Sept - Oct - Nov - Dec

I didn't get back into sewing so much in September after the kids went back to school, because that's when I was asked to take on a major leadership role in our church ... one of these days ...

But I did SOME sewing through the end of the year!

SEPTEMBER
September is National Sewing Month and I set a goal to sew every day. I got 10 of 30. Sigh. Of course, on the 15th, I got the leadership assignment at church so that definitely threw things off.

mending: 3

quilt blocks: 4. I made four letter blocks to start working on RG's Extreme Reader quilt (even though I'm still not done with Night Sky).

a skirt for ME!: this was a long time coming. I even assigned it to myself as my last Faith in God pass-off - the children's church goal program that I was the leader for (so I did it myself with the girls, to encourage them along). When we wrapped up the program in September because of transitioning to a lot of new things, I had one week to just do it - park my butt down and make my skirt.

It's brown linen, made with the Anywhere Skirt instructions from Made Everyday. (This is the second time I've used this pattern - the first was for SM's theater costume in 6th grade.) It suggests you use twice your waist-measurement for a full skirt - I did about a quarter more than my waist because I wanted it pretty toned down. I ordered painted wood buttons specifically to go with this fabric, and they're my favorite thing about it.

OCTOBER
Night Sky quilt: the top is 100% done! And pinned in its batting/backing sandwich! HOORAY! It's 60 by 80 inches, so a scaled down twin bed size. And then I set it aside for another month to take care of some other things on a deadline ... sigh ...

other quilt blocks: while finishing the Night Sky top, which took some Tetris skills to get all the differently sized pieces together, I needed to just sew something fast. We had a bunch of cut 4-inch squares left from the "A Doll Like Me" doll quilt project in February, and someone had contributed a bunch of brown. They were just laying around on my table - I think one of the kids got them out - so I mixed the brown with other colors to make what I'm calling a "chocolate checkerboard." To get it big enough for a 48x48-inch back for a jeans picnic blanket, I need more brown ... Checking the scrap bins, and then I'll send out a request to quilting friends to raid their scrap bins. I have 28 4x4 blocks so far. Laid out for the photo, I like it even more than I thought I would!

NOVEMBER
mending: 2

quilt repair: Adam's mom made a quilt for him incorporating his baby blanket. We let RG have it on her bed because it's quite heavy and it acts as a sort of weighted blanket for her. Unfortunately, her autism fidget issue is that she shreds things - paper and ... fabric ... and she was rather extensively destroying the baby blanket section literally one thread at a time before we caught on. So I confiscated it from her and got some large flannel pieces from my stash. They had been intended to be made into baby blankets if we'd had a boy, but obviously that didn't happen so the fabric has just been sitting here all this time. What's left of Adam's baby blanket is now entirely enclosed and quilted under Dr. Seuss flannel and some flannel pieces left from making Adam's pajama pants - it looks kind of new but it's not really. Just a new piece added to an older quilt with some additional quilting.

baptism dress: TA was baptized on November 30, and per our family tradition (let's be honest - Adam insisted on this one), I made another baptism dress. It was down to the wire - I finished it the day before. The pattern was the Oliver and S Pinwheel dress, because of the flounces on the bottom. It's actually two pieces - an under-dress with the lower flounce, and a tunic over the top with the upper flounce. I made the under-dress out of lining rather than cotton because TA likes silky fabrics against her skin. The pattern idea is that the two pieces can be worn separately if the child wishes - this one can't because the lining is somewhat sheer. But that's okay. I can make her another.

It's also TOTALLY typical of this girl to insist that she wear sneakers. She hasn't worn "church shoes" in ... I don't know when she ever did. So Daddy took her to get some new white ones to wear with her white dress. The only thing missing was that she wanted white leggings to wear with it too, because that's her style - dress or t-shirt, a hoodie, leggings, sneakers. I need to get a picture of how she has styled this dress to church since her baptism: the white dress with black leggings, the white sneakers, and a black/silver zip-front puffy vest over the dress with the ruffles sticking out underneath. It actually looks pretty cool.

DECEMBER
I still have A LOT of church work (it's at least three years in this position), and even some editing work ... but WAY less than last year. Just a couple of hours here and there - not rewriting an entire freaking book in two months.

I did no sewing at all this month until Christmas day, when I spent the entire afternoon quilting the Night Sky quilt. And then some more the next day, and I got the diagonal lines done in one direction. I thought about leaving it like that because it looks kind of cool, but Mindy said that she was told that if you quilt only one direction, the quilt will eventually warp. Sigh. So I will go the other direction for the criss-cross. Then fold the backing around to the front to be the binding.