September PHD Update

Hi Quilting Friends,

September has been a busy month, with plenty of action at school. I’ve had a handful of students out due to Covid quarantine, but our school year is mostly off to a smooth start.

We had a “storm day” when Tropical Storm (briefly Hurricane) Nicholas blew through our area, but there was no damage or inconvenience at our place. (Can you say “storm day = sewing day ?) It was just what I needed!

I was able to finish three more projects in September, so my PHD in 2021 is complete. I’ve done a pretty good job of finishing the new projects that I’ve started this year, and I’m happy with my progress. We shall see if I find the time to finish up anything else from the list this year . . .

Projects #14 and #15: Christmas stockings for the Grand-doggers

Ta-done! The stockings came out SEW cute, and I’ve had so much fun making them with all of the sparkles and fussy embellishments. I hope that the “girls” will enjoy them too. They get SO excited about the yummy treats and fun toys that Santa leaves for them!

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Project #16: Finish the teal, purple, and gray quilt

My “One Monthly Goal” for September was to stitch down the binding, and I’m done. The best news is that most of the marker stains disappeared after I washed the quilt, twice. See my previous post for the explanation of how the marker stains got there. Whew! This was my oldest UFO, which has been lurking in the depths of my closet since some time in the early 1990’s, so I’m very happy that it is off my list at last. Here are photos of the (finally) finished quilt:

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New Projects

“Coffee, Tea, or Me?”, Part 2

This is “secret sewing” for now. I’ve been playing around with a new design for a FPP coffee mug that features a pretty miniature quilt block as an accent. Four mug blocks are finished, and I have two more planned at this time. The pattern release will be later this fall and I’ll show some photos at that time, but here’s a sneaky peek at part of a finished block:

Scrappy Road to Oklahoma

I had a brilliant idea to make a pieced back for my red, white, and blue “Road to Oklahoma” quilt (pictured above), using scraps from my stash. I still have a boatload of red and blue scraps, so it would be good to use some of them! I pieced a pile of double 4-patch blocks during the storm day/ sewing day. And then I changed my mind about the whole idea, since it might be a challenge to quilt through all of those seams on both the front and back sides. So here’s another quilt top, still without the borders that I plan to add before I quilt it:

I dragged (figuratively) my husband to the quilt shop and we found backing for both quilts, red with white stars, so now I’m in business to finish them up. The “Road to Oklahoma” quilt is spiral quilted and ready for its binding. You can see that I have part of it all clipped and waiting for stitches.

My “One Monthly Goal” for October is to stitch down the binding on this quilt!

RSC 2021

The color for September was ORANGE, so I made two ORANGE sawtooth star blocks.

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And I made just two ORANGE string blocks, since I had used up most of my little ORANGE strips for a project earlier in the year –

Here’s my task list spreadsheet for 2021, updated with my September progress:

And my UFO list for 2021:

Happy quilting,

Sharon

Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal October Link-up

Quilting Gail’s September Linky Party