Christmas Stitching

Here are some Christmas presents I made last month. The quality of these photos proves that you really can have too much sunlight in your pictures!

They are not very big. The rectangular ones are about 8" by 4".

The square ones are about 4 or 5 inches square.

They are from a pattern by Bareroots. Small and easy to whip up. I love the detail and quality of Bareroots patterns.

I attached narrow green ribbon when sewing them together to make a hanger. They could be used as tree ornaments or (especially the larger ones) door knob hangers.

Grandmother's Flower Garden

Ever since I finished hand-piecing my tumbling blocks quilt, I have felt the need for a hand-sewing project. I've managed to keep myself busy on long car trips with some embroidery projects, and other small things, but I needed something else. SisterStitches has done quite a bit of English Paper Piecing, and recommended it to me, so I finally decided to try my hand at it.

First I bought a package of hexagon papers (actually, they're card stock). I chose to use 1 1/4" hexagons. That is the measurement of one of the sides, not the width of the whole piece.

I think it was SisterStitches who suggested that I make a plastic template to cut out my fabric pieces. I started with one that was 1/4" larger than my paper template, to allow for the fabric that gets folded over the edge. Then I decided to give myself a little more fabric, and made a second template that added 3/8". I like that size much better.

Here you can see that I've traced my shapes onto the fabric. (Note: it's best to iron your fabric at some point!) Having that template really made this part easy.

This photo shows seven hexagons which have had the fabric basted to the paper pieces. (Yes, I know I'm switching fabrics on you with these pictures; please excuse me!) They are now ready to be sewn together into a "flower."

The back side of one "flower" all sewn together. . .

. . . and the front side of that same flower.

# # #

And that brings me to show you this beautiful quilt. My GrandmaStitches made this for a wedding present for MisterStitches and myself. That was 35 years ago. Hand pieced and hand quilted, of course. I dug it out of the cedar chest to admire it, and then felt bad for keeping it put away like that.

So now it lives on our sofa, and we use it to cover up with while we're watching a movie in the evening.

A beautiful quilt like this should be kept out and admired, don't you think?

I think I can almost remember some of these fabrics as Grandma's dresses.

Mystery Quilt Part I

McCalls Quilting magazine recently had an article which explained a three-part mystery quilt they are publishing. Some of my quilting buddies and I decided to make this mystery quilt. I opted (as did some of the others) to make a Quilt of Valor, so I chose some red, white, and blue fabrics. I really would have liked to use up some of my fabric stash, but didn't have anything appropriate, so I went shopping at one of my favorite quilt shops, The Loft.

Here are the fabrics I chose.

For the first part of the mystery, I made two different blocks. One a simple quarter square triangle, and the other a similar block with only three pieces. Of course, the directions had me cut the binding fabric first. Here are my completed blocks so far.

I'll keep you updated on my progress here. This magazine only comes every other month, so I don't feel too much pressure! Even I should be able to complete the assigned blocks in a two-month period, right!?!

New Sewing Knobs For Cabinet

It was actually quite a while ago that I came across this website for "creative" drawer pulls.

I have two cabinets right near my seeing machine, one with five drawers in it, and one with three.

Now I have such cute drawer pulls! And they somewhat identify what is inside the drawers. So I spend a little less time opening drawer after drawer till I find the right one. I know, you'd think I'd have the drawer contents memorized by now!