Aiming for Accuracy Quilt Project Completed

Aiming for Accuracy Quilt Along Quilt

I joined in a quilt-along this summer and I actually completed all the lessons on time...well almost all of them.  I got to the very last border, a simple strip of Kona white and I just stopped working on it.  I had an obligation to finish another quilt project so I put it down.

When I put things down the momentum to finish just disappears.  With craft fair season and the holiday season coming, I had plenty of good arguments for putting this one aside. So now I have to admit that I am proud of myself. Here it is, just three days after Christmas and I finished it! I put the last border on, made the backing piece and quilted it on Thursday. I finished binding it yesterday afternoon, so really I finished it in two days but I didn't photograph it until today.

Oh crap! It doesn't have a label yet so I guess I am not quite finished after all. Gotta keep that momentum going.

Ceramic Santas

Back in the early 90s I went to ceramics class with a co-worker and her mother and sister.  Over a course of a few years we had a great time making lots of adorable things. Of course over the years as tastes and styles change, many of those things we made are long gone.  The one thing that I did make that had stood the test of time is these pencil Santas, as they were called.  I flipped them over to see that I carved the year, 1992 into the bottom of them.

To reflect the current times, last year I made a garland out of felt balls. This year I thought I would string them up again but I found that they were all tangled up and I didn't have the patience to untangle them. So here they are, surrounding the pencil Santas. Let's just call that an upgrade into the new millenium! I still love to put them out every Christmas season.

Christmas Tree Skirt

I purchased a 10-degree ruler earlier this year for some fun projects.  I thought I would try it out by making a Christmas tree skirt for my skinny tree.  It didn't need to be very large, just large enough to cover the base of the artificial tree.  The ruler can cut pieces up to 25 1/2 inches long.  I used up my scraps leftover from last year and the trick was getting directional pieces cut so that they were not upside-down.  That meant there would be some waste...or so I thought.

I didn't use any instructions, I just decided to start at the top of the ruler and make the strips 20 inches long. They were going to be skinny strips, perfect for the skinny tree.  I didn't do any math, I just decided to start cutting. So I cut 4 pieces of 6 different fabric then commenced to sewing them together using the same order with each set of 6 strips. Once the 4 sections were completed I realized I needed quite a few more strips; 12 to be exact. I started cutting more and that's when I ran into a little trouble. Either I would have to cut some directional strips upside down, or use different fabric altogether.  I chose to do both. I think that made it a little more scrappy looking in the end. 

After I sewed them together I got out some strips of batting left over from bigger projects.  This is one instance where I don't mind sewing two strips of batting together to make a large enough piece.  Unlike a quilt, there won't be much snuggling with a tree skirt, so I don't see the necessity of using a single piece of batting. No one will ever notice.  

Using a square piece of red Kona for the backing, I pinned the top, batting and backing together.  I do not cut the tree skirt shape out when I get to adding on the backing, I just leave it whole and quilt it.  After the quilting is completed, I then cut away the backing.  I used a striped fabric for the binding and added some large red and green buttons.  The trick is using small rubber bands to hook the buttons together once it is place around the tree. I also added 3 yards of large red rick-rack around the bottom for added decoration. 

Now it's under the tree just in time for Christmas.

Tree Skirt in the Snow

Happiness is...

full bobbins

Teacher Gift Bags

I used Sweetwater's Birthday Bag pattern to make a Christmas version of their bag. The Sweetwater pattern came with some premade labels so I stole that idea and printed up some of my own that said Merry Christmas. The Christmas prints are so bright and cheery and once the bags were completed, they seemed like a perfect fit for my granddaughter, Chloe's teachers.  She has two teachers who attend to her class and two teachers' aides as well. So of course, I had to make four bags. I bought the most adorable coffee mugs and filled them with cappuccino mix and some Godiva chocolates which fit perfectly in the quilted bags. Then I attached a tag I printed off the internet and hand-wrote Chloe's name on each tag. I sure hope they like them, they are all so wonderful.

Veterans and Quilts

My church group, the Sweet Sundays Quilters made some lap quilts for wheelchair patients over the last few months. And it just so happens that every December my American Legion Riders motorcycle group takes a trip to the VA Hospital in Milwaukee to specifically visit the Spinal Cord Injury unit of the hospital.  We take with us handmade Christmas cards that were given to us by local elementary school children. The cards are adorable, most say "Thank you for your Service" and "Merry Christmas" in the most eloquently misspelled ways that define cuteness. You can feel the love in those cards.  And what a perfect place for me to take the church group's handiwork.

Quilts and Candy

I have made it a tradition to purchase Hershey's Hugs and Kisses and make little sacks wrapped in red and green tulle and tied with a ribbon. There's nothing like chocolate to make someone's day. Our group spent Wednesday evening visiting with these wonderful people and giving out our goodies in a gesture of good cheer. I took a few photos of those who would allow it. They were thrilled to get the quilts and we were so happy to spend some time with folks who had so many amazing stories to tell about their vast experiences travelling the world while in the military.

A Veteran from Michigan gets a Quilt

A Veteran from Wisconsin gets a Quilt

Quilts for Kids - Packer Quilt

Bailee was excited to join me at a Quilts for Kids meeting a few months back and she grabbed a quilt kit and started working on it.  She completed the entire quilt top using the rail fence pattern and got the binding done in two meetings.  After that, she struggled to find time to finish it. Luckily, I have lots of decent sized pieces of batting so I told her I would put the layers together and quilt it for her.  I was on a roll, I pinned the layers together and completed the quilting in one evening. Since I got it done so fast, I also attached the binding she made.  Quilts for Kids requires machine sewn binding and even though I usually hand-sew the binding on, I am getting used to how quickly I can finish a quilt by machine sewing it on. So it's done and we have another one to take to the next meeting - YAY!

Quilts for Kids - Precious Moments Quilt

I took a Precious Moments fabric panel from the donated fabrics at one of our Quilts for Kids meetings. Since it is so pretty "as is" I thought I would do something a little more interesting on the back.  I grabbed some fabrics that would match and some pink Kona from my stash and made some 9-patch blocks. I then cut them into quarters to make disappearing 9-patch blocks.  I got 12 blocks out of the fabrics.  I added a few strips of the leftovers from the 9-patches to fill in between the rows.  It's straight-line quilted to accent the pretty alphabet blocks. I have so much fun making these for Quilts for Kids.