THE LAST OF THE LAST MINUTE GIFTS

One of my sons and his family are living in temporary housing right now. It's hard on them not knowing how long they will be in one place. Because of that, my daughter in law asked for no toys for the girlies because they don't want a lot to pack up.
This year I decided to give them things that they can use together.  I've gathered together some kitchy things for mommy, and made her this apron and matching hot pad

the girlies needed aprons too

this cookie cutter makes the cutest little hands! I see lots of cookies in their future    : )

I mentioned in a previous post that we are going to have another wedding in the spring.  It's going to be a busy few months!  Here is a fun photo of the two

photo by Nathan Fawcett

When I finished a baby quilt a few weeks ago,  I counted 13 of them ready to be gifted to new arrivals.  As I said to one of my readers a while back...... "do you think that's too much to ask of a new daughter in law" ?   hahaha

Have a fun week with all your Christmas celebrations.
Merry Christmas from our home to yours!

THE NEW HEXAGON--MILLEFIORE QUILT ALONG

It's just about time!  Are you getting excited like me? On January 1st the Millefiore Quilt Along will get started designed and hosted by Katja. Using the hexie patterns from her new book, we will be creating rosettes using the english paper piecing method. This is my 'thing'. I have done hexagons since I started quilting years ago, and have never lost my love of hand work.


These are the fabrics I'm starting with.  Lots of bright prints and a couple of large prints perfect for fussy cutting.  I went through my supply of papers and pulled a few I thought we might be using.
If not, I will copy the patterns from the book onto card stock and cut them up myself.

Something else new to me -- this time I am going to glue baste.  I have always thread basted but sometimes removing those threads takes a long time.  It's faster to glue I'm sure........

Also, Paper Pieces is going to be offering Rosette packages monthly for each of the rosettes if you don't want to copy and cut your own.  How great is that!

Here is a sampling of what Katja has done so far

Isn't it fabulous???  My fingers are getting itchy.  Over Christmas I plan to go through my stash and pull all kinds of fabrics that I think might work for this quilt. What a great way to use up stash   : )

The quilt will be 78 x 78 and you can find all the details on Katja's website.  The link is up at the top of her web page by the green bow  : )    You can click here to have a look 

I hope you will join in. It's going to be fun!

CHOOSE YOUR OWN BLOCK - ALONG

With Christmas sewing nearly done, I took a bit of time to work on my 100 modern blocks. This chapter is all about triangles

#36

#37

#38

#39

I'm four blocks closer to the end   : )

We are closing in on the big day!  How are your projects coming??

linking up with Live a Colorful Life

STOCKING STUFFERS AND A 4th QUARTER FINISH

Just in time for Christmas, I was given a pattern called 'little wallet' by Valori Wells. I whipped up a few as stocking stuffers for the girls.

They worked up so fast.  I enjoy putting hand made things into the stockings so along with their knitted socks, they will each get one of these

they are just big enough to tuck a little treat card into and perhaps some cash

and, AND I finished this pair of socks that were on my fourth quarter list

I had coffee with a friend the other day and was able to gift them to her.  Apparently she's waiting until Christmas to open them    : )   This was by far the nicest sock yarn I have ever knit with.  It's Madelinetosh and the colour is Dahlia.  I need to get more

linking up with finish it up Friday
wool on Sundays

SCRAPTASTIC TUESDAY

I'm still busy scrap busting over here. If it's laying around on my cutting table, I figure it's fair game for my scrap quilt. Bit by bit I'm getting things cleaned up -- one 2 1/2" square at a time.

Block A

Block B

and my blocks so far.  This quilt is affectionately (?) known as Scrap Vomit by I'm a Ginger Monkey. She's made several of these and I can see why. They are addictive !!

I'm still not sure how big I will make this, but I certainly won't run short of scraps!  With working on two wedding quilts I'm making more scraps all the time  : )

linking up with She Can Quilt for scraptastic Tuesday

A MINI QUILT FINISH

The little mini I have been working on is finished just in time for gift giving.

The idea I had in my head was of someone cycling around the old country......

.......and exploring the old houses and shops.  Previous post about this is here 

The bicycle was fun to appliqué, but not easy to top stitch. I guess I should have thought of that !

I did minimal quilting on this. Just a bit of texture on the 'wall'.  It was fun bringing an idea to life with fabric.  Sure hope the recipient likes it too  : )

For a previous swap I was in, I got this cute mini quilt from Nicole.  I had said my favourite colour combo is turquoise and orange ( thus the bicycle ) and my favourite block is the churn dash. She made me this

Those churn dash blocks measure 3 1/2"

I just love it. Thank you Nicole!

linking up to Finish it up Friday 

2 NEW STARTS

He did it!  He popped the question, and she said yes  : )  We're going to have us a spring wedding.
Because the bride to be is somewhat of a cowgirl, I decided the wedding quilt had to be something sort of southwestern and not too girly for my boy.

The girl loves purple, so I have added in a plumb fabric from my stash to go along with the jellyroll I am using for this quilt

I'm using the easy angle ruler to cut the half square triangles for this block and there is NO room for error.  I get exactly the amount of triangles and rectangles I need for 1 block from each strip without a mm to spare.

My camera has become my new best friend. I didn't notice the top two pieces were facing the wrong way until I viewed it through the lens. This is how it should look

 I don't have a pattern for this so I'm making it up as I go along

The other day she came to me with a request.  She had seen a signature quilt on Pinterest and was wondering if she might be able to have one at their wedding.  Sure!  : )  She came shopping in my stash and picked this bundle

It matches her bouquet quite nicely which she also saw on pinterest

.......and so it begins

It's all so exciting and a welcome distraction at the end of a very difficult year.

linking up with Freshly Pieced 

ONE OF THESE THINGS............

.............is not like the other, and Christmas is coming fast!  At the beginning of the year, I decided to knit socks for the girls' Christmas stockings.  This is where I am at

I've been knitting every chance I get to sit down, but I am still slow. I need to finish this one

I want all my girlies to have toasty toes this winter  : )

The black and white pair on the right is from my finish along list for quarter 4. Yay! So is the plumb pair, but I haven't got very far

These four quadrants

became this 24" block for the Heal group of do.good stitches

This was a fun block but very time consuming.  That completes my blocks for the four groups I'm in this month.
Now on to some Christmas sewing!!!

linking up with Wool on Sundays

A SCRAPPY BABY FINISH

A bit of time in my sewing room this week allowed me to get this little quilt finished up.  It started with a charm pack of low volume prints to which I added very small scraps.

The inspiration was from the book 'Imagine Quilts'. I just resized the block

For the quilting I did wavy lines in a light grey thread

The backing is a flannel I bought about 4 years ago. The colours were right for this  : )

 It's not a big quilt at all, but I figure some baby will like it eventually

One more so you can see what I woke up to yesterday---10" of snow!!!

quilt stats:

pieced and quilted by me
A charm pack and scraps
27 1/2" x 34 1/2"

linking up with Needle and Thread Thursday
Finish It Up Friday

EVERYTHING OLD

While in Victoria recently I found this great shop tucked inside a little old house. Everything Old is a treasure trove of a bit of everything you can imagine. If they don't have it, they can likely get it  : )

The reason I went was because I had seen this collection on Instagram

My daughter has wanted an old camera for a long time. I told her if I ever saw one (within budget) I would grab it for her

We settled on this beauty

It's from the Eastman Kodak Company 1903-1912  complete with red bellows

all the little levers and buttons work

She thought it was pretty cool and plans on taking it to a camera shop to see if there might be a way of getting film for it

I picked up a few of these old printing blocks just because

This dress form caught my eye

You actually unhinge this in the front, put it on, press the wire to your shape, then take it off.

What a riot!

Everything Old is right by the ferry on the Victoria side. If you ever have a sailing wait, that is a great place to kill some time  : )

Now back to some sewing.

A MINI QUILT

My little ice cream quilt has been gifted and was well received by the recipient. Apparently her daughter really liked it too  : )

Now it's on to another swap quilt

This one started with a picture in my head.  An old stone wall with a painted door

It's not a door unless it opens, so some iron hardware was added

out from the cracks in the wall sprang some little tiny flowers---as tiny flowers often do

and then someone leaned a bicycle against the wall. Perhaps to visit whoever lives behind the door.......

A little embroidery and some top stitching to finish this off and then I will show you the whole thing.

linking up with w.i.p. wednesday
ntt Thursday