Saturday, December 31, 2011

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!

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

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!

Friday, December 16, 2011

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!

Monday, December 12, 2011

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!

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

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,
Love it!

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


Fresh Poppy Design

Friday, December 2, 2011

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!

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Starflower Quilt

I am completely in love with this quilt.
It's going to be so hard to take this one to the post office!


This quilt uses Jennifer's starflower block tutorial --
my choice for my month as the quilter for the Peace Circle of do. Good Stitches.
This quilt will be donated to My Very Own Blanket.
It was so much fun to have these blocks arriving in the mail every few days!
It was tricky to get the points to line up well --
each quilter had very slightly differently sized blocks --
but in the end I think it's quite a stunning quilt.
I debated adding sashing in between the stars --
but decided that I liked the intense, bright colors right next to each other better.
All of the yellows and oranges make me think of fall,
and I used a yellow binding to keep it cheerful and light!


For the binding, I used Rachel's ZigZag binding tutorial.
I have never been a fan of machine stitched binding -- until now!
I absolutely love this, Rachel!


The back

Linking up to:


Celebrate Color
Be sure to check out all of the beautiful,
colorful fall entries at Stitched in Color!

Friday, November 11, 2011

Christmas Mini Quilt


This little quilt measures 16 X 20.
The fabrics are from the "Be Merry" collection by Riley Blake.
  I hand quilted/embroidered this with #8 perle cotton.


Love this little snow man!

I paper pieced the truck--pattern found here.
If you use this pattern, read the instructions carefully --you'll need to add a seam allowance to each piece -- I found this out the hard way!  :-(

Be sure to check out all of the adorable mini quilts here: