Finish and get it out of the house

"Finish" was my theme for the past few weeks.  If I get some of my many projects finished, I can get stuff out of my house.  Since I finished my ornaments one week early (yea!) I had time to do extra sewing.

1.  I finished the T-shirt quilt I said I would do after I retired.  I retired 5 1/2 years ago!  It's done and will be delivered Christmas.  That gets two boxes out of the studio.

This is my second T-shirt quilt - many years apart.
This time I made all the shirt pieces measure the same.
You'll notice a couple of the blocks are pieced,
yet still the same size.

2.  When neices and nephews graduate from high school I make them a quilt.  One nephew served in the Navy immediately after HS so I got his quilt partially finished, then put it away because he couldn't carry it around with him.  I did show it to him before he left to serve.  I would find it every once in a while but just put it back in the box.  I found it a couple of days ago while looking for something else and decided it needed to be finished.  He graduated in 2004.  The quilt was completed, even bound, I just wanted to add special quilting in the light sections.  When I looked at what I had done previously, I realized I've come a long way in my quilting!  I needed to finish feathers in two corners, but the style back then was very different from my current style.  It's done and he gets it Christmas.

sorry, not a good photo.  Too much black and cream.
You can see the music fabrics in the photo below.
My nephew was part of the drum line.

The quilted notes are the school fight song.  When I took this photo I noticed
I forgot to include the b flat symbol.  Oops, I'll have to go back and fix that.

3.  30 years ago I did not finish two ornaments.  I would find them every few years, but they just went back in the box.  I know the date because it was on the back with their names.  All the cross stitch was done, I just never put the front and back together.  Who knows why???  They are now done and will be delivered Christmas Eve.

One of the ornaments goes to the nephew with the quilt above.

4.  I did do some new sewing.  I had a pattern to make grocery bags - in CA you have to take a bag or they charge 10 cents each for what they provide - but they are not very cost effective since each requires 1.75 yards of fabric and 2+ yards of fusible.  But they are so cute I couldn't resist since I had time.  Using fabric from my stash I was able to make 11 in time to present to the ladies at Christmas.  (Last year they all got fabric sachets filled with dried roses and lavender.)

There's a lot of yardage here, but my stash doesn't look any smaller.

Thanks for checking in.
Merry Christmas!