Mary Corbet's Wreath with Candle ornaments

 APIP#5 - Embroidered Wreath with Candle - This a pattern designed by Mary Corbet with a few modifications I made - primarily adding beads and sequins.  I do love the sparkle it gives them when hanging on the Christmas tree. Mary also used a white candle against her beautiful linen background.  I chose the red candle for mine. I made three of these - one for my tree, one to give to friends and family at Christmas and one to give to my guild for the Christmas Arts and Crafts festival. 

APIP#1 - Meryton; Finished up the fourth block of the Border block 1. Now I can begin prepping the applique pieces for Border Blocks 2

APIP#2 - Bloom and Sew - Gail Pan 2025 BOM;  Received the February block this past week and started working on the stitcheries.  There are 6 to do, and I finished 2 of them.  I have not trimmed them up yet and they still have the Stick and Stich on them, but the stitchery is complete.

APIP#4 Joseph's Coat of Many Colors;  Have completed Vertical row #1 and most of #2. Have all the blocks done for Row 2, but still need to do the connector triangles and sew the block to each other.  I finally decided on a circle for the block centers.  I thought I would go with a black and white polka dot, but change my mind again today to go with a Lori Holt fabric - white background with little 6-petal flowers of many colors.  I think the black and white polka dot looked better, but the quilt is for a young girl and I just did not want to put that much black on the quilt.

With this post, I am down to just three projects in progress and have completed 6 others this year.  The three I still have going will take awhile to complete.

Joseph's Coat of Many Colors

 APIP#4 and APIP#6 - Joseph's Coat of Many Colors;  I have been working primarily on these two projects this past week.  I will be teaching the block to my club this Wednesday and needed to really get comfortable with making the blocks.  I am enjoying doing these curved pieced blocks and hope my club will enjoy them as well.  I am making a quilt 60" x 68" and a much smaller table topper.

Blocks made for the quilt so far.  No melon fabric will be repeated in the quilt.  I was auditioning the fabric to be used for the center circle and have chose the black and white polka dot.

Table Topper I made for kitchen table.  Kitchen is grey with red accents.  I chose to use just greys, reds, yellows and teals.

APIP#1 - Merryton;   I did complete the third Block 1 blocks, one more to go.

Have to make four of these.  I have the applique shapes prepped and ready to applique.

APIP#8 - Spellbound Block;  I taught this block at retreat and finished mine at home this morning.

APIP #5 - Christmas Ornament - Candle Wreath;  I am making three of these and have the embroidery completed on two of them, started the third this afternoon.  It was so pretty outside, I took my sewing to the porch and enjoyed the beautiful weather.  I learned that I can not do my embroidery very well outside - too distracted.  had to rip out what I did this afternoon and start over when I went inside.  These are Mary Corbet designs and very detailed.

Progress on Meryton, Bloom & Sew and a few others

 APIP Report

Meryton - Finished the second block of Block 1 for border.  Have the third one prepped and basted in place:

Bloom & Sew - Gail Pan 2025 BOM - Completed Block 1

Sewing Machine Mat - Completed at Retreat 

Spellbound block - Got three sections completed at retreat.  Hope to get them together tomorrow and have it quilted and bound by next week:

That's all I worked on this past week.

2025 - Active Projects in Progress

 Its hard for me to believe my last post was Nov 27.  Time just seems to go by so fast, especially the busy month of December.  I have decided this year to try to track those projects I am working on on a regular basis, posting my progress on this blog.  I am hoping this will keep me on track and making good progress toward completion.

I have listed my APIP items and was surprised at how many I currently have active.  When I first started this list the first week of January, I had 5 items and I thought that was a lot to be actively working on.  But the list grew to 9 during the last couple of weeks. At least two of those are now finished.   So here is my list and the current status:

1 - Meryton; Designed by Katrina Hadjimichael - started 08-24-24.  To date I have completed the center of the quilt and one of the large (15") blocks that make up the outer border. There are 16 blocks in the outer border - 8 machine foundation paper pieced and 8 EPP/Applique.

2 - Bloom and Sew - 2025 BOM by Gail Pan; Started 12-16-24.  To date I selected my fabrics (Moda EMMA)  and have begun embroidering one of six stitcheries in the first block (pattern received Jan 11).

  

3 - Daphne Table Runner - Started November 2024 and Completed -1-20-25. This is a table runner designed by Katrina Hadjimichael and taught in a zoom workshop in November.

4 - Joseph's Coat of Many Colors - Started 12-23-24 - I found this project on-line when browsing through some pages and instantly was attracted to it.  The pattern is free pattern offered by Kona Cottons and is a pattern designed by Darlene Zimmerman.  She titled her pattern Joseph's Coat but I have pictures of vintage quilts that call it Joseph's Coat of Many Colors.  I tried to find a USA distributor for the templates, but none were available - I even had my LQS owner looking for them in Houston.  I did find a company in California that was able to make a set for me fo $5, compared to the $32 I paid for the set I ordered from Australia.  They actually sold for $16 but the shipping got the price to $32.  I am going to teach this pattern in February to my quilt club and have ordered templates for all of them.  We will be starting with a small table runner, but I am also making the quilt.  To date I have all the fabrics cut out for the quilt and will start sewing them together in February.  My Fabrics all came from my stash and each melon shape in the quilt will be a different fabric.  Below is a picture of the quilt from the pattern:

5 - Christmas Ornament - Candle Wreath; Started; 12-27-2024 - These are embroidered ornaments from a book by Mary Corbet.  I love her embroidery designs and for 2024 I made quite a few different ones, keeping one for myself, one for gifts to friends, and one to my guild to sell at our Arts and Crafts Festivals.  I hope to do the same this year and this is the first design I have chosen.  I did add beads and sequins that Mary did not have in her pattern, but basically it is her design.  Todate I have completed two stitcheries, and one more prepped and ready to embroider and then need to complete the ornament.

6. Joseph's Coat Table Runner (See #4) Started 01-15-2025 - Have not yet selected my fabrics.

7 - Love Table Runner - Pattern design my Tracy Perks and Kit received from SewEndipitous, my LQS.  I joined their VIP club and this kit was a gift for joining.  We had on-line workshop Monday, Jan 20 and I completed the table runner this morning. 

8 - Spellbound Table Topper - 01-21-2024.  This is a block presented in the American Quilter Magazine September 2024.  I will be making this block at my club's retreat next week and chose to make it in Patriotic colors.  I have prepared a chart of fabric required and the cutting instruction.  My fabric as all cut and ready for retreat - hopeful I will come home with a complete block.  This is my own chart design to help me keep my fabrics straight.

9 - Sewing Machine Mat - Started 01-21-2025; A member of my club is going to show us how to make a mat to set our sewing machines on, with pockets to put our tools.  I have my fabric cut and ready to go, and once again will hopefully have it completed at the of this month.

So that is it for now with my first APIP report. Hopefully my list will go from 9 to 5 by my next report.

Days of Delight - 2022 BOM by Val Laird

 Another UFO that I finished this month.  I started on this BOM back in January 2022 and kept up with it until October which for some reason, I stopped working on it.  I challenged my quilt club, Stitchin Friends, in January of this year to name three UFO's they would complete during 2024.  This was one that was on my list and therefore I got busy and finished it this year.  It now hangs proudly in my kitchen and each morning when I make my coffee, I update my calendar.

There is a separate embroidery for each day of the week and each Month.  The numbers are 0,1,1,2,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9.

Its just the right size to hide the fuse box that hanss between the two cabinets.  This used to be my laundry room and when we took out the washer and dryer, hung cabinets we could not cover up the fuse box and it has always been an eyesore that I cover up with small wall hangings :)

2009 BOM Christmas Wish by Gail Pan

 Its been since September that I posted.  Time sure flies when you are busy busy busy.

Today I completed a 2009 BOM by Gail Pan.  I have had the embroideries completed since 2009, but never got around to making the wall hanging.  My granddaughter, Tess, is putting together an art showing at our church where members can display their art that depicts the true meaning of Christmas.  She did this last year for the first time and it was much appreciated by the congregation.  She asked if I had something to enter, and really all I had was a Nativity scene that I made and it has hung over my mantle for many Christmases.  She wanted to use it again, and I agreed, but I also wanted something new.  I remembered these blocks made so many years ago, and decided to finish up the wall hanging.  I worked all day yesterday making the wall hanging and hemmed it this morning.  

I did have to change one block, that said "Magic" which she did felt was inappropriate for the spiritual aspect of the art show, and suggested I use the word Faith.  So I also had to make a new block for Faith, and was so pleased that I still had the background fabric and the matching embroidery thread in my stash.  Haha...I have had it for 15 years now, and probably much longer than that.   Sound familiar?

Meryton Progress

This morning I have been working on completing the center star - one more round to go.

I also finished they York County Block of the month.  Not to interested in quilting this one, but one of my dear quilting sisters (Donna) loved it, and she is a long-arm quilter, so I gave it to her.  Another on of the UFO list :)