December OMG

What should December's goal be? So many choices! My list looks like this:

1. Get caught up on Flower Patch SAL--had to fix block four, need to sew block six to get current. You'll see in this picture that block four is now looking correct. :)

2. Get caught up on #Trending--need to sew October, November, and December's blocks.

3. Get caught up on Macaron Mystery--at this point, it's only November's clue, but December's comes out tomorrow.

4. Work on Rhododendron Trail--haven't done anything besides choose the fabric. I would love to stay current on this one. I'm just not sure it's feasible with my quilting schedule and other commitments.

5. Sew test quilt--Fabrics are selected, but I need to cut and sew the entire thing. This will be happening this month, but it will not be December's goal since I can't actually share any pictures of it until the pattern is released.

6. Sew together blocks from this year's SCQG BOM. This is a program I ran for my guild mates in 2021. The final block got sent out to members today. I had instructions for 13 blocks and will be using 12 of them in this version.

7. Sew together the Grassy Creek top that is currently taking up the entire design wall.

8. I would love to sew a shirt for myself. I've had piles of fabric waiting for several years now and I just never get it done (because I find fitting difficult and intimidating).

My official goal is going to be option number two: get caught up on #Trending. I am hoping to get much more than that done because I am planning to take off most of this month! I have several more quilts to finish for people and once I finish those, it's vacation time! I have so many things to catch up on, sewing and otherwise.

                    Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal December Link-up

Now that the basement is finished (minus one slider door, which finally got delivered Monday after waiting for months), I need to go through the bedroom where we piled all the stuff, sort through it, put away what I'm keeping, and donate or sell the rest. 

The basement has been a very long project, five or six years maybe? The carpet got installed a month or so ago, but we had to have the installer back to fix the seams since most of them were very visible. He came a week ago Tuesday and it's looking much better now. I asked my son to vacuum since there were lots of little carpet strands everywhere. I about died when I saw the marks from his vacuuming job. Maybe you can see if you look closely?


I decided I wanted to go look at furniture at the local store on Friday. I had a good idea of what I wanted so the shopping part didn't take long. Choosing fabrics was a lengthier process. Of course the colors don't look the same in the store as in your home. I did make a selection the same day and my husband returned the samples Saturday and put down the deposit. In six months to a year I will have living room furniture! Both companies we ordered from are based in Indiana (where I live), the furniture is made in Indiana, and the wait will still be that long. Good thing this is a want rather than a need. We brought a few pieces from upstairs down to use until the new stuff arrives.

I did a work on a few quilts over the past week. I quilted another of Toni's memory quilts. Poor lady, she's gotta be tired of making these. She told me she has one more.

And I did custom quilting on three tree skirts. On the first one, I did cross hatch in all the squares and feathers on the star points. I even got fancy and used three different thread colors.

On the other two, they requested that I only stitch in the navy star points. I felt like it needed a bit more to hold everything together, so I learned how to use the Intelliquilter to stitch in the ditch. The thread looks white in my pictures, but it is actually Glide Mercury, which is a silver color.


Now for some more personal things. I am very sensitive to artificial smells and am allergic to dogs and have apparently become allergic to cats in my middle age. Despite my efforts, sometimes I receive quilts with strong fragrances or an excessive amount of pet hair. My solution has been to have my husband shake out the hairy quilts outside, open my window, and/or wear a mask while quilting. Then I vacuum my leaders and Swiffer and mop my floor to suck up hair and dander. If my leaders smell, I have been spritzing them with this Lysol Fabric Mist to knock down the scents. You can see that my bottle is almost gone and it appears they don't make this product anymore. Do you have a suggestion for a fragrance free fabric mist that does the same thing?

My husband gifted me this lovely HEPA air purifier over the weekend and it has made such a huge difference in the air quality in my sewing room. The difference was noticeable to me within 24 hours. I often get congested or get a sore throat while quilting, due to dust in the air or sometimes the scents or allergens. My symptoms have nearly disappeared since plugging it in. We hit Cyber Monday and ordered a few more for upstairs.

We were able to get our booster shots over the weekend. The only symptoms I had after the first two were a little dizziness, fatigue, and minor body aches. This time, I had a horrible headache the first day. It quickly went away once I broke down and took Tylenol near bed time. My arm was sore near the injection site and I kinda looked like I had some Hulk muscles due to a bit of swelling (kinda enjoyed that, need to make more time to get back into my exercise routine) Monday. By Monday evening, my armpit swelled up and became very tender. It's quite annoying because I can't comfortably put my arm against my body. That being said, getting the booster shot is exactly the right thing to do and the benefits are worth the minor pain/inconvenience (and looking like I'm growing a third boob in my armpit). Please do your part to help end this pandemic. So many lives have been needlessly lost. Get vaccinated, and if you still refuse, then at least have the decency to mask up. Masking reduces your risk 53% according to newly released studies. Please protect those around you. You never know what health issues those around you may have. Save a life. I worry every time my parents go out because vaccination rates and masking are very low where they live. They are celebrating their 50th anniversary this month. Also, my mother would probably be mortified if she read my blog and saw this! 😄

3 comments

  1. Happy Anniversary to your parents and congrats on your basement project being all but completed, waiting only on furniture. I love your son’s vacuuming job. I can relate to that having asked one of my sons to clean baseboards while he was home. ;-). Good for you, scheduling time off this month! I hope you enjoy a wonderful holiday season with your family with lots of personal sewing time for you.

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  2. I really like your color placement on your Flower Patch blocks - beautiful! I would love to learn more about your #Trending block - it looks fun! You have some oh-so-cute fabrics selected for your test quilt! I'm really liking the black background with your Guild's SAL! You play with color in such an awesome way!
    I'm sorry to hear about your allergies! That can be so very difficult to live with, but I'm glad your thoughtful husband found the air purifier for you!
    I'm fully vaccinated, got my booster and then got COVID five days later. Yes, a breakthrough case. However, my symptoms were very mild: it felt like a sinus infection, come "fever" (95.0), come chills and fatigue. Jut under two weeks later, I'm almost back to 100%. Thank God for the vaccine!
    I so loved your photo of your parents! Your sweet Mama's smile lit up my day! Take good care!

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  3. Here's to hoping she does not read it. Again you have a lot going on but I'm confident you will conquer them all. I do not miss vacuum trails. Thank you for linking up to Put your foot down. Hope your arm is better.

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