Hand quilting project not on my 2020 goals - work in progress

a couple of years ago I searched EBay for quilt tops and found this beautiful top that had been embroidered and cross-stitched and already had the quilt sandwich.  It was a preprinted top that had the quilting markings ready to go.  After I finished the gingham sunflower handquilting earlier this year, I started the hand quilting on this one.  Of course it is a much smaller project, about the size of a crib quilt.  But I have made good progress.  Now working on the outer detailed hand quilting, so I probably still have a month or more of quilting while watching tv  .  I inquired of the EBay seller who the maker of the embroidered top was, but he/she had purchased it at an estate sale on the east coast and had no more info.  My deep gratitude to the skilled embroiderer!

Goal 12: various non-quilting sewing projects for new granddaughters

While we were in South Bend last month (where my embroidery machine lives currently), I got around to adding machine embroidery designs to some onesies and snappy shirts for the 2 granddaughters.  (these were sized 6 months, so I had to get them done before they outgrew them.  )
I watched a number of videos about embroidering on knits, stabilizers, needles, etc., as well as working with my Embrilliance software for transferring fonts and designs into the embroidery format. 

Doing this number of projects helped me get more proficient and "automatic" about the process.  Before this I had mainly used my embroidery machine to make quilt labels and only made 3 or 4 a year (my quilt output lol), so every time I had to relearn the process.

Here are the results:

Here is Ori modeling 2 of her shirts:

And here is Elin in one of hers: 

cleaning stuffed animals

It's pretty embarrassing, (I'm not a hoarder), but due to an intown move at a time when I and our family were leading very busy lives, our nanny packed the kids rooms (without really sorting anything), so old and new toys and stuffed animals ended up in boxes and trash bags, and then we just moved things into storage.  now, 20 years later, both kids have had beautiful daughters, and I've pulled this stuff out to see if they want any of the old toys. 
(I've only started on stuffed animals and dolls and baby books.  (there is still a box of puzzles, another of Halloween costumes, and several boxes of legos - another time).

Anyway, so these stuffed animals are 20-30 years old and have been in storage for 20 years  (at least no exposure to covid !)  but some of the stuffed animals had some soiling from years of loving. 

So I decided to clean up the most precious ones.  And it worked!  This Carebear was pretty soiled, as seen in the first "lineup " picture.  And then the next picture is "after".

First I used stainremover spray on the obvious stains.  (spray n wash).  I then soaked the stuffed animals in a sinkful of warm water, with a 1/2 cup of Biz and a tablespoon of Dawn liquid dishwashing liquid.  I let  them soak about 45 minutes.  Then I looked at them and used a brush to scrib any remaining stained places.  I took them out, squeezed out most of the water, and then put them back in a sinkful of clean water and let them soad another 30 minutes.  squeeze out and then another 30 minute rinse.  I squeezed out the moisture really  thoroughly and then put them in the dryer on "casual" with a couple of large towels.  It took about 3 cycles to get them close to dry. 
The bear looks almost like new!