In The Nick of Time

The Grand Old Flag Gathering at Country Sampler is fast approaching, and my rule for myself is that I need to finish last year's projects before I go again this year.  As of this weekend, all projects are done!  One of the projects from Chessie and Me last year was the needlebox shown above, with the sewing roll, sewing book, and scissor fob.  At the Gathering last year, I was able to complete the sewing roll and scissor fob, and got the outside of the box covered.  I wanted to pad the inside of the lid of the box so it could be a pincushion, so I brought it home unfinished so that I could do that.  It took me almost a year to get around to it, but it's done now!  I put several layers of batting under the velvet, and then also added some twill tape I had left over from the kits we received.  The little needle book was extremely time-consuming, with lots of stitching over one thread on the girl, cat and flag.  It's really cute, though!

Here's the box and contents sitting on the three quilting projects.  I can't even remember the names now, but they are all Civil-war related and all are complete!  I'm really looking forward to the retreat again this year. I believe there are still spaces; if you are interested, look on Coming Events on Country Sampler's website.  It's a really fun retreat, and they provide all the food, so all you really have to do is stitch, shop and stop to eat every few hours!  Hard to beat that.

I'm also enjoying the Snapshots Quilt-Along from Fat Quarter Shop.  They present a block each month.  My colors are pretty bright, but I like the way they look together so far.  This month was the Kindred Kitchen apron.

Here's the first five blocks together.  I'm hoping the bright stripe will kind of tie everything together when it's done.  I couldn't resist the paw-print fabric for the basket for the puppy. 

And last but not least, my Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt is put together as a top.  I added the black sashing to calm down the spinning of the blocks, but this quilt is still way out of my comfort zone in every way!  In hindsight, I wish I had used pink instead of yellow as cornerstones, but I'm not taking it apart now.  I like it now that it's together, and it will definitely brighten up the room.  I imagine I'll enjoy using this one in January when it's gloomy.  I don't know when I'll get it quilted - it's pretty big. I think it ended up to be 103" square or something like that, so that will be a challenge on my sewing machine.  Maybe it's time to think about a long-arm!  This was the Bonnie Hunter/Quiltville mystery quilt last year.  I've only done the mystery a couple times, but really enjoy the process, and learn quite a bit from it.  I also enjoyed shopping with a friend to get the fabrics for this one.

I hope to be back next week with my Hands 2 Help quilts!