Slow Sunday Stitching - December 21, 2025

 What a week!  My grandson made it through his finals.  Good grades unless he bombed his public speaking long form speech on the last day, but even if he gets a poor score, he will pass the class. (Speech was NOT his favorite class, and I can't blame him.  I hated it every time I had to take it - high school, college - both degrees - and a couple of rounds of professional development over the years!)  So now on to Christmas!  I can't believe we are only four days out. Where did December go?

Bells play today for the last Sunday in Advent and again on Christmas Eve at the early service.   One of the pieces has a very tricky syncopated section that I only get right about half the time.  I'm praying that the service is on the good side of those odds! 

Crafting has been a bit scant on the ground this week.  Two extra rehearsals in the run up to Christmas services and the end of the school term really cut into my free time.  But I did get the binding for the 80s quilt finished and all ready to go when it gets back from the long arm quilter.   And the design wall looks a bit different this week.

First of all, look at it all mounted on the wall and everything!  Thank you, JC and Carl for plaster anchors and levels and getting it squared away.  Second, you'll notice that all the 'parts of blocks' are now actual blocks except for the 3 inch finished squares.  I ended up with a total of 12 blocks to date.  

I've been thinking about how to approach this back.   The quilt is going to a long arm quilter, so I will need an extra 4 inches on each side of the top dimensions.   The top is 85 inches / 216 cm square.   So the backing will need to be a minimum of 93 inches / 236 cm square.   That's way bigger than my design wall, so I'm going to put it together by the quarter like a huge 4 patch.   

I'm going to set some guidelines for myself:

• No blocks in the outer six inches / 15 cm (so no blocks get chopped off and the binding is easy on the back).  
• Asymmetrical so it doesn't matter where the top lands relative to the back.  
• Bottom left corner - light neutral for name and date label (use that lone rosette to embellish).   
• Use up the bright rose fabrics and the intense plaid first for large sections of backing.
• Three blocks (plus fill in as needed) per quadrant.  May need more.  
• I'm going to try not to worry or overthink too much about the layout.  As Karen Brown says in the tutorial I am using, the only two rules are 'big enough for the quilter' and 'must lay flat'. 

I'm hoping that the back goes together quickly so I can get an appointment with the long arm quilter that I used before.   But I'm not going to make that appointment until I get the back finished and ready to go.  I don't need the stress of an actual deadline on this thing!  Besides, this one will probably hibernate for a couple of weeks until after the holidays now.  The sewing table needs to be clear for gift wrapping and holiday crafting.  This is better than the old house, where the dining room table had to suffice for all of the above plus dinner!

Linking up with the SSS crew (this week's roundup).