the entire time so I want to work

on getting as much early-prep done as I can.  My menu

is set, the shopping mostly done.  If I can find some time

in the quilt room in between prep and baking, great!

1) Finish Christmas/winter quilt top

I'd love to have this fully completed and listed but

I'm trying to be reasonable.  We'll just see...

2) Choose one more Christmas quilt?

3) Start planning for upcoming patriotic quilts

This should be easily accomplished in short bits of

free-time here and there, or if I just need to give

my brain a few minutes of creativity.

4) Move small shrubs etc to new lot

We tilled up a small area in the back of our lot in which to

plant some shrubs, grasses, herbs, grapes, asparagus etc.

We'll do what we can to keep them alive over the next year.

Hopefully they'll all pull through; if not, well, we gave it our

best shot.  At least they won't get torn up with the house.

We're also currently moving over firewood, tomato cages etc.

There are strict rules against this in the covenants but our

thick tree row covers it well; I think we'll be just fine storing

these things there only while the house is being built.

(Being one of the first homes, who's going to complain?)

Hope you are all gearing up for a lovely holiday season!
Happy quilting!

Linking to:

Monday Musings

Sew & Tell
Tuesday To Do