First Gifts of Chirstmas

Still fairly quiet around here, sewing down bindings and doing some embroidery. I've completed the little book of shapes I've been stitching for our new granddaughter. I figure I can share it here since she's not likely to see it before Christmas morning. 😁

The three basic shapes are appliquéd to the cover with blanket stitching. The cover ended up a bit short of the pages in spite of what I thought were careful measurements. 

The cover isn't stitched any further, just more blanket stitching to secure it to the first and last pages. Well, and a little bit of backstitching on the back cover. I don't know whether you can see it or not.

I just repeated the shapes from the front cover, although not in the same positions! The cover panel and the pages are all backed with a layer of cotton batting so the whole book is soft and squishy. Also washable. 😉

The first and second pages:

The circle is chain stitches and blanket stitches surrounded by Colonial knots. The large triangles are done in stem stitch and the little ones in the background were made with fly stitches and a single straight stitch.

The third and fourth pages:

The squares are more stem stitch with seed stitching in the background. The octagon was also stem stitched, then fill in with straight stitches. I used 8 pointed star stitches for the background. 

And the last two pages:

I believe the heart shape was back stitched, then decorated with fly stitches and more back stitching. I filled the background with cross stitches to represent all the kisses I would give the baby if it were possible for me to be with her. The last page has French knots scattered around the inscription. Overall I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out. 😊

The quilt I built during advent last year has been finished, laundered, and gifted to our son and daughter-in-law so they can use it during advent this year. 

Here's a close-up of the quilting:

And finally, we just gave this quilt to our daughter and her family for the Christmas season:

I believe the center panel is a Susan Winget design. It was a freebie, partly because of the color shift across the panel. Here are a couple of detail shots:

James did custom quilting in the panel and then stippled around the blocks. It's a very cheerful quilt if I do say so myself. And I do enjoy fussy cutting imagery to be featured in the star blocks!  

The next big job is to get the house decorated for the season. We never really go over the top like some folks. I hardly decorated for Halloween this year so I would like to do better for this final holiday season in hopes of a much better 2021.