Merry Christmas

 

Ahhhh, time to relax. ;o)

I hope you have had a wonderful holiday season with family and friends. 

My whole family celebrated last night. My mom and brother came over today for dinner. Everyone has left and I've poured myself a glass of wine. It's been a busy month and it's not over yet.

So, what did I make? Three sets of placemats. The first set is Chips and Dips by Canuck Quilter Designs.

Love the pattern, hated the binding fabric, it is too busy and too dark. Unfortunately, I didn't decide this until all six were machine sewn front and back. I'll remove the binding and find something else, but it will probably be a while. It took about 1.5 hours to remove the binding on one placemat.

My niece picked the fabrics for all three sets without know what the pattern would be. I was surprised when she selected this pastel rose group of fabrics.

Very girly girl fabric. I made three with the green gingham on the outside and three with pink gingham on the outside. The pattern is called Table Graces by Jean Dunn Designs.

Love this next set.

The pattern is Flipped, also by Canuck Quilter Designs. Very easy to make. I made two of each color.

A few months ago I showed a couple of tote bags that Donna made and gifted to me. You can see them here. I though my mom was going to steal one. Hmmm, what should I get her for Christmas. ;o) I've never made a tote bag with zippers and I really liked the foam Donna used in the bags she made me so when my local quilt shop offered a class for Quilts Illustrated's Boxy Tote I quickly signed up. I thought the class would get me started. It was an intense two day class and everyone finished their totes by the end of the second day.

Mom picked the fabric, but she didn't know what I was going to make with it.

She loved it (whew!).  My niece has submitted her request for one.

It wasn't overly difficult to make but I'm really glad I took the class versus trying to make it on my own...especially since I broke five needles making it! If I was at home, I would have probably quit when the third needle broke. I think the Juki is owed a spa treatment soon.

 

Pathetic Post

I've been doing a ton of sewing but I'm digging for something I can post...hmmm...

Changed my mind on the fabrics I'm going to use for the Grid Girl mystery. I like these much better.

I bought myself an Xmas gift.

Do you buy yourself a present?

Helped my mom put up her Christmas tree.

Yikes! Christmas is one week from today! I still have lots of sewing to finish up. We're celebrating Christmas Eve so I'd better get moving.

Have a very Merry Christmas!

More I Can't Show

Part of me wants to title this post "Ditto".

Not much new that I can show. I did finish what I had loaded on the longarm and added the binding. Hmmm, I don't like it. Mostly I don't like the binding, but it is machine sewn front and back. I decided it would be easier to remake it than fix it. I know! Pretty sad. I have the new project cut out I just need to find the motivation to start sewing.

I did get the next gift loaded on the longarm.

It's about half quilted. You can kinda see the back again. I've been marathon shopping for Xmas gifts the past few days with no time (or energy) to sew/quilt. Hopefully this will be finished tomorrow.

This guy visited again.

Not the best picture but you can see how dark his coat has gotten. I hope it's not a sign of how cold this winter is going to be.

I haven't shown a picture of Bella in a while.

I wish I was as photogenic as she is.

Have you heard of the Facebook group "Grid Girls"? It is hosted by Deb Heatherly and features mystery quilts using Creative Grids rulers.

A new mystery is starting January 9. I'm thinking of joining in and using the fabric group shown above. Fabric requirements call for 2 darks and 2 lights all with good contrast with each other. I have a lot of fabric but not a lot of fabric with yardage greater that one yard. And believe it or not I don't want to go shopping. ;o)

Lots of Can't Show You Quilting Going On

 

This is about as good as it gets...

You can see the backing fabric. I've also made progress on my other two Xmas projects. I'm expecting some new pantographs on Thursday, as soon as they get here, I'll load the second project. Can't wait to show you everything, so far I'm really liking how everything is turning out.

I can show you the wool wall hanging I quilted.

I couldn't quilt it the way I'd planned because the sandwich was quite thick. I had to use my glide foot as my ruler foot wouldn't move across the wool. There may be a way of raising the shaft the foot is attached to but I'm not sure that's possible on my basic little Moxie and I didn't feel like thinking that hard. Whatever, it turned out great other quilting black thread on black wool is a booger. 

I decide it was time to clear out the dust bunnies and hair rats from the sewing room. 

Why is it when you clean one room the nearby rooms become disaster areas? 

See that evil black and white thing in the bottom corner? She has gotten really good at not clawing the furniture (at my house), however she has started clawing the carpet in the sewing room and living room, even though there are lovely large new scratching posts. So the carpet gets covered in throw rugs, towels and small quilts to protect it. I also keep a squirt bottle close by. None of it helps much as she will find two inches of exposed carpet and start digging. Waaaaaa.