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!