Friday, December 30, 2016

SNEAK PEEK

 Just a sneaky peek of this long awaited project.  My oldest daughter's mother in law asked me to sew the blocks together for her.  Mom has since passed away.  It remained in my UFO's for some time.  

Its old probably 1930's and not untouched with a couple small holes and stains.  But, it is on its way to the quilter.  Once quilted and bound I will be sending it off to my son in law as a keepsake from his mother.  
Not a complete finish yet, but I'm linking up with:

Wednesday, December 28, 2016

WINTER BASKET LINER

Over the years I have purchased a couple Longaberger Baskets.  This particular one is my favorite.  Great for storing stuff on the kitchen counter.  Longaberger has gone out of business, so you can no longer purchase basket liners from them. They were pretty pricey too.  I like to have my basket match the seasons.  So I decided to make myself a basket liner.  While on this somewhat complicated journey given the two handles that can fold up and down, I decided I had better write myself a pattern for it too.   
I dug through my Christmas fabric bin and found this particular fabric that I thought was equally good for the winter months. 
And some nice green ribbon to gather the liner around the sides of the basket and done.  I think I have another basket that could use a new liner now that I am on this roll.
So I will link up with

Friday, December 23, 2016

FOREST FLOOR SCRAP


I have been working on this scrap quilt for several weeks.  Just a row or two now and then.  It is done.  It will be going to my guild's charity program Warm Wrappings. They will provide the back and quilt it, but I did provide a binding sewn together and ironed in half.  I originally purchased the fabric to make a wall hanging.  See the Featured Post for that wall hanging.
I guess I over bought fabric a bit.
 The strips are 12 inches by and 2 1/2 finished.  It ended up 72 by 80 before I ran out of scraps.  The cream strips are Kona, but I have no idea what color cream.  I should mark them with a tag when I buy them to be able to distinguish the color, but sometimes I forget.  
It is a long coming finish so I am linking up with: 


Wednesday, December 21, 2016

SCRAPPY STASH BUSTER

I am always looking for a way to deal with not only my stash of fabrics, but all the stash of unfinished projects.  So Julie at Intrepid Thread had what sounded like a good solution.  The first assignment was to catalog all our WIP's.  Which lead to my working on one that has sat for too long.

http://intrepidthread.blogspot.com/p/scrappy-stash-buster-club.html

This one piece completed along with three other bits and pieces was dug out of my stash of WIP's.  
I completed the second one with just the third to iron on to its backing and appliqué down.  

More bits and pieces of Holly leaves to add.
And now three leaves appliquéd on and a bunch more to go.  In the end the project will turn into either a wall hanging or a table runner.  Actually one can do both by just adding a hanging sleeve on the back.  So this is one good start on my assignment, so I am linking up with:

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

GIFT CONSTRUCTION

Are you like me and decide to make gifts at the last minute before Christmas?  I suppose I still have 10 days.  I wanted to make this apron for one of my daughters.  I think the fabrics are such fun.  
 The patten seems simple enough.   I have the bottom panel completely hemmed on sides and bottom, and the next panel is cut and ready to go.  If I can squeeze this in between  putting up the tree, addressing the Christmas cards, and finishing my shopping all should work out well.  
At least it is a start with reasonable time to succeed.  So I am linking up with:

Friday, December 9, 2016

CHRISTMAS OF PAST

I took some time on Wednesday and Thursday to start my Christmas decorating.  Pulling out all the wall hangings and throws from past years is always such fun.  This wall hanging was done for a Blog Hop with Gina Martin's Folk Art Christmas fabric a couple years ago.  
This Holly throw was one of the first quilts I ever made.  Hmmmm about 20 years ago.  
The is another Christmas sampler that I made right about the same time as the Holly throw.
And I followed up with wall hanging a year or two later.
Last my all time favorite.  Done maybe 5 or 6 years ago.  So much fun pulling out all these Christmas quilts and decorating the house.  They are truly much loved finishes so I am linking up with

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

CHRISTMAS CARD HOLDER AND MORE

I had the day to myself on Saturday so decided to work on my wall hanging that will hold our Christmas Cards.  It has become a bit of a challenge as I decided to use a different method than the pattern to attach my birds.  I also found that that required me to adjust the size of some of the birds to fit on some of the pockets.  Thank you computer printer that also has a copier feature that allows one to increase and decrease the size when making copies. 
  However by yesterday I discovered I needed  a quick mini runner for my kitchen counter.  What better way to also practice my meander quilting.  I discovered a week or so ago that using 12wt thread worked really well for me.  
The finished quilting job on this little guy.  It is only 14 by 22 but fits perfectly on the end of our kitchen counter.  
I am not so sure the Christmas card wall hanging will get done.  Our calendar is full, but I hope to give it a try over the next week or so.  The mini runner still needs a binding but both projects are at least on their way.  So I am linking up with:

Friday, December 2, 2016

Night Fall Christmas

These last couple of days I finished up my Night Fall Christmas Stocking project.  While cleaning out a tub of ribbon I discovered a stack of mini doilies.  They seemed perfect for this project.  My patch work finished at 2 1/2 inches.


I finished the back off with just a plain fabric also in the Night Fall fabric.

Before constructing the stocking I quilted the patchwork front and back to batting.  The front was done in a serpentine stitch over the seam lines, but I decided to meander the back fabric.  I love using 12wt thread and prefer Wonderfil over other brands.  However I had never tried to do meander quilting with it.  You learn something new all the time, it is wonderful to work with doing that type of quilting. 
So it is Friday and this project is complete so I am linking up with