Homemade Gifts - Part #2

Sewing the layers together

Every Christmas I make a gift for my nieces and nephews. This year I used a Happy Hour Stitches pattern for a bowl cozy. The first part of the pattern is easy and fun, but then it gets challenging. It's like making fabric origami.

Topstitching

Turning the bowl inside out was just the worst step. 
And this is my favourite step... finishing the bowl with some topstitching.

Wrapping 

I used camping themed fabric with lovely sayings like "A good laugh is sunshine in a home", "Not all who wonder are lost", and "Camping makes life happy".

Here is a photo of the production table. Each stage of the pattern is represented. 

Stages of Bowl Cozy Construction

I made one bowl with rounded corners, but didn't like it as much, so went back to the square corners. These gifts were a big hit and I have already had requests to make 3 more!

It's Friday, so you know what that means... it's Frolic day! The next step of the Quiltville mystery pattern is posted today. I haven't finished last week's sewing yet, but am excited to see what is next!

Homemade gifts - Part 1

Sometimes I just get weird random inspirations to create things. I don't know why these are the things that were made this year, but I know that when I get obsessed with an idea, I have to make it.
Resistance is futile!


Last year it was a paper pieced Sisyphus, and this year it was an embroidery and selvage project.
The embroidery patterns are by Gail Pan, and include holly, a stocking, a star, a present and a heart.




I added one selvage (which was the selvage of the backing fabric) above the embroidery designs. Then many more red selvages were attached below in a quilt-as-you-go style, so that the quilting was completed as the selvages were added. 

A side effect of this project is that I may have become a teeny tiny bit obsessed with selvages. There are often random interesting images on selvages... look how cute this bunny is! Why does that make me so happy?! 

I don't even know what to call this project since I don't know what it is. It's too large to be a mug mat, but too small for a tabletopper... maybe it's a "candlemat"?
All I know is that it's finished, and the new owner can decide what it actually is! I also know that it contains lots of love and my wishes for healing and hopefulness for 2020.
Tomorrow I'll post what I made for my nieces and nephews.

Christmas is here!

Merry Christmas to all my wonderful blog readers! 

I hope you have a few moments today to catch your breath and enjoy some stitching and/or blog reading. I find the holidays to be quite frantic most of the time, but much less so now that my kids are older. The biggest change is that they sleep in on Christmas morning so I have time to get a nice breakfast ready, read my quilting blogs, and get the food organized for the day. 

Granddog Max has been getting in trouble trying to open the gifts under the tree. He was sneaking right in between the presents and slowly ripping off the paper.
Eventually all the gifts had to be removed from under the tree and put on the dining room table!
Today he will be in his height of glory... it's his favourite day and he loves opening presents.

Don't we all!?!?
Here is a lovely gift I received from Jacquelynne Steeves thanking me for participating in her Happy Little Things BOM! So fun!

I enjoyed making a few gifts for friends and family this season, and will write more about the projects once those gifts have been received.
I wish you a wonderful Christmas and hope you enjoy all the sights, sounds, and treats of the season!

Frantically Frolicking!

I missed Design Wall Monday yesterday (which I never miss!) but truthfully nothing is on my design wall right now. It's just such a busy time, and I really should not be sewing anything that is not essential for Christmas giving, but of course I am!
My sister came over for a quick lesson on the specialty rulers to make the step #4 Frolic blocks. 

We experimented with different rulers, and we both decided to use a different technique. I'm using Bonnie's Essential Triangle Tool, and my sister is using the EZ angle ruler for the HSTs, and the large square technique for the QSTs. All of this mumbo jumbo only makes sense if you are following the mystery.

Here are our blocks after the ruler experiments - my sister's aquas on the right, and my 11 sets of blocks on the left. My colours look so dull beside hers!
This is where we are ... nowhere near being finished this step...
or Christmas gifts! 
Oh well, that's okay, everything that needs to get done, always gets done!

Slow Sunday Stitching

It's Sunday - time for some rest and relaxation. It's the last Sunday before Christmas and everyone is working on frantic preparations, and folks are bordering on nervous breakdowns at the mall, but I encourage you to take even a few moments to slow down and enjoy some hand stitching today. I promise you it will help you to calm down, think more clearly, and be more efficient in completely all the tasks on your to-do list.

This week I have enjoyed working on some projects to give as Christmas gifts, and can't show them on my blog yet, so I want to show you this photo of my friend Debbie's new embroidery floss storage system. 
She is hand stitching the Crabapple Hill Snow Globes BOM, and look how she is winding the floss colours on clothes pins. See how she is writing the colour number on the end? And how she is pinching the end of the floss in the clothes pin so it doesn't unravel... genius idea and so darn cute!

What are you hand stitching today? Are you finishing up some gifts for Christmas?  Enjoy the countdown to finishes and link up your blog post below so we can peek in at what you're doing!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Gifts getting finished!

There are 5 days left to finish up all your Christmas gifts!  I always work on projects to give away right up until Christmas Eve. Whatever I am able to get finished makes me happy, and whatever doesn't get finished, goes in next year's pile!
I have been collecting selvages for a while and made 4 hot mats from red selvages for gifts. They were fun to make in a quilt-as-you-go style. I hand stitched the binding on the back, making it a little longer so I could loop the end over to make a hanging tab.

Then I took them to the local park for a glamour photo shoot, but it was really cold, so the outing was brief and the photos weren't great.
You can't even see the cute little gifts in this photo!

Trying again... that's a little bit better!
Oh well... the idea was great, but the execution left a bit to be desired! LOL
I'm sure the new owners will enjoy these hand made gifts!

Quilters sewing their Frolic blocks!

And guess what today is?!?!
It's Frolic Day - Step #4 is posted. I wonder what we're sewing this week in between finishing our Christmas sewing!?

Frolic Update

Can you believe it's one week until Christmas? Why does December always go so fast?!?
'Tis the season for multi-tasking and this week I was able to eat sugar cookies AND sew at the same time!

Frolic Step #3

We are now 3 weeks into the Quiltville Frolic mystery and for  this step we made HST blocks. 
These block piles don't look like much, but quilters know how many hours of cutting, sewing, and trimming this photo represents.

Here are the result of the efforts so far. My blocks on the right and my friend Sandy's blocks on the left. Sandy is using yellow instead of raspberry/reds and I can't wait to see how our colours look in the finished quilts. 

At this point in the mystery quilt process the accomplishments just look like a bunch of disorganized pieces, but it really is a miracle waiting to happen... just you wait and see!

Design Wall Christmas Tree

Have you been following along with the Temecula Tiny Tree project?
It has been fun to use up these small green scraps in cute little blocks. This is the order in which we made the blocks, but I didn't follow the block layout exactly as the instructions showed. The lime green in some of my blocks really stood out and had to be carefully spaced.

It was an interesting construction method, to piece the rows of the tree, then trim off the whole side on an angle. I was nervous cutting that angle, but it worked out perfectly.

So so cute! I found the background fabric with little green stars in my stash. If you would like to make your own scrappy tree, you can download the pattern here and the block patterns are on the Temecula blog.

Thanks to Temecula Quilt Company for such a happy little Christmas project!
Hop over to Small Quilts to see more design wall postings.

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly link up for hand stitchers! I hope you will make yourself a cup of tea or coffee, and visit the links below for some creative inspiration.



Do you have a favourite hand stitched Christmas decoration that you get out every year to enjoy again? This is my most treasured cross stitch that I made in 1992. It has symbolic meaning for me and every year when I pull it out of the box of Christmas decorations I am delighted to see it again. So many memories are stitched into our projects.

I am putting the final stitches into the binding for a gift that should go in the mail asap.
Are you working on Christmas gifts today?

Link up your blog or instagram post and share what you are hand stitching!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Mystery Overload?

Yes we all know I am a quiltaholic!
And yes I am also a mystery quiltaholic!
I can't help myself and am powerless over the decision to start a new mystery project.
Can't. Help. Myself.
On Wednesday I posted my Frolic mystery quilt update. It has been a slow starting mystery, so I have had lots of time to work on other projects.

Here are some of the Temecula tiny tree mystery blocks. All the blocks are made from green fabrics, which don't look like much now, but which will be made into some sort of tree eventually.


I'm also sewing the Meadow Mist mystery, and the December blocks have been posted, but that's only one step a month, so I'll catch up with that in the New Year. My quilt is in spring colours and I don't really feel like sewing those blocks at Christmas time!
Okay... back to Christmas related tasks... just as soon as I check to see what step #3 for the Frolic mystery is! LOL

Happy Friday the 13th... let's quilt!

Frolic Step #2

For the second Frolic week we made rectangle blocks from neutrals and "raspberries". Instead of using strips, I used up a lot of left over charm squares making these blocks. These are from the "Miss Scarlet" charm pack. If I cut carefully I could get 6 pieces from each charm square. So happy to find a place for these leftovers!

Here are my blocks. The variety achieved when using charm squares is wonderful! 
These first 2 steps have been quick and easy. While I'm eagerly waiting for step #3, I guess I'll work on finishing some Christmas gifts!

Shoo Flies

I'm busily working on Christmas presents, and there is no time for putzing around in the scraps. But I was looking for a binding fabric and unearthed this baggie of batik HST blocks. I have no idea what project they were from or maybe someone gifted them to me, but aren't they pretty?
Squirrel!

I started sorting them to see how many there were that matched. When my children were younger this would have been a job I made them do an educational exercise to learn matching skills. But they are grown up now and refuse, so I have to do it myself. I should have left the baggie closed, but I didn't and well... before you know it, I was making more of those darn Shoo Fly blocks.

49 Shoo Fly Shoo blocks

So then I had to put a few on the design wall to see how the project is coming along. Wow that lion block really jumps out, eh? 

Okay... back to what I'm supposed to be working on.
Don't get distracted.
Focus.
Christmas is coming.

Linking up to design wall Monday.

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to Slow Sunday Stitching! 

We meet here every Sunday to celebrate the art of all varieties of hand stitching. If it involves a needle (or 2 or 3!) and thread, and stitches taken with your hands, we want to know all about it!
This is what I am hand stitching these days ...some embroidery projects for Christmas gifts.  Is there anything more fun than embroidery AND selvages?!?! 
I have a rather large collection of selvages that are an untapped source of enjoyment. Most people call this garbage and throw it away, but as my friends know, I consider this a treasure! Do you know how many wonderful things you can make with this collection of colour and inspiration?!?!
What are you hand stitching today?

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Scrappy Saturday Sprouts

This month I decided to focus on my scrappy sprouts project.  I started making these blocks in June 2015 and apparently I'm really tired of these blocks because I haven't made any this year so far!!  
It's time to finish this quilt ... but how?!?

One of the things I love about being part of the online quilting community is the never-ending creative ideas. Recently I visited 2 RSC blogs that helped me to solve the challenge of my scrappy sprouts project.

Scrappy Sprouts blocks on the design wall

I sewed the blocks into columns and then remembered that Diann over at Little Penguin Quilts added a sashing between the columns of her scrappy sprouts project... good idea. I put some sashing on the design wall. Maybe I need to make a few more blocks?

Then I remembered that Cynthia who blogs at Quilting is more fun than Housework made a wonderful RSC project this year with fruit and veggie blocks, and on the top of her scrappy sprouts, she made a rolling stones block. You can see her wonderful quilt here.

I used Cynthia's inspiration to make a rolling stones block which I think looks like a sunflower. I made the centre section slightly wider than the sides to fit the top of my sprout stalk. I like it!

This week I will work on sewing 2 more rolling stones/sunflower blocks, and then start sewing the columns together. 
Might this be finished in 2019??!!
Hop over to the weekly RSC link up to see more projects being finished this month. 

Sawtooth Stars

The focus block for Barb's block swap this year is the sawtooth star. It is one of my all time favourite quilt blocks so that was a happy choice for me!

Here are some of the pieces cut out and ready to sew. I did not have any luck making the flying geese blocks using the "no waste" method. All of them were wasted because turned out inconsistent and never the same/right size. I gave up on that and went old school method... perfect every time!

Here are half of them on the design wall. The colour is way off... it is actually bright pink, not red.

The next step is to pop them into the mail box and send them on their 550 mile journey to another country to meet up with hundreds of other sawtooth star blocks! It will be an exciting quilt block party where they will mix and mingle with new friends... a very exciting journey awaits them!
Sure wish I was going with them!

One Monthly Goal

Well let's not talk about the fact that I didn't even look at November's UFO project so therefore did not make any progress on it! I didn't even cut the batting, which is a fairly easy job to do. I just got busy with so many other things (squirrel!) and spent too much time hibernating because it's dark and cold.

So this month I'm choosing a project that might have a chance of getting some attention... my Kim Diehl Christmas Tree project. I bought the fabrics and book in 2017 as a Christmas gift to myself. It was such a fun project to sew... I loved the fabrics, the instructions were terrific, the blocks were complicated enough to challenge me but not too overwhelming, and the overall design is unique. I would really like to finish it as a gift to myself by Christmas of 2019!
But I can't decide... does it want to be a tabletopper or a tree skirt?
Linking up to One Monthly Goal.

Happy Little Things Reveal and Giveaway Draw

The finishing instructions to the Happy Little Things BOM have now been posted and it's time to finish up your project! Hop over to Jacquelynne's blog The Art of Home to read all about it.

4 embroidery blocks in the centre of the quilt

This has been such a fun project to make and I especially enjoyed working on the four embroidery blocks in the centre of the quilt. 
That salmon coloured fabric is a hard one to photograph and looks different in every single shot I have taken.

top and bottom scrappy borders added

Here is the quilt after the scrappy top and bottom borders were added. I loved being able to use up all those little scraps from piecing the centre blocks! I had to do a lot of piecing small scraps of the white fabric sashing to get all the way around. The instructions said you need 2/3 yard for the sashing, and you really do! I managed to squeak it out of two fat quarters, but it was tough! Lesson learned... follow the directions!



Here is the finished quilt top in the daylight! 

finished quilt top

The on point grey gingham fabric is perfect for the final border and I was so happy I had enough (including the binding). I was hoping to get the quilt finished for the big reveal today, but ran out of time.

I did enjoy getting started on the machine quilting process. Picking threads is one of my favourite tasks, and I always chose a few spools to start. The soft green is for the bobbin, the cream and the salmon are for the majority of the quilting, and the grey might not actually make it into the quilt.

I have started free motion quilting around the embroidered flowers with the open U shaped foot so I can see exactly where the stitches are going. I hope to finish the quilting this week so hand stitching the binding can be my focus for Slow Sunday Stitching.

So guess what? In addition to receiving the Happy Little Things BOM pattern free, we are also having a giveaway of a Thermoweb prize pack! !

If you like to use fusibles, you will want to win this package (open to US and international sewers). You can enter my random draw by leaving a happy comment below. The winner's name will be drawn on December 8th.
And if you want more chances to win, visit the other bloggers below. You can see their version of the Happy Little Things quilt and enter their draws for up to 8 chances to win a prize (one prize per person per giveaway).

The Quilting Nook
Happy Quilting Melissa
Podunk Pretties 
The Crafty Quilter
Flamingo Toes
Allie-Oops Sweet Happy Life
Kathy's Quilts (that's me!)

A Quilting Life

And for another special treat, hop over to Sarah's Quilting by the Sea blog to see the lovely red and white table runner she made with these embroidery blocks!
You can see more projects over at the Sew Quilty Friends Facebook group.
Thanks again to Jacquelynne for another wonderful quilt pattern, a fun BOM adventure, and for all the wonderful prizes that have been generously offered to our blog readers. 

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly hand stitching party!
Sunday is our day to slow down and rest, to be thankful... and to stitch!

This is the time of year when my creativity is at an all time high. I have lots of ideas for Christmas gifts, and never enough time to make all my brilliant ideas. I have never made bunny pyjamas, but I have made a wide range of gifts over the years.



Today I'm working on a Christmas embroidery design from Gail Pan (free pattern here - thanks Gail!)

Four little designs were finished this week, and only one more to stitch today. I thinking of adding some selvages to turn this into a mug mat gift.

What are you hand stitching today? Are you working on some gifts? Please link up your blog or instagram and inspire us with your slow progress.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter