Coulda, Shoulda, Wanna, Oughtta, Woulda

Thanksgiving was lovely.  I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with the kids, and having the majority of the cooking done instead of being the one to do it.  The little boys decided they were going to dress for dinner, so they had suit pants, vests, shirts and ties on.  I keep marveling at how quickly they grow.

I do not shop on Black Friday, because frankly I do not see the value spiritually or monetarily to being out with the crowds to purchase "stuff".  What I wanted to do was work on my Christmas gifts I am making, and start Bonnie Hunter's Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt.  The first set of instructions is published the day after Thanksgiving. 

My challenge was that DH was home and he seemed intent on drawing up plans for the kitchen remodel we have been talking about,  and comparing and shopping for appliances the majority of the day.  Nope no appliances purchased but we came to some agreements regarding a tentative layout.

Saturday (today) DH had to work so I had the whole day to myself to do what I wanted to do.  I worked on some binding.  I have been working on the binding for 3 days now and only have part of one side done! I am just a few inches from turning my first corner.  That is just kind of sad you know. Especially since this is only a twin size quilt. 

I ought to have been working on the quilting for the guild charity quilts I have.

I would have done some FMQ practice, but the sun room is too cold, and my heater that DH thought was "the best" and had traded someone for,  had a malfunction.  I am thinking if it melts the plug between the prongs that it probably shouldn't be used.

I do have the quilt and machine all set up to play though on a practice piece which is about the size of a baby quilt.

I could have started working on more Christmas gifts- I found some simple Christmas tree patterns on Craftsy and am just going to do some Red Work Embroidery on some dishtowels that I purchased. But as you can see I didn't really do a lot with those. 

I did make a magic pillowcase using a tutorial I found on YouTube.  It will be a gift for one of the grandsons.

Love the pattern and the tutorial and think I need to make a few more!
Made a wee bit of headway for the Yellow Brick Road.

 And actually cut out some parts for the Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt.  I found these scraps while digging through the scrap boxes.

I have 12 HST triangles completed and squared up.  Just 268 more to go.  I have about 15 yellow 2 1/2 inch squares cut I have 85 more to go and don't even get me started about the black squares.  :D

What I did do was waste a huge chunk of my day on Instagram reviewing the steps to Lori Holt's Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas QAL and writing them out.

Isn't this just cuteness overload?  Some of the blocks are from Lori's book Quilty Fun, but others the instructions are on Instagram only. 

I think I would get much more done if I stayed off the computer and instagram.  There is always tomorrow!