Unity Finished--Post 17; First Finish 4th Quarter

Thread used during the project

After 10 months of stitching on this project nearly every day, I've finished Unity! Actually, I put the final stitch in the project before I wrote this post! This project was a mystery sew a long with Bonnie Hunter. She started it to provide a positive activity during the beginning of COVID. 

All of the fabrics, including the back, came from stash. It is my first finish of the quarter and goal number five on my Finish-A-Long fourth quarter list. Since my last post, I wrote the information on a label from my stash. I've been hand stitching the label, binding and sleeve. I chose to hand stitch the binding to save more of the star points. I was mostly successful. Hand stitching irritated my sore thumb. I stitched one or two lengths of thread per day so I didn't cause more pain to my thumb! My thumb continues to improve. Improvement is slow! It took a long time to hand stitch the binding, label and sleeve!!!!!

This will be a present for our youngest daughter and her husband to be when they marry. I plan to write their names and wedding date in red once they have determined their date. I imagine once the COVID vaccine distribution has occurred, they will be able to set their wedding date.

Label

There is a lot of thread in this quilt. I like to take a photo of the thread I used in the quilt. This time, I have a lot of empty spools to show too! You can't see the blue thread that I used because I used all that I had.

Aside from all the time that I spent quilting this project on my 790 Bernina, I enjoyed the process. I LOVED using strips and squares from "my precuts." My precuts" are scraps that I've cut into useable segments using Bonnie Hunter's scrap saving system.

Over the past 10 months, I wrote 17 posts regarding this project! The other 16 links are listed below:

Piecing: Post 1; Post 2; Post 3; Post 4; Post 5; Post 6; Piecing the back: Post 7; Quilting: Post 8; Post 9; Post 10; Post 11; Post 12; Post 13; Post 14; Post 15; Post 16

I have enjoyed piecing this project. I loved the way the red white and blue fabrics complimented each other as well as coordinated with the neutral background. I love stars in a quilt and there were plenty of stars in this pattern!

Back

You can get an idea of how dense the quilting is when viewing the pieced back. 

I used 19 1/2 yards of fabric which brings the total fabric used from my stash this year to 69 1/4 yards. I have replenished my stash with 33 yards of fabric in the last couple months so in the end I have made a tiny bit of
progress in using my stash! I'm happy with having a net loss of 33 1/4 yards from my stash though! I have a friend who says that when you use something up or clear something out, often something new takes the space. I will agree to that!

It is still my goal to create using from my stash. The year isn't over so perhaps, I'll finish a couple more projects from my list. Perhaps, I'll have more finishes next year!

I'm linking to Oh Scrap the Sunday link up with Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework.

Regarding COVID:

Worldwide: 76.5M cases; 1.69M deaths

Front

United States: 17.8M cases; 317K deaths

Oregon: 100,308 cases; 1,304 deaths

Midnight Friday in the UK, London became a tier 4 meaning that people can meet with one other person not living in their household outside, essential shopping for groceries/picking up take out can continue and people will work from home. This protocol will remain in place and reevaluated after two weeks. There were people who packed quickly to take the last train out of the city to spend the holiday with loved ones in a lesser tier area. Some people got stuck outside of the city because after midnight, flights, train travel, etc. ceased. I hope the measures help reduce the number of COVID cases. Vaccinations continue throughout the country.

In California, the hospital ICUs are full and makeshift hospital ICUs (tents) are being set up because officials predict the rising hospitalization need has yet to peak. Funeral homes are also maxed to capacity. In Oregon, we live in a county that continues to be in the extreme risk category. We continue to wear a mask, stay home if possible and we are planning to have Christmas with the two of us. I image we will have a Zoom session with the family.

Making cinnamon rolls

Today, is our youngest daughter's birthday. We reminisced about her actual "birth" day. It was snowy and the trip to the hospital that should have taken us five to seven minutes, took 30 minutes because of traffic accidents and slick driving conditions. She was born about 45 minutes after I had walked into the hospital. The weather today was 50 degrees with heavy rain.

Today, I made the dough and my husband made the cinnamon rolls. We each felt we had gotten the best end of the deal! We often have cinnamon rolls for breakfast on Christmas morning. This recipe makes a big batch so we shared with our neighbors. The house smelled so good!