A busy weekend

I had the weekend to myself and I think I got a lot done. Chris is away on his annual hunting trip to Nebraska and is coming home this evening with some turkeys and pheasants for the freezer. While he was away I hunkered down with my audiobooks and got some things done.
The postage stamp quilt binding will be done tomorrow just in time to take to the quilt club meeting for show-and-tell. I still can't believe that I'm actually finishing that project! I need to get a label made later in the week.

In less exciting news, I got 2 of my own veterans quilts quilted. I'll bind these this weekend at our club sewing days. I'll probably be able to also finish the rail fence tops that I started last month. That would be cool. That would give me 4 more finished projects before year end. I'm all about padding the stats.

I also made some design process on the Christmas postcards. I do a tree themed one every year and I think I'm going to have trees made from these hand painted silk fabrics on a dark burgundy background.

My friend Anne gave me this red sparkly fabric to make a doll outfit with. There's tons of it so I'm feeling a card featuring a stocking with white felt as the cuff.

You might remember this reject from last year. It might get resurrected. This morning I have to go to the doctor to have blood drawn so I may go to the Joann that's nearby and see if I can find a wide plaid ribbon that could be sewn to the side and I might have 2 tree-themed cards this year, which is not a problem at all. While I'm in that neighborhood I'm going to visit my brother to take him some shirts that I dyed for him. 

I also have to deal with this. Remember when I made the cheer outfit? I followed the directions and used her hook size but I crochet really tight and ALWAYS have to go up a hook size. I should have done that for this project. It's supposed to be American Girl, not American Hooker.

I think I've fixed it. I made both pieces over again using an H hook and I added 1 extra row to the skirt. The extra row was an accident but it can't hurt.  Poor little AG, she must be really cold in that first outfit.

While I was working on the AG outfit I was using yarn from Dollar Tree, Joann and Hobby Lobby. It made me wonder which of the "bargain" yarns hold up best. Since there's nothing I like better than a good research project I've decided to do a test. I'm going to make 4 swatches from each brand of yarn. 1  set will be control, 1 will be machine cold gentle wash and flat dry, 1 will be machine cold gentle wash and tumble dry and 1 will be machine hot wash and tumble dry. I'll each set in laundry bags and run them with my laundry and I'm going to do it 4 times. I want to see how each brand holds up and which ones pill or if all of them are basically the same. That will tell me how to label the donation things that I make and give me some guidance on what yarns to buy in the future. 

So far I've made swatches of I Love This Yarn, Premier Just Yarn, Premier Just Active and Big Twist.
I'm also going to swatch Premier Basix, Lion Brand Pound of Love, Red Heart, Mainstay and maybe Caron One Pound. If I get motivated I'll go to Hobby Lobby and get some of their house brand one-pounder. I think that will cover it for the bargain yarns. I'm not going to order anything that I can't get locally, this project is already a little out of control.

This one is going to take a few weeks. My focus this week needs to be Christmas cards.