Homemade Christmas Presents

Two of my sister-in-laws have baby granddaughters.  I made covers for small photo albums which they can use to show off my cute great-nieces.

 

I crazy quilted the fronts.  This album will hold Skylar's photos.

 

For the family gift exchange, I made a table runner and hot pads and purchased a small bowl and plate that coordinated with them.

 

I made a number of sets of hot pads, this is a pair I made for Jenny.

Ho, Ho, Ho

This is a new Santa wall hanging I using wool felt and cotton.

 

The background, Santa and tree are wool.  The applique is done by hand.  Santa's pompom and beard are a furry fabric.

 

Beads and gold rickrack trim the tree.  The night sky is sparkling with crystals.

Christmas Block Exchange

At the Millington Quilt Club Christmas meeting, we exchange 12.5 inch Christmas quilt blocks. I received two beautiful blocks in the exchange. In the first exchange, I was lucky to get this nativity scene appliqued by Vivian.

In the second exchange, I got another beautiful block, this one made by Sydney ...so many triangles meeting perfectly!

 















                                               

Each year I make an extra block for myself. This is the paper pieced Santa I made for the exchange.

Oven Mitts

I made my friends oven mitts for Christmas.

Amy has a basset hound so I used some Christmas dog print in her mitt.

 

Linda likes ladybugs.  I had bought a cute fat quarter this summer with her in mind, so I used that in her oven mitt.

 

Last year in our Christmas gift exchange I received four coordinating fat quarters from Elaine.  I used them to make four more oven mitts for Cheryl, Pat, Elaine and Dena.

 

I practiced stippling on the last four mitts.  The pattern was altered as I went.  Of course every one's hand is a different size, so I probably still don't have a perfect pattern.

Fabric Challenge

My friends and I had our second fabric challenge. We all received the same pieces of fabric and had to come up with a project using some or all of them.

This is the mini-table runner Elaine made.

 

Linda made a set of place mats.

 

Amy used some of her fabric to decorate some towels.

 

Dena made each of us a tissue holder.

 

Dena also decorated a kitchen towel for me. :)

 

Cheryl used a kitchen towel and the fabric to make an apron.

 

Pat made a Christmas quilt block.

 

I made a tea cozy for my teapot.

 

This is a top view and the pattern I used.

 

It was fun to see different projects made from the same fabric.

Quilt for Skylar

My nephew, Patrick and his wife, Amber are expecting a baby girl any day now. They are going to name the baby Skylar Jade. Her room is painted jade green and blue.  Skylar's grandmother painted a tree on one of the walls and the rug has modern art trees on it.  The quilt I made for Skylar should coordinate with her room.

The quilting was my first attempt at stippling.  I need more practice but the quilting looks OK.

The binding is a striped fabric and the pattern on the back is overlapping dots.

Upside-Down Applique

At the October Millington Quilt Club meeting, one of the members, Jan, showed us how to do upside-down applique.  In upside down applique, you stitch the applique from the back of the project.  After the applique fabric is stitched down, the extra fabric is cut away and the top is finished with a satin or blanket stitch.

I wanted to try the technique but didn't want to spend a lot of time, so I just made a simple snowman.

 

I framed the finished applique.  The picture was embellished with  hand embroidered snowflakes, iron-on crystals, buttons and a yoyo.

Hand Carved Pin

Today is my birthday. One of the presents I received was a hand carved pin from my daughter, Jenny.

Jenny and Angie spent two weeks this summer at the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. They took a class on making wooden jewelry. Jenny carved this flower blossom pin out of a block of black African wood.

She drilled holes into the middle and then set a wire in each to make the center of the flower.

I wear a lot of pins and this is already a favorite.  Thanks so much, Jenny :)

Candle Mat

My friend, Dena, had given me her wool felt squares a while ago. I used some of them in this candle mat I made for her birthday.

 

 I used ultra suede to make the chicken's beaks and combs because were so small.

 

This Halloween oven mitt was a small thank you to Jenny for showing me such a great time when I visited her.

 

Santa Fe Trip

I while back I went to visit Jenny in Colorado. After going to Quilt-A-Fair (great gathering of quilting vendors in one location), we headed south to Colorado Springs.  We shopped at a huge fabric shop and a quilt shop.  Next, Jenny took me to Santa Fe.

The design of the majority of the buildings in Santa Fe was Pueblo style architecture.

 

Jenny and I ate some wonderful Mexican food.

We shopped at the open air market at the Palace of the Governors.  I bought two pair of unique earrings from Native American artists.

 

There were a lot of sculptures all around the city.

We visited the Museum of International Folk Art and enjoyed displays of miniatures by Alexander Gerard.

 

This is the bed and breakfast we stayed at.

 

Santa Fe is know for it's chocolate so Kakawa Chocolate House was one of  our stops.

 

Jenny was a great hostess and I enjoyed my trip to Colorado and New Mexico.

Millington Quilt Club's Quilt for Travis Mills

     This summer the Millington Quilt Club made a quilt for Travis Mills.  Travis, a young soldier from Vassar, lost both arms and legs in Afghanistan in April.  He is an amazing young man, you can read more about his recovery by clicking on the link above.

     Below two club members, Carolyn and Dena, are working on the quilt earlier this summer.

 

This is a close up of the finished quilt.

The quilt was displayed at our club's Invitational a few weeks ago.

Professional Tote

I finally completed my Professional Tote; it had been cut out since June. I'm a procrastinator and don't like to follow patterns!  The 14 pages of instructions for the Professional Tote by The Creative Thimble seemed intimidating before I began.  However, it turned out the instructions were nicely detailed and easy to follow.

This is the front of the tote.  Between the handles there is a zippered pocket with another pocket behind it.

There are pockets on either side of the bag.  I have an umbrella in one of the pockets and the other could hold a bottle of water.

 

The back of the bag has one large pocket with a magnetic snap closure. 

The top of the tote has a separating zipper.

 

Inside there is a large zippered pocket in the center of the bag.  On one side there are pockets for my cell phone, camera and some pens.

 

The other side of the inside has 2 open pockets and a pleated pocket with a pocket flap with Velcro.

I learned a lot using this pattern and will incorporate some of the features in future bags.

Besides the The Creative Thimble website, I found two blogs which were very helpful in constructing the bag.  Colleen's Space has  step by step photos showing how the tote goes together.  There She Sews! has a detailed tutorial on how to install the separating zipper on top of the tote.  (The pattern had called for a regular zipper, the separating zipper makes access to the interior much easier.)

Flowers and Bees

Usually I take a lot of photos of my flowers but they haven't been looking good becaue the weather had been hot and dry.  However today, the blanket flowers were looking happy and photogenic.