Fabric Art in North Carolina

Last week we visited my brother-in-law in North Carolina. While there we visited a shop in Asheville which sold a variety of local artists' work. There was pottery, wood furniture and jewelry, but my favorite was the fabric art. Below are some photos of some of my favorites.

Below is the view from my brother-in-laws deck just after sunrise.

This is the view while the sun was coming up. I think it would make into a beautiful wall quilt.

This is the view from the front yard; a wall hangings in shades of gray???

Kermit Christmas Stocking

Some of my friends have grandchildren or grandpuppies but I have a grandfrog. Angela and Austin have a frog, Killer. While they are living in Spain, Killer is in foster care in NYC.

I had promised to make Austin a Christmas stocking a couple of years ago. He wasn't here for Christmas in 2010 before they got married and last Christmas they stayed in Spain. Since they were going to be here this year, I figured I had better follow through on my promise. I made Austin a Kermit the Frog stocking using a vintage pattern I found on EBay.



The stocking was made with wool felt and lined with a cotton Christmas print.



Another Christmas project...an owl pillow for Jenny.

Polish Pottery Linens

Quite a few of my sister-in-laws collect Polish pottery, so for Christmas I made some Polish pottery themed linens. I used fabric from Mark Lipinski's "Krakow" line.

The hot pads had a simple blue flower on them.

I found toweling at our church's Mission Store and used fabric, lace and ribbon to decorate the towels.

A large trivet with a Dresden plate completed the set.

Christmas Block Exchange

It's been busy holiday season so I'm late at posting the block exchange at our last quilt club meeting. At our December Quilt Club meeting we exchange 12.5 inch quilt squares. I've been making 3 squares and saving one for myself. Eventually I will have enough squares to make a Christmas quilt. This year I used pictures from a redwork panel as the center of my squares.

The border was a variety of red and white squares.

The red inner border was 3-dimensional, folded fabric inserted between the panel and squares.



I received two pretty squares in the exchange. Jan P. made the one below. I love the detail and bright, happy colors.



My second block was made by my best friend, Linda. She used a panel picture for the center and framed it with blue Christmas prints, very nicely done.

Cookies in the Mail

Jenny has been busy baking and I was the lucky recipient of some of her goodies. A package arrived in the mail with three containers of cookies.

The top left container has coconut pineapple oatmeal cookies and apricot almond shortbread. The one on the right has caffeine cookies and rugelach. On the bottom there are chocolate pretzel and potato chip cookies. They are all very tasty. I had to put them in the freezer because they would all be gone before everyone is home for Christmas.

I bought the following pattern to make some hats for our church bazaar.

It didn't take much time to make the four fleece hats. I decorated the side of each with a three dimensional flower with a button center.

Flower Pins

I made flower pins to decorate my friends' Christmas gifts. Because I get bored easily, I used a number of patterns I found online. This is one of my favorites but with all the hand sewing involved I only made one of this design.



Another pattern I found online, but only made one flower.



This was the best flower to construct.



I made two pins using a Clover Kanzashi Flower Maker.



Enjoyed working with the wool felt and learned how to use the Clover tool.

Holly Wreath

On our shop hop this fall, I found a kit to make a wreath wall hanging.



I changed the pattern and made the holly leaves and berries 3-dimensional.



I love to embellish, so I added some green and red Swarovski crystals to the wreath.



I have never applied domes or cabochons before. I tried them by adding gold domes and red cabochons in the border.