December Update

      I've been absent from the blog for a couple of weeks.  This can be explained by the general business of the season and by something that my mother would have called general malaise (as in Lisa was absent from school yesterday due to general malaise).  She actually wrote that on a note.  What it means is that I haven't had the emotional energy to write and that, my dear friends is due to the overall greyness of the skies these past few weeks.  Last year I worked through my issues with the seasonal dullness by creating a mini quilt called embraced by grey.  Not sure what I will do this year.  Sometimes just noting it helps and the feeling comes and goes  pretty much as the sun comes and goes.

   I have done some sewing since last posting.  One of my small groups does a gift exchange and I made another set of hexagon coasters.

    
     These were well received.  In turn I was gifted with these two beautiful mug rugs made by my friend Wendy.  I love them!

     My main crush these days is my new sewing machine. It's the Janome 8900 and I  brought her home a week ago.  I'm very happy to have her and I think I'll call her Jane.

     I saved up for her for over a year, putting money I saved by bringing my lunch to work, into a special savings account.  During this time I bonded with the bank tellers and one of them cheered when I told her I had purchased a machine and was transferring the money into the checking account.

    There are a lot of bells and whistles with this machine and I'll be taking some classes at the local machine shop to figure out how to use some of them. So far I've used her a bit to test out the 1/4 inch foot.  To do this I've worked on  the  blocks for the comfort quilt program at my local guild. I have managed to catch up. Yay!  If any of my fellow members of Hive 8 of the Stash Bee are reading this, don't worry there were no absolute deadlines for these blocks and I promise to get my stash bee blocks to you on time.

     Up first is the October block The disappearing four patch.
I'll have to make another one because this one has issues.  I made this block with pre cut charm squares and I find the pinked edges hard to use with accuracy.

The November block was a hug block.

December was the Friendship Star.

     And look I'm ahead of the game with one block done for January.  This block is called radiant stripes .  It should make a very striking quilt with it's alternating  rays of yellow and red.

    I'm really enjoying this block of the month program.  It's fun making all the different blocks my fellow committee members come up with and I'm also happy to use up some of the odd fabrics that have been sitting in my stash for years.  Out with the old and in with the new.

         I'm  also happy to say that the 1/4" feature on my new  machine is very accurate.  I'm itching to see how well she quilts.  I'm linking this post with Main Crush Monday at Cooking up Quilts and with Let's Bee Social at SewFresh Quilts.

     I'd like to wish everyone some joy and happiness over the holiday season, whatever the holiday is that you celebrate, and I hope a little sunshine comes into our lives.