Advent Calendar

 One of my daughter's good friends has asked me to make her family

an Advent Calendar.

When she was married, I made them a tree skirt

and she just loves it.

I was honored to be asked to make this Advent calendar for them.

The only thing she asked is that it have pockets in which to put treats.

The rest was up to me.

I looked and looked at ideas and thought about several different options

and finally decided on using this pattern.

The only thing I'm using from the pattern are the patterns for the felt pieces.

 

 

 

The felt pieces have been glue basted to cotton fabrics

instead of felt.  I will add a piece of batting in between

the cotton pieces for the pockets to give them more stability.

 

 

I like tedious work, but this was really tedious!

I was hoping there would be a file to use for the Cricut,

but no such luck.

 

 

 

My silk threads have been found in one of the many

boxes in my sewing room, so I am ready to start stitching 

these pieces down.

 

Once they are stitched down, pockets will be sewn

and I will make a quilt on which to sew the pockets.

It's slowly coming together.

 

 

I am really on a roll working with felt these days!

 

Happy Quilting!

Spider Webs

 This post has nothing to do with quilting

and everything to do with the beauty of God's creation.

 

This morning at church, I was teaching Godly Play

outside and the lesson was on God's creation.

There behind us in the bushes were these gorgeous

spider webs filled with dew droplets.

 

What a wonderful example of God's creations!

 

 

  

 

I was very thankful we didn't see the spiders responsible

for these beautiful webs!

 

Happy Day!

Pineapple Blocks

 The blocks for the Pineapple quilt my husband

is making me make (😊) are coming along slowly

and I'm okay with this.

There are several other projects going on, too, and it's

nice to have one that does not have an end date.

 

 

 

 

For some reason I've been waking up super early a lot of mornings,

so I go into my makeshift sewing room and sew with a cup of tea

while listening to a book. 

And by super early, I mean around 4am.

 

 

I have 49 of the 121 blocks finished

and will keep plugging away at them.

These colors sooth my soul.

 

 

I'm teasing my husband by saying he is making me make

this quilt, since he suggested it would look great on our bed.

He loves it and so do I!

Happy Quilting!

Bucilla Kit Finishes

 This week I decided to get a few things finished and

off of the pile of things waiting.

Two of these things are Bucilla felt kits.

The felt tops have been finished for a while 

and were patiently waiting for the rest of the project.

First up was the stocking for my granddog, Tucker.

If you follow me you know that I make a quilted

stocking for these kits.  The felt backing just will not work

with the things we cram into stockings at my house.

 

 

The quilt sandwich was made, cut by using the

felt backing piece as a pattern (and adding about 1/2")

and then stitched and bound.

The binding for this stocking was challenge

because of the bone shape at the top.

 

 

 

The felt front was stitched to the quilted stocking

and is ready to fill!

The other Bucilla kit I finished is the 

Snow People tree for my daughter and son-in-law.

Here's the finished front.

The kit had a piece shaped like the tree for the back

and required using either cardboard or foam core

to keep the tree from bending.

That did not sound fun to me, so I decided to make

a small quilt and stitch the tree to it.

I love how this finished!

 

 

 

The quilt is just plain white fabric bound in a green

Christmas print.

The tree is hand stitched to the quilt

and ready to hang.

 

These are now ready for Christmas!

Happy Quilting!

Ugly Sweater Dog Ornaments

 I cannot believe we are half way through September already!

Time to crank up the ornament making plans.

As you know, I just love making the Bucilla felt kits.

A new kit this year is the Ugly Sweater Dog ornaments.

I finished up the last three this past week

and can add these to my pile.

 

Each Christmas we do an ornament exchange with my sister

and her family, so I need a number of ornaments.

I love adding them to wrapped gifts, too.

 

 

These are just too cute!

And I'm not a dog person!

This one is my favorite, probably because my daughter

and nephew have English Labs.

My daughters' is black, but my nephew's is blond.

 

 

Here are all of the doggies together.

Woof, woof!

Onto the next kit!

Happy Quilting!

(Or Creating!)

Pineapple Blocks Grow

 I am not one that can make a quilt by pulling out

scraps of fabric from a bin or bag and randomly

sew them together.

Scrappy quilts need to be controlled for me.

In addition,

I want ways that are going to move the process

along for me... make things faster.

 

Making these pineapple blocks without strip measurements

was driving me crazy.

So, as I was making a block,

I measured each piece that was sewn on and noted it.

 

Bins were purchased (2 for $1 at the Dollar Store!)

and strips were cut to the

appropriate lengths.

They didn't need to be perfect, but close to size.

I now have my row of bins with pre-cut strips

and I am ready to go!

 

 

I'm sewing the blocks in groups of ten,

which makes it easy to keep track of how many

I've made.

 

 There are now 30 blocks made!

Only 91 more to go!

 

This is my temporary sewing station,

but I have room for my Ipad with my audio books,

as well as my evening glass of wine on the 

card table next to my sewing machine.

 

The good news is it looks like things are beginning

to move in the renovation area.

My contractor thinks he can begin work in two weeks!

I cannot wait to get my new Hidey Hole!!

 

Happy quilting!

Tucker's Stocking

 Can I just say that my favorite part of Christmas,

aside from the true meaning,

is filling the stockings.

I'd much rather find little things for the stockings

than purchase gifts.

In fact, some years that's what we've done...

just filled stockings.

Now, I can go a bit overboard with the stocking stuffers.

You won't find just gum, combs, candy, toothbrushes,

etc. in the stockings I fill.

 

Since I love stockings so much,

my daughter and her family all have stockings

at my house, in addition to the ones at their house.

Everyone except their dog, Tucker.

 

This year he will have his own stocking at my house, too.

 

  

 

This is a new design from Bucilla for this year.

It was so quick and easy to make!

 

 

 

I wanted to make the dog black, like Tucker,

but I didn't have black felt and wanted to get it done.

Tucker won't mind.

 

 I will make the quilted stocking and stitch this to the front.

This one will be challenging with the bone shape,

so I'll see how it goes.

Only a little less than 4 months to Christmas!

Happy Quilting!

Pineapple Blocks

 After finishing this quilt top the other day,

I pulled out another box with a UFO and decided to

continue working on this project.

Unfortunately, this project had just 4 blocks finished

and a few others started.

I gathered some more fabrics so there is more of a variety,

and have been working on more blocks.

This meant a trip to the quilt shop with the gift certificate

my husband gave to me for Christmas!

 

 

 

 

 These beauties were added to what I already had.

No matter how hard I try... I just can't stay away from

these colors!

 

 

 

 

I am making pineapple blocks using the Pineapple trim tool above.

It's a pretty easy process and the piecing is very accurate.

 

(I am not a paper piecer, but if you haven't seen  

Rebecca Grace's gigantic pineapple quilt, you must!

 It's gorgeous!!)

 

 

Here is a finished block.

(I must put up a design wall somewhere!)

I made 12 blocks with the original fabrics I had and had

them on my design floor.

My husband came in and said that these blocks would make a really

nice quilt for our bed.

What a great idea!

Now I only need 109 more blocks!

(These are 9" finished blocks.)

 

 

It's going to take a while,

but it will be a fun process.

Happy Quilting!

 

Red, White and Blue Geese

 I know I'm not alone in this....

Why do we begin a project, get the most difficult part done

and then put it in a box and not finish it?

Before I moved, I put several quilt UFO's in project boxes

and labeled them, so I knew what was in each box.

Since my stash is still in packing boxes,

I decided to go through these project boxes and see what

I could work on from time to time.

Today's finished top was started months ago

and ended up in a pile in my old Hidey Hole.

Into a box it went.

I pulled it out the other day and all of the parts

had been made.

All that needed to be done was to sew these parts into

rows and make the rows into the quilt top.

 

 

This was a kit from Shabby Fabrics, I think.

For me the most time consuming part was making all of the 

Flying Geese and the square in a square blocks.

These were all finished and waiting in the box.

 

 

It took me two evenings to sew the rows together

and finish the quilt top.

This top will be added to my growing

"needs to be quilted" pile.

I really need to find the box with yardage and get some

quilt backs made!

 

 

I emptied one box and promptly filled it again.

Hopefully I will get another box emptied soon.

Happy Quilting!

Pinwheel Baby Quilt

 It is so nice to have some time to sew lately.

Things will be ramping back up soon as my

mom is going to be moving out of her apartment

and into a senior living facility.

This is the year of the move, for sure!

The other night I wanted some mindless sewing.

I had made a bunch of HST's from a charm pack I had.

Other fabrics were added to brighten it up a bit

and to allow for more HST's to be made.

I was going to make a chevron quilt,

but decided to make pinwheels.

Totally mindless.

 

 

I am bad about measuring block sizes

and finished quilt sizes,

but this is a good size baby quilt.

 

 

Some of the prints have farm animals, 

farm words and farm land scenes.

It's really cute!

 

 

Now I need to find the box of yardage in my

stacks of boxes and finish this quilt.

I'm sure I have something that will work for a backing.

 

 

 

You can see some of the cute bunnies, words, etc. in these fabrics.

This quilt will be donated when finished.

Happy Quilting!

Three Dudes Quilt

 Before the big move, I had made all of the blocks for this quilt..

The Three Dudes Quilt.

(There is a pattern and a youtube video showing how to make this pattern.)

In the midst of my move, I needed something to sew one day

and pulled these blocks out of the box.

I laid them out on my design floor and began sewing them into a top.

Well, somehow between the floor and the machine,

things were moved and switched and everything ended up into a mess.

 

The partially finished top went back into the box out of frustration.

 

Last week I decided it was time to spend some quality time with my seam ripper

and get this top finished.

I put a book on Hoopla to listen to and ripped away.

 

 

Here is the finished top.

Needless to say, I am very happy I decided to rip and

resew these blocks.

The black strips really makes these fabrics shine.

 

 

This is a tricky top in some ways because of all the bias

edges you have once the blocks are cut.

I starched the heck out of the blocks and that certainly helped.

 

 

This is not the border that pattern used, but I don't know

where all of my extra strips are from this top.

These pieces were cut from the left-overs from making the blocks

with the black corners added.

 

I can now check this off of my list and move on to another project

that has been in limbo land.

 

 

Last night I finished the Bucilla kit I have been working on lately.

 

 

All these need are the hangers and they are ready for a tree!

Happy Quilting and creating!

Kristen's Tree Skirt

 My niece was married last month,

so that meant a Christmas tree skirt was needed.

 

I had used the Emilia pattern by Robin Pickens

for a baby quilt recently and really loved it.

I decided this would make a pretty tree skirt.

 

 

I have never made a square tree skirt before,

but I like it.

The real test will come when it's under the tree.

 

 

I had planned on doing something different with the corners,

but it didn't work as I had wanted.

By the time I realized that, I couldn't miter them.

I like the little triangles, though.

Most all of these fabrics were from my stash!

I bought the stripe for the border and one other print.

 

 The multicolor ferny looking print in the upper right corner

is a favorite.  I should have bought more of that!

I have decided to not add ties to this one.

Last year I realized that I don't use mine when putting

it under the tree, so that saves some time and aggravation.

Merry Christmas in August!

Happy Quilting!

 

 

Tidbits

 The summer of traveling continued last week

with a trip to Michigan.

In the last 6 weeks I've been in 17 states,

but I am finished for a while!

I am ready to get back into some kind of a routine

and get sewing regularly again.

While in Michigan, I had some time to do some handwork,

so I took along a couple of Bucilla ornament kits.

It felt really good to have some down time to work on these.

 

 

This ornament is for a friend who has a dog that looks just like this,

minus the tassels!

 

 

 

This ornament will be for my nephew who loves music.

 

This guy will find a home on someone's tree,

but I'm not sure whose yet.

There will be more of these made.

 

 

While we were in Michigan,

we found a really nice gallery shop

that represented a lot of artists.

 

On the counter was a big bowl of glass buttons.

My husband and I had the best time looking through this bowl

and came home with a few of the beauties.

 

 

A pattern and black linen have been ordered to make a blouse

for myself, using the 5 flashy buttons.

I'd like to make a quilted shawl and use the blue buttons,

but I need to design a pattern.

It's been a long time since I've sewn clothes for myself,

so we shall see how this goes.

Happy Quilting!