I Am So Excited

 I'm so excited!  Texas Braid is a flimsy or quilt top!  It's so  nice to achieve my goal of getting it to this stage.

Lots of scrapes were used to make this top. But, believe it or not, I still have lots more scraps!  This braid pattern came from Bonnie Hunter's book " Adventures with Leaders & Enders".  You can find it here at Bonnie's shop. 

Now to get batting and backing to get it all the way to the finish line!

Plugging Away

I've been plugging away at putting together my version of Bonnie Hunter's Texas Braid.  You can find this pattern in her book "Adventures with Leaders & Enders".   I cut this all out in 2018 when I thought I was going to be making it at a Bonnie Hunter class.  Instead the class was on Texas Tumbleweeds.  

I have finally finished sewing all the braids together.  Now I am trimming them.  I have about half of them done.  Slow going but it's getting there!

So Many Exciting Things

 There are so many exciting things going on!  First off, I was following along with the Haunted Mystery quilt going on at the Fat Quarter Shop.  You can find the pattern for that here.    This is my finished top.  I really enjoy these mystery's!

Next up is Bonnie Hunter's Leader and Ender Challenge for 2023. 

Picture from Bonnie Hunter's blog.

I rediscovered all my Halloween fabrics when searching for fabric for Fat Quarter Shop mystery.  So I'm going to use my Halloween stash for that. The link for the pattern is above 

I also decided that 2024 is going to be the year of Halloween.  I have a few kits and lots of fabric to make my own kits, so that bin of fabric needs to be in the spotlight!  

How about you?  Any exciting projects that you can't wait to get started on? 

Catching Up

 I need to do a little catching up.  I had a couple more finishes that I haven't posted, so here they are!

Finish Number Eight, 

First up is a Redwork baby quilt.  It's a preprinted panel to embroider.  I decided to do it in red thread.  I finished the embroidery quickly and got it pinned and ready to quilt.  And there is where I got stuck.  What color of thread to quilt with?  I ended up going with a silver gray as there are clouds all around the sleeping baby.  I'm not happy with the way the back looks, but it is a finish!

Finish Number Nine is this quilt from "Diamond Chain Quilts".

This was a great challenge as it was one of the first times I had pieced diamonds.  I learned lots of tricks with this quilt, and it was worth it!

So I think this may have things caught up, but I may have some other project I forgot about.  

Experiment

I had an experiment with my bonus HSTs, I found a pattern I wanted to use, so I made a sample.

 I love the way it turned out except for the two star points that were in a low volume color.  I'm not going to rip it out, but I won't use any more of those HSTs in this block.  I really need the contrast to see the pattern.  I need to spend some time bagging up more HSTs for use as Leaders/Enders.  I found the quilt block in a book called "Scrappy Fat Quarter Quilts: Favorite Projects from Fons & Porter"  There are a number of quilts in that book I would love to make.  

Seventh Finish Of The Year

 My seventh finish of the year is this cute little quilt for a great nephew.  

This super simple pattern is from Material Girl Quilts and here's the link.  The pattern is called "Square Dance" and uses a pack of 10 inch squares.  The fabric line is "On The Farm" by Terry Runyan for Benartex.  And of course I ended up messing up one set of fabrics and had to throw in one from my stash.  That's the nice thing about having a stash, I didn't have to run out and buy more fabric.  I'm not even sure I would have been able to find this same fabric as it's been out for over a year.

The backing is John Deer tractor fabric that I had in my stash.  It's flannel, so it makes a nice and cozy quilt. Hope it keeps him warm!

Sort Of A Mini Retreat

I had a sort of a Mini Retreat last week.  I was cat sitting for my son and set up the card table so I could sew. 

 I did sew on the machine a couple of days.  I also had some hand quilting I had been doing and I finished that project also.  I'll have more on that one later as I have the binding cut and pressed.  I just need to trim the quilt and sew it on!