I truly enjoy all things Lori Holt. She does the vintage, farm, homespun goodness that I gravitate towards. Before I retired I placed a reservation on her upcoming Farm Girl Quilt. Knowing I would have more time to quilt once I retired (not really true) but also a sort of retirement gift to myself. The goodies arrived this week.

I have a million quilts all ready to be sewn, but I have learned that sewing is only something one does when they are in the mood. Otherwise you make a lot of mistakes. See how cute and farm like this quilt is.

This quilt is very familiar to the quilt I made and sent to the county fair. Alas I did not win any ribbons (stiff competition) but I still like the quilt.

There will be similar blocks but the colors and overall it will be a different quilt. Besides one cannot have too many quilts.

So starting on January 26th I will start the quilt. I know there will be times I fall behind, but that is ok.

It helps to do a Quilt-a-long as I feel compelled to keep up. I would hate to have the quilt police knock on the door.

More to come later.

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I heard about The Jingle Ball last year but also very confused on how you roll out a whole stitching retreat online. But people raved how fun it was so I decided to take the plunge. This year the Jingle Ball was December 5th thru the 7th. The beauty of Covid is that it created new ways to meet people that was never an option before. So this is a new exciting way people can gather, stitch and learn. The cost to join the Jingle Ball was only $15 but if you signed up for a class it costs more and of course if you bought items at the shopping booth it costs even more. Bet your bottom dollar I spent a small fortune on patterns.

I decided to take one class with the kit. I went with Primrose Gardens stitching mesh bag.

I figured this would be a good introduction to the whole online retreat process. I am a huge fan of Primrose Gardens and their designs. Easy and so darn cute. The class/kit was expensive but it never hurts to have a good stitching project bag in my stash. All the ladies from Primrose cottage came to the retreat. It was their first jingle ball too. When you take a class you have 30 days to watch the classroom video. It is helpful if you want to rewatch a part of the lesson.

Yes I started the project bag, no I did not finish (yet). Stitching inside a bag is a bit more awkward than I thought. Sometimes my hands don’t work that good (arthritis) and it was not going well. I will finish, but not today.

Besides the classes there are stitching rooms you can join, entertainment videos to watch, speed dating, classes, meet and greets, and shopping. I was a little apprehensive about how you do speed dating but it was very easy.

The ladies I chatted with were very friendly and it was fun. I sure we would have been friends if we met in person. The furthest away was a lady from Australia. Most were in the States. The nice thing about the Jingle Ball is that it was open internationally and was 24 hours a day.

I did a lot of the meet and greets, tried the speed dating and watched most of the videos. I did enter a stitching room but it was not my cup of tea. It works great if you go with a friend so you can chat and share.

It was from Friday to Sunday with lots to do. I mostly watched and stitched during the meet and greets. So I got a lot of stitching done. One of my favorite sessions was a man who collected vintage LPs from the 1940-1950’s. His Christmas music was great. I asked him for the playlist so I can create a Spotify list. Love those old Christmas songs.

I excelled at shopping. Most of the booths had freebie patterns only available at the Jingle Ball. A nice gift from the teachers. Speaking of the teachers, there were 12 teachers from the different companies. As I mentioned I took a class from Primrose Cottage.

Steph from Lindy’s Stitches is the creator/hostess of the Jingle Ball. So many great companies like Primrose Garden, Hands on Design, Tiny Modernist, Teresa Kogut participated. I love these designers.

Every year they do an ornament book and the patterns are exclusive for a year. I was thrilled that the book was a PDF since I don’t need another book in my house. They also had last years book. Yes I added it to my cart.

There are many cute designs. The 2024 Santa from Teresa Kogut was just released and I have seen a lot of people do his jolly face. Each of the designers had a shop with exclusive jingle ball releases. I have seen a lot of people on Facebook asking where to get the patterns. Sorry you need to wait a year since you did not go to the ball.

Here are the patterns I got from Primrose Garden. I am hoping to start Winter Rules next.

The Winter Forest Ornaments was a 5 part mystery series that was exclusive to Jingle Ball. I finally got all 5 patterns (one a week). Tiny Modernist rolls out a lot of mystery multi part stitches. I never seem to know about it on time, so I was thrilled to grab this exclusive one from her shop.

Of course I bought from other designers.

Some I already have kitted up and ready to stitch others I am holding onto and will kit later.

Overall I really enjoyed the Jingle Ball and will probably do it again. They do have a harvest one and a spring one but I think the Christmas one is the big event. Maybe next year I can talk my sister into to joining.

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I think I mentioned it before but I am incredibly slow with my cross stitches. I usually only stitch on Saturday and Sunday morning because after work it is too dark and I am too tired to stitch.

This pattern is from Primrose Cottage Stitches and this is one of five new Halloween releases. I like their patterns but definitely cannot keep up with their releases. I actually stitch in a QSnap so it is a slower approach. I don’t really like the stitches when I do stitch in hand. That approach is faster but my stitches look wonky. If I am going to frame something I need it to look neat.

Now I just need to frame this beauty and it will be ready for next year.

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Just on the heels of the summer bucket list (summer be gone) I am rolling out the Autumn/Halloween bucket list. Autumn time is my favorite season. Chilly night, leaves falling, a nice windy breeze, pumpkins on porches, scary shows on Netflix, hot soup and warm tea at night. Ohhhhh my favorite time of the year.

I keep seeing all these cute pictures on Pinterest.

Amen.

But onto the bucket list.

There are a few new items on the list and a few favorites. More crafts this year and less cooking. But that is fine. Gotta mix it up. I will joyfully celebrate the season. I may do things not on the list. Let’s see where this takes us.

Let the leaves fall and the winds kick up and start the bucket list.

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Well I should have started this item much sooner than later. When I went outside to my front yard to pick some flowers, most were dead and gone. Oops, what a difference a few days make. I guess Autumn is right on my heels. I can tell because I actually use blankets at night. Thank goodness it is ending. These days over 100 degrees are brutal.

I did have some roses and a few hydrangeas left so I grabbed those to press. I remember as a teenager taking flowers and pressing them between wax paper and putting them into our encyclopedias. God I remembers those brown volumes of knowledge. Back in the day, before the internet, you either went to the library to look stuff up or if you were one of the fortunate few you had a whole set of these books. Today I can hardly remember my life before the internet and cell phones. As a kid you made sure you had enough coins to call home, you just had to find a phone booth. When you wanted to find a phone number you pulled out those big phone books and flipped through the pages looking for that cute boys number or the local restaurant.

Ok back to pressed flowers. I got a fairly large pressed flower set off of Amazon. It is big enough to do large flowers or multiple layers of flowers.

In my enthusiasm I forgot to take pictures of the hydrangeas.

It takes about two weeks to get the flowers pressed right. So now we wait.

Depending how they turn out, I was thinking of a bookmark, card or mini lantern. I am leaning towards a bookmark but it all depends on what happens with the flowers.

Stay tuned for an update on this crafting adventure.

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I am very close to finishing my bucket list. Just in time to start my Halloween/Autumn list. Lol. These lists help me keep focused and actual do something interesting during the season. I can easily slip into the boring life of work and home chores without doing anything for the season. My life is boring enough and these little tasks give me a little joy.

One of the things I noticed on Instagram was people free hand drawing flowers. Oh how I admire those who can draw freely. I know it takes practice but I was at a loss on how to begin. I did watch a you tube video and it looks feasible but videos are hard. Because you need to keep stopping and starting. One of the YouTube creators actual had a book. I ended up buying the book from Amazon. So glad I did as it is a great book.

There are 50 flowers to learn which are rated 1 to 4. 1 being the easiest.

Don’t these look cute. And so “do-able”. The instructions are so easy to follow.

I definitely need to practice, but with the guides in the book makes the structure so easy. I don’t expect to be perfect first time out but with practice I should be able to draw these more at ease.

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This year I decided to make a patriotic quilt. Generally when I make quilts I tend to lean toward Halloween (of course) and Christmas. So when I saw this pattern I really wanted to make it.

Once I had enough charms I went ahead and started to sew the star parts of the quilt. But once I got to the red and white stripes I ran out of charms. Crap. I dug thru my stash again and hit pay dirt. The quilt sewed up very fast but got a little heavy as I connected the rows together. My sewing area does not have the space to spread out a large quilt so it was a challenge but I did it with a bit of creativity.

Here my brother is holding up the finished quilt so you can see it. If you look carefully at the bottom you can see his dog’s foot. Oh that silly dog has to be in the middle of everything.

Now I have to get it quilted. I was thinking of a bright blue grunge backing. I can get it in the extra wide size so I don’t need to piece it together. For the quilt pattern I wanted something with stars or patriotic looking. I usually send my quilting to Missouri Star Quilt Company and they had this pattern which would work great.

or maybe this one

I am leaning towards the star spangled banner design. Quilting is expensive so I need to budget the cost. I usually put my own binding on to save money but it is not my favorite part of quilting.

I will post a picture of the finished quilt when I get it completed.

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I do not really do anything for Christmas and even more so as I have gotten older. Decorating the house is just too much for me. But I do like the feeling of Christmas so I do little things that don’t require a huge effort on my behalf.

I wrote up this “non bucket list”. Basically meaning maybe I will, maybe I won’t. But it does help me celebrate the season.

I probably spent more time trying to get my old computer to rev up so I could use some of my Christmas pngs to create the art work on this document. Please excuse any misspellings on the document. It fought me tooth and nail that old pile of electronic junk and I ran out of patience trying to get the programs to open and work, more or less typing them out. But I think you get the idea of the things I do during the Christmas season.

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It is my final post on the Autumn Bucket List 2023. Although I finished this project before the deadline I did not get a chance to photograph it.

Again, this is another Primrose Cottage design called Autumn Rules. My sister also did this design as well as the Christmas Rules design. She even managed to mount them on long boards with ribbons and Autumn picks. She did a wonderful job. Ahh to be retired and have some extra time.

It is a little hard to see the design so here are some closeups. I used a Lugana fabric which is so easy to stitch on.

I just need to finish this project. I have the board but I need to choose a background fabric and use some autumn picks and ribbon. But no rush since Autumn is officially over. Hopefully I can do the Christmas Rules next year. So much to stitch, so little time. But now I am all about Christmas activities now so I closing out my Autumn Bucket list for 2023.

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Halloween is my favorite holiday, all the pumpkins and bats are exciting to me. So it comes as no surprise that I cross stitch Halloween designs.

I decided to do a couple of Primrose cottage designs. The first is the Salem Sisters Apothecary on linen. I was hoping to get the frame from Etsy but it sells out before I even have a chance to see it on sale.

Then I decided to do a bunch of smalls from Primrose Cottage book called 13 Halloween Smalls. I just did 6 of them. Not sure if I am going to make ornaments, small pillows for a dough bowl or frame them.

These were quick and easy to stitch up. Maybe next year I can do the other ones in the book.

Now I am off stitching up Christmas designs.

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