Quilts of 2011

(not yet quilted -- with luck, I will finish hand quilting this in 2012!)

(not yet quilted -- another 2012 project!)

Whew!

After sorting through all of these photos, I'm tired!

And I'm wondering how in the world I did this much quilting this year?!?!

(and thinking that I must be a bit crazy!)

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

Less than one week until Christmas . . . .

I'm planning to finish up a few more of these

(free pattern at Happy Zombie)

and these!

(tutorial by Pink Penguin)

Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!

Another tree skirt

(free pattern at Tall Grass Prairie Studio)

This tree skirt has been in progress for a long time.

It's hard to give someone a tree skirt as a gift -- 

giving it at Christmas doesn't seem to make sense,

because then they have to wait until next year to use it.

My plan was to give this to my sister-in-law at Thanksgiving time,

but I didn't quite get it finished!

But now it's done, and I'm going to mail it soon!!!! --

so that they can enjoy it for at least a few days

before they take their Christmas tree down.

Many years ago my sister-in-law asked me to make a tree skirt

for her family out of some old flannel sheets.

While I know that tree skirt had meaning for her,

I always felt a little bad that I didn't do

 something more interesting with those sheets.

I was just a beginning quilter at the time!

Being able to give her a much more beautiful

 tree skirt makes me feel so much better.

I hope she loves it!
Linking up to Amanda Jean's finish it up Friday --

wonderful inspiration!

And here are my girls after our Church's Christmas program last weekend.
These two were the only 6 year-olds
to specifically request speaking parts in the play --
they did an amazing job and were SO cute as twin sheep!

Holly's Christmas Quilt

 Off to a good start . . .

The pattern is Posh by Chez Moi (free!), found here.

The fabrics are from the Be Merry collection by Riley Blake.

What a fun little quilt!

I cut out all the pieces in one evening,

and had most of the blocks together in a few days.

Originally I had intended to make this quilt larger,

for a double bed, but I ran out of steam.

It will be a lap quilt (aka cuddle quilt!) instead.

My wonderful quilt holder (husband) was wondering if anyone would notice his gloves . . . . it's much colder out now than the last time he held a quilt for me!

But gloves = no complaining, so we went with it!

Christmas Pillow

It's been snowing a little bit everyday lately,

getting us all in the Christmas spirit!

I finished up this little holiday pillow this week,

using the Ring of Stars tutorial by Angela.

Love it!

I'm also loving all the artwork at our house this time of year!

Linking up to:

Finished

Not all trees like to wear skirts -- some prefer tree pants!

I really hope that the Christmas tree we find this weekend will like it's new pants.

The tutorial can be found here -- it's written by Monica Solorio-Snow,

and was featured as a quilt along last month at SewMamaSew.  It's great!

I made mine a little bigger though -- I added a 4-5 inch border around the edge,

and made a larger hole in the middle (for a real tree).

 I quilted this with straight lines echoing the stars,
and then diagonals through the stars.

For the binding I used a candy cane print,
and followed Amanda Jean's instructions for machine sewing the binding.
It worked beautifully!

The fabrics are from the Merry and Bright line by Sandy Gervais,

 from several years ago (I love it so much I still have lots in my stash)!

Now it's time to start decorating for Christmas!