Two Projects Finished Just In Time

My family will be here tomorrow for the first of our Christmas celebrations. Their handmade gifts couldn't wait until Christmas Day and I am happy to have just finished them. This initial pillowcase is for my 11-year-old niece. It was fast and fun to make and it should go nicely with her new, more grown up room. There is an initial on each side of the cuff.

Once I had the pillowcase made, I couldn't resist adding a bag to go with it. This bag was made from a fusible SmartBag pattern.  The pattern lines and instructions are printed on fusible interfacing. Just iron fabric onto the fusible panel and follow the instructions. It takes two fat quarters and goes together very quickly.

The pillowcase slides right into the bag.

Her gift is ready to go.

This wall hanging is for my mom. She made the cross-stitch and I made the quilt blocks. I think it's a great collaborative project.

 

I don't know how she'll want to use them so I put it together with options. The ribbon holding them together is held on with a safety pin. She might display them together or she might want to take them apart and display them one at a time.  I also left a loop in the ribbon so if she doesn't like the little hanger, she can just pin it up by the ribbon.

There is extra ribbon at the bottom.

Yeah, I know there are four seasons, but I was only able to finish three for now. I had promised myself that I would not give any unfinished gifts this year. I'm considering this one finished. The missing season will make a great Mother's Day gift.

Now that the handmade gifts are finished, I'm ready to spend a few days with the family.

Merry Christmas!

On the Work Table

Things have been crazy busy the past couple of weeks. My brick and mortar quilt shop, Dragonfly Quilt Shop, closed forever last Saturday. The shop was very busy the last few weeks so there wasn't time for much else. Yesterday, a dear friend helped me move all the stuff from the shop to my house. I am in the process of stuffing fabric and quilting supplies into every nook and cranny of my home. All of that has temporarily limited the sewing time. Here's what the sewing room work table looks like today. There are lots of fun projects in the works.

I'm making six-inch paper pieced star blocks to coordinate with some of my mom's cross-stitch. They will be paired and turned into a separate small hanging for each season. I'll be giving these to mom for Christmas and I don't know if she will have a place to hang them all together. She can choose to display one for each season or hang them as a group.

This next project is just for me! I love this fabric collection. It is Terrain by Kate Spain for Moda. I have been admiring Dresden projects all over the internet for a while now and decided it was time to try one. These beautiful Dresdens will become part of a table runner or wall hanging. I am planning to start a new job in January and the office space is primarily a drab gray. As a wall hanging, this project should brighten up the place quite a bit.

My 11-year-old niece recently underwent a room re-do and her new colors are hot pink, black, and white. This fabric will turn into a pillowcase with her initial on the cuff in just a few days.

These last two projects probably won't make it under the sewing machine until after Christmas. The blue is a set of quilt blocks that need sashing. The red flower is an apron that I will use as a pattern base. My 18-year-old son said he'd like to have an apron so the next step is to figure out what fabric to use for him.

Holiday sewing is fun and frantic all at the same time. My family will be here to celebrate Christmas with us on Friday so that leaves a very small sewing window to complete these projects. I'll share the finished ones with you very, very soon!

Matching Pot Holder and a Birthday

I used the leftovers from my coaster project to make this cute pot holder.

We're making a chocolate chip cookie cake for a certain someone in my household who turns eleven in a couple of days.

We'll be celebrating his birthday all day today. One tradition we have is that the birthday person chooses the menu for the main meal of the day. We're having three cheese tortellini with marinara sauce, fried okra, mashed potatoes, and shrimp cocktail. And don't forget the chocolate chip cookie cake for dessert!

New Christmas Coasters

This is the first time I've been home the Saturday after Thanksgiving in several years. To celebrate, we invited a few family and friends over to decorate for the holidays. I made chili and fixings and there was the constant hum of college football in the background. It was a great day that certainly put me in even more of a holiday mood. After everything was out, one of the kids noticed that there were no holiday coasters. I took care of that right away.


I had some bright Michael Miller Christmas prints left over from another quilt top. There were lots of strips and some other scraps. I decided to make some funky strip coasters. I cut 5" squares of batting and backing fabric. There were enough different prints so that each of the eight coasters has a different back.


I then took all of the strips and sewed them together into one long piece. I did not measure them at all and didn't worry about whether they were straight or right side up.


I took my ruler to the strip set at any crazy angle I desired and cut 5" squares. I was able to get seven squares from the strip set. I had to piece the scraps to get the last one. It is shown in the upper right.


To sew them together, I put a batting square on the bottom, a backing square right side up, and a pieced strip square right side down. I sewed around three sides and half of the fourth side. I like to leave a fairly big opening to turn the coasters right side out. I get frustrated easily when things are hard to turn.


Once they were all turned right side out, I stitched once around the outside about an eighth of an inch from the edge to close the opening. After that, I experimented with quilting them. I tried quilting on either side of the strip seams and near just some of the strip seams. In the end, I decided that the extra quilting didn't add anything to the coasters and settled on an extra line of stitching around the outside edges, about a quarter inch from the first one.


This was a fast project that adds fun to our holiday decorations. There are just enough scraps left over for me to make a matching potholder!

Mom's Cross Stitch

Many years ago, my mom passed along some of her cross stitch pieces to me. She had never framed them and didn't think she would ever invest in finishing them. I pulled them out the other day and decided that now is the time to finish them.


I'm planning a wall hanging that pairs each season with a complementary quilt block.


I enjoy paper piecing and haven't done any in a while so I pulled out a Carol Doak book, 50 Fabulous Paper Pieced Stars.

Each cross-stitch block is about 6" x 10". I'll downsize the stars to be six-inch blocks.


I decided that soft batiks would be a nice complement and make pretty stars.

This may become my mom's Christmas gift.

We'll see how much progress I make in the next week or two.

BOM Top Finished

I really gain momentum as I get closer to finishing a project. Every step I finish leaves me energized for the next. Here is the finished quilt top for the Block of the Month quilt I've been working on.

One of my concerns was that this quilt was going to be too pink. It is not. The gold in the setting triangles tones down the pink just enough. Next step is to choose a back and send this one off to the quilter.

Carry It All Folio Class

The shop was all a buzz last Saturday as a fun group of gals made a Carry It All Folio with Mary Ann Mauney. I love this project and hope to make one for myself soon.


I wish I had taken a picture with all of them open. You can see from the one open on the table that there are some fun fabric options with the pockets on the inside. It is so easy to personalize these by changing up the pocket sizes and by adding embellishments to the outside. If you look closely, there's a beautiful felted wool bird on the outside of the green one second from the left.

I love a class where the students leave with a finished project. Everyone here left with plans to make more. Fun to make and fun to give!