Merry Christmas!

 The little hearts I've been making are the only gifts I've made this year. 

I've also been making little stitcheries for an international swap I'm involved in. I'll show you what I've made and what I've received next year. No handmade gifts for family members this year though! That was a gift from me to me. 😉 

In honor of the holiday...

This quilt began as a row-by-row round robin in my local quilt guild. I added the sampler blocks down the sides to widen the original product. It was finished in 2008. It spends the holidays on our living room couch. 

During a secret Santa gift exchange in the same guild I received this little embroidered pillow.

I absolutely love it. (It's not as yellow in real life.) 

And with that, let me wish all my friends and readers the happiest of Christmases or whatever you celebrate at this time of year. 😊

Christmas Cheer

 In our part of the world Christmas Day is most often gray and wet. We actually had a white Christmas this year! It began about mid-morning on Christmas Day...

One little rosebud on my Queen of Sweden bush.

 But kept falling the rest of the day and overnight.

It got even deeper after this photo was taken. We're seeing some of the lowest temperatures I remember ever experiencing up here too. It was all of seven degrees Fahrenheit when I got up this morning. Thank goodness our power has not failed! The sun is out now, and while the snow looks heavy and wet I doubt it will be melting away soon. The real problem is the ice underneath the snow. One branch of that rosebush has been frozen to the porch railing. We had to work to get the patio door open at all to let the dog out this morning too. 

We're hoping the roads will be made safe for travel by mid week so our daughter and her family can drive over for our delayed gift exchange. We haven't spent any real time with those grandgirls in two years, for obvious reasons. Our son and daughter-in-law in Arizona set up a Zoom call so we could see the newest granddaughter in action. That was delightful. 

The gifts I received this year were diverse and thoughtful. I was very impressed that my good friend and my sisters-in-law all thought to provide me with safe bar soaps. I'd run into difficulties finding my favorite brand and variety of bath soap in the fall. C~ made a friend through Ravelry who makes soaps specifically for people with MCS. She ordered three bars and a bag of "coffee grounds" for me. The two darker bars have coffee grounds in them (I'm not sure why or what benefit they may offer) and the bag contains shards or off-cuts from when the bars are made. It will be fun to try them out. 😊

The box with the snowman on the lid was chock full of little bars of my favorite soap.

There was also a little box of pins with cute little bird toppers that didn't make it into the photo shoot. The stack of books was very welcome as I'd run out of things to read. Having a lightweight paperback in my hands may keep me from trying to sew again too soon. Brand new paperbacks seem to be safe for me - so far, knock on wood. I sure miss being able to check books out of the library though. That's the best way to discover new authors and genres to read in my experience. And far less expensive! 

The poinsettia plant was a late arrival from my husband. He's been suffering from insomnia and overlooked it when he was rounding up the gifts for under the tree. The poinsettia represents a professional flower arrangement to be delivered each month for the coming year. Woohoo! That really lifts my spirits. 

Oh, and how could I forget?! James felted up a couple of toadstools for a friend of his, then went on to make this for me!

 I wish I could capture the texture better for you. There's real dimension to the log on which the mushrooms are "growing." The leaves surrounding the picture were leftovers from an Oberon costume he'd made some years ago.

He did a very neat job of the back of the piece too. Better than I'd done with an embroidery I left framed in the hoop I used to stitch it!

As we approached Christmas I thought my arms were improving and had hope of being able to pick up a needle again soon. I don't know if the holiday activities have aggravated things or what, but I'm having more pain again which is very discouraging. I'm desperately hoping I won't have to have surgery for a multitude of reasons. Crossed fingers, positive thoughts, prayers on my behalf are all encouraged and welcomed. 😁

Christmas Sewing Finished

At least for the time being. I'm not planning to do any more than these 14 potholders but you never know!

 I actually made 16 potholders, one more set than I really need.

No doubt I will find someone or somewhere to gift them. 😉

I'm having trouble with my new eyeglasses. (They're not that new anymore - got them about six months ago.) We've changed out the nose pads, installed something called a nose bridge, and still my nose feels like it's been bruised at the end of a day wearing them. I cannot function without my glasses. Well, maybe at very close range but that's all. I'll be calling the vision clinic to order up the new prescription for my old frames in the morning. 

I have fallen behind on the #52tags project. I know, I haven't been sharing most of my ATC's for that project here. They go on Instagram when I've completed one and remember to post it. Probably won't be doing much on Instagram after this year. I'm just not a social media kind of gal. I have been thinking about a year-long project for next year though. One piece a month probably, like the Bead Journal Project I did for a few years. I do like journaling through my textile work one way or another. I intend to get caught up with my ATC's for #52tagshannemade but holiday preparations get the higher priority at this time of year. 😊

Joyeux Noel

We have had a lovely Christmas Day. I hope my readers have as well. I meant to post before now so I could wish you all a happy Christmas but life (toxins) interfered as it so often does. In the past we've had our daughter and her family over to exchange gifts. This year we watched them open our gifts to them via Zoom. I'm sure we weren't alone in that experience. We've exchanged pictures and messages with our long distance son and family too. 

This is the collection of hearts I embroidered and gave to the local granddaughters:

Well, with the exception of the yellow one. I kept that for myself. 😉You can see the book I made for the newest granddaughter in this post.

I've been stitching away on the 3 Flowers needlepoint canvas I showed in my last post. There really isn't that much left to do!

One of the reasons I picked up the 3 Flowers canvas was that I'd completed this little Stitch & Zip scissor case just after Thanksgiving:

It's a good size for embroidery scissors. I changed up the colors in the stars a bit but mostly used the floss provided in the kit. 

We have a stitch along post coming up in a couple of days. I don't think I've touched my little book project since the last SAL post. Guess it's time to pick it back up again! Now that the bulk of holiday activities are behind us maybe my creativity will return. 😊

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. 

Two Flimsies in One Week!

Y'all know about my Parts Department. You may also remember I started making postage stamp stars for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge a couple of years ago. Some of those have already gone into quilts but I had a fair stack left still. At one point I made some scrappy 16 patch blocks to go with the rainbow stars. I wasn't sure I had enough to actually do anything with them but last Saturday seemed like a good day to find out. Taadaa!

These are 8" blocks so the flimsy measures about 48" wide by 56" long. I'm not going to even attempt a border to make this any wider or longer. It will make a fun quilt for a small child or a cheerful lap quilt for a Hospice client. I even have enough of some yardage I bought on clearance to make the back. 😊The 16 patch blocks are nearly all gone now. There are plenty of postage stamp stars left but they won't make a rainbow anymore.

On another front, I've been plugging away at some red and white blocks to go on either side of this Christmas panel by SusanWinget that I showed last month.

I'd decided to make this quilt in a horizontal format rather than vertical. I began with more sawtooth stars but with fussy cut center patches this time.

I added the Seesaw blocks to make it more interesting and to use up more of the small scale Christmas prints that had been around forever. Here's the freshly completed flimsy:

After quilting it will finish at about 80" wide by 60" high. There's yet another older Christmas print in red that will be the back for this one. 😀Next up, probably another Halloween quilt!

Two Christmas Quilts

I'm still trying to learn how to get the best pictures with the camera feature of my new phone. I've turned off the flash. Things are still looking pretty yellow. Of course, in this case it could be due to the light print I used in the blocks. It's a sand color, with a yellow undertone.

This will finish at about 64" wide and 80" high.

The blue border is more of the holly print that was the central patch in the individual blocks. I felt there needed to be a bit of blue to frame the nativity panel too so I made a flat piping of the other blue print I used in the blocks.

I've even made a back for this top already. 😀 It's another holly print but in traditional green and red on black. Another print that's been in my stash for years. I did not think to take a picture of it.

The other quilt for Christmas is the one that began with this panel:

I added the candy cane stripe and the red print to the original panel. I decided this one was going to have a horizontal format. All the blocks I make will go on either side of this central panel. I had to establish the height I wanted so I would know how many blocks would be needed for each side. That took a couple of days to get sorted. In the end I found a large-ish scale print that just made me smile when I held it up to the bottom of the panel.

Puppies in presents! 

So now this center section looks like this:

I have these stars so far:

I'm trying to use up my old yuletide prints (and a few new purchases). Turning some of the yardage into Swiss cheese by fussy cutting makes it easier to cut what's left over into scrap patches. 😉 I need a few more stars, and then I think I'm going to choose another block to fill out the width I'm shooting for. They will continue the red on white color scheme though.

Advent Challenge Project

Last month/last year I decided to participate in Susan's Advent Challenge for the first time ever. The goal was to make a block for the quilt of your choice each day of December leading up to Christmas and then to assemble the blocks into a top between Christmas and New Year's Day. I chose a simple block in only two colors (two blue prints and the ecru background) with the idea to use them around a Nativity panel I'd had in my stash nearly forever. 

I did not make a block a day but I did manage to make six blocks per week. Between Christmas and New Year's Day, however, I don't think any sewing of any kind took place. We had the grands over for our gift exchange on Boxing Day and then I watched the Rose Parade on New Year's Day before we began our annual movie marathon. Those are my only two official excuses. There must have been other extenuating circumstances, I just can't remember what they were. 😉

I finally got my act together the other day and put the blocks back up on the design wall with the panel. I really wasn't sure what the final layout would be. Kate left a comment when I first showed this project that caused me to put the panel up in the corner of the prospective quilt top rather than centering it as I would normally have done. 

I knew I would need to come up with compensating blocks or some other method for filling in the gap (wherever it ended up being in the layout). Nothing I've thought about for an alternate layout has taken hold. I want to make partial blocks to fill in that empty space you see on the wall but I'd run out of two of the prints featured in the blocks. Fortunately my LQS still has it in stock so that purchase has been made. All I have to do now is get those small cuts washed and pressed, cut some squares, and we'll be good to go. You may not be able to see it in the photos but that's a medium scale blue holly print in the center of the blocks. I'm planning to use four inch strips of that to border the whole top to make it a bit bigger. I think it's going to finish around 60" x 72" in the end. 

While it feels good to finally be doing something with this panel I've been reminded that controlled palettes are not my thing. It was fine to have mindless sewing to do in the run-up to Christmas but now I'm having to push myself to keep this from becoming a UFO. I'd much rather be building a scrappy quilt. I cut a bunch of background patches for scrappy Ships to sew up between seams as I assemble this top. That will help. I also have a couple of other piecing projects I've begun that I will have to share in the days to come. The trick will be to not let them take over before this top is complete! 

Before I Forget

There are a couple of projects I kept under wraps in the run-up to the holidays that I can share with you now. Although, one will be more appropriate to share with the Stitch Along gang so I'll share that in Sunday's post. 😊

Of course I neglected to take a picture of the pillowcases I made for the four granddaughters. 😒One each, for everyday use, in their favorite colors. This has become a tradition with us. One year I made them Halloween themed cases, another year it was Christmas prints. I hope to be able to keep the tradition going for many years yet.

The biggest gift I made this year was a quilt for our elder son and his wife. It began when I saw this panel from Jason Yenter for In the Beginning fabrics. I had to find an excuse for purchasing it!

Husband would have been happy to have the panel live with us but we honestly have more quilts than we need already. So then the question was whether to make a wall hanging or a couch quilt. The fact that there were smaller companion panels featuring other dragons helped to seal the deal for a couch quilt.

Then it became a matter of how to fill in the areas between the panels. I had to find something that would be quick to piece given the time constraint. This is what I came up with:

The idea was to pull jewel colors out of the panels as if they were part of the dragon's hoard. The gold zig-zag was meant to replicate the Celtic knotwork in the panel. The colors are a better match in person but even so we had a hard time finding acceptable hues. Our local quilt shop didn't have quite the shades of red/orange I was hoping for. There was a wide border stripe available as part of this line. I bought enough of that to make end borders.

Even though the quilt appears square it actually measures at 60" high and 80" wide. James custom quilted this one, no simple meander or overall pattern! There was a lot of outlining involved. It crinkled up beautifully when it was laundered.

You may remember this shot of the back when I was stitching down the binding.

Now I'm told Son and DIL are thinking of hanging it on the wall instead of using it on the couch after all!

I still haven't begun assembling the top I was making blocks for during Advent. I have one or two other quilt projects to tackle in this new year too. Stay tuned!

Post Christmas Post

This post is as much for my own benefit as for anyone who may choose to read this. 😉 Time to process the last couple of days and clear my head for the days to come.

We had a lovely, quiet Christmas Day. Just us three adults. Then the next day our daughter and son-in-law brought their family over. It was a much more boisterous afternoon! But of course I loved every minute of it.

I ended up having a very technological Christmas haul. Not only did I receive a new Paperwhite Kindle, I was gifted a card promising a new smartphone. The Kindle hasn't been strenuous to learn but the phone will function as both communicator and camera (among other things, no doubt). Up to now I've been using separate devices for those functions. My camera has been acting like it's on it's last leg though. This particular Gramisaurus has finally been dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century. But readers should be warned, it may take time for me to master the photographic capabilities of the phone. Consequently, posting may be infrequent for a while. Plus there's the whole matter of getting back into the swing of things after the holidays - which aren't entirely over yet.

In spite of the high tech gifts, probably the most welcome and cherished gift is the ruler rack our son made for me. It was modeled after the cardboard affair I've been using for a frightening number of years. The cardboard dividers had bowed somewhat over time but overall the unit fits my working space and my style so well that I didn't want to replace it with anything else.

Even the maker was impressed with how well it turned out. His girlfriend gifted me with the layer cake of William Morris prints she'd picked up during her visit at the Victoria & Albert Museum this summer. That girl's a keeper! Because of the potential for off-gassing of the layer cake (completely wrapped in cellophane) they also gave me a set of charm squares of the same print collection so I could see what was in the larger set. They're beautiful.

So far I really like the Kindle. It's smaller and lighter than the Nook I had. And the Paperwhite technology really works to reduce eye strain.

The second gift card was for this set of variegated floss from Nancy Turner:

It hadn't arrived before Christmas Day but was delivered the day after, which was sooner than expected. I'll have to figure out a way to put them to good use. For now I'm in heaven just looking at them and fondling them. 😁

I received another handmade gift too, from my friend C~. It's a perfect addition to my studio!

I tried to inculcate our two youngest granddaughters into stitching with embroidery kits I put together for them. Of the four girls they are the two who always ask for the stitching cards to be brought out when they come over for a visit. So I figured it was time for them to graduate to the real thing. I found a couple of cute lunchbox style containers...

And filled them with (what I thought was) floss, a pair of needles in a plastic case, a 4" hoop, cute little scissors, and fabric I'd transferred a simple design onto.

Turns out the floss is more like perle cotton and wouldn't fit through the eye of the needles I'd provided. Or any other needle I could find that would also pierce fabric. {sigh} I didn't want to have to make color choices for the girls so I just went with a big variety pack that divided up nicely between the two kits. Should have looked more closely. Live and learn - apparently right up until the day you die! I was so looking forward to being the one to teach them how to do simple back stitching. Fortunately, I was able to provide them with half a dozen skeins of DMC floss before they left. And our son has gone to their home with them to spend some time; he can show them how to back stitch.

Meanwhile, our daughter had the means to take photographs of each of the girls and turn them into bookmarks for me. Well, I'm supposed to share with my husband but he always loses his bookmarks. He's not getting his hands on these! (Didn't think to take a picture to share, sorry.)

So now I have to shift my thoughts away from gifts and Christmas and find my footing again in terms of what I refer to as studio work. Easier said than done I'm afraid. Especially with a new phone to learn and accessibility to new books to read! And then there are the tedious year-end chores to take care of. Well, they'd be tedious for me at any time of the year but I'd really like to make a clean start in 2020. At least I've had the most toxin-free Christmas I can remember. That was a gift in and of itself, for which I am excessively grateful. 😊Here's to a happy and healthy New Year!

Two Holiday Projects

We're making last minute preparations for Christmas Day around here. We'll actually be celebrating for two consecutive days as our daughter and her family will come over for festivities on Boxing Day. In the meantime I've managed to keep up pretty well with my advent blocks. 😊

You may remember the the challenge was to make a block a day for each day of advent (Sundays excepted). There are two more blocks to be sewn up today. The plan proposed by Susan is to use the days between Christmas and New Year's Day to assemble our blocks into quilt tops. I don't know that I'll be able to keep to that schedule exactly but I plan to give it my best shot. I suspect there will be some additional design decisions to be made as I lay out the blocks and that could slow the process down a bit.

When I pulled out the Nativity panel at the outset of the Advent Project I also pulled out another, larger panel. It's another one I've had forever, intended to be a Christmas quilt for one of our children. All I've managed thus far is to frame it up with a couple of rounds of strips, and I just did that this month.

This panel must have been a second. If you look closely you'll see that the colors are not consistent across its' width. I've decided to just go with it as it is. I've also decided to work on it in a similar manner to how I've been making blocks for my Advent Project. I figure I'll make at least one 8" star in red on white each week until such time as a more clear plan for building this quilt top presents itself. Maybe 'self discipline' will be my word for 2020. 😏Or not. There's still time to make up my mind to such a commitment.

Warm wishes that your holidays are happy ones!

My Advent Project

Apparently, ever year Susan over at Desert Sky Quilting challenges her readers to make a block a day during the month of December and then turn those blocks into a quilt top during the week between Christmas and New Year's Day. I'm sure I must have read about this effort in the past but it's only been this year that it has struck a chord with me. You can make any type or size of block you wish and do whatever suits you with the resultant quilt top. She happens to be making blocks for American Hero Quilts. 

Her post (back at the end of November) caused me to pull out the box of Christmas Parts. A few blocks, remnants from past Christmas projects, and three pre-printed panels from the 1990's (the last century!). The idea back in the day was to make a Christmas quilt for each of our three children. That never happened. I do have a couple of Christmas quilts courtesy of block exchanges I've done with friends in the past, just in case you were worried that we were deficient in that respect. So at this point I figure I'll make one more Christmas quilt for us and then when I'm gone each child can choose the one they want for their inheritance. At least, that's the plan for now. 😉

Two of the panels I've stored over the years are identical. I know one son expressed an interest in it when he was a boy so I've chosen that one to work with for my Advent project.

This is a craft panel, meant to be a small-ish wall hanging.

However, I always saw it as the focal point in a couch quilt. I just never knew quite what how to pull that off. Now that I have years of experience under my belt and a live-in long arm quilter at my disposal some of the previous issues have been resolved. For example, the large open areas that will be created by the block I've chosen to use around the panel can be filled in with lovely quilting done by my son!

I already know it's unrealistic for me to expect to actually make a block a day but my goal is to make six or even seven blocks over the course of each week. So, one block one day and maybe two or three the next.

You can see I've chosen a fairly simple block, although it does contain the possibility for errors. I even went so far as to purchase yardage specifically for this project (!) rather than trying to make do with what I have on hand.

Since I have completed (I think) my gift sewing I found myself between projects as it were. This Advent project prompted me to think about the other Christmas panel and what I could do with it. I have pulled it out and trimmed it and am now considering my options for building it up to couch size. I'm not going to worry about keeping to a schedule or deadline for it but I do like the idea of a block or two a week as a goal. Unless, of course, it takes on a life of its' own. There's no harm in having a Christmas quilt top finished in February after all. That will make for two new Christmas quilts next year, one for our collection and one to give away. 😊