End of Year!

It's hard to believe the year is almost over, isn't it? It's been a busy month for me with LOTS of gift making and party/luncheon attending - but SO much fun!  One of the funnest things I made was this cute little Dresden Plate that measures only 2" across!

I call it a fashion accessory for a vintage sewing machine and I sent it to my mom to use on her old Singer 301. Blue is her favorite color. I forgot to put a note in the box explaining to her what it's for, so it'll be interesting to see if she can figure it out before I call her! LOL  I really, really want to make a little quilt with these blocks now, but I need to find a 30* ruler to make cutting the blades easier - anyone know who makes one? You can find the tutorial for making your own HERE and you can see more color combinations and step by step instructions.

I made a few other gifts for my rug groups - a set of quilted zipper bags - - - -

- - - - and some quilted key fobs. (tutorial HERE)

I made myself a different version by paper piecing a long string of flying geese.

One of my groups had a wooly ornament exchange and these were all the wonderful items that were made for that.

Janet's son works for a company that makes high end messenger bags and journals using very dense 1/4" felt that costs $144/yd. He saves all the tiny scraps for her and she made this four-sided ornament using some of them.

My local quilt store has been doing a weekly giveaway on their Facebook page and I was lucky enough to be one of their winners. I received a yard of this lovely Jo Morton fabric - they even mailed it right to my house!

Some of the rugs projects I've seen this month include a couple of finished rugs by Sandy and Coralee.

Sandy started a new Santa rug.

Myra is replicating a photograph to make this wonderful landscape rug as a gift for her aunt. The moose were added from her imagination!

Nancy finished up this cute pillow using mostly leftover worms from her stash.

And she has begun a new floral.

I do a lot of string piecing when I quilt, and I usually just use thread snips to cut apart the sections as they come out of the machine. But when I saw this new gizmo I could see how helpful it would be, so I ordered one for myself.

It works great!

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas! That's what I plan on doing!

Just a Couple of Things

I'm attending a baby shower for my niece on Saturday so I made her a cute little quilt for her baby girl. I think I'm getting pretty good at making these modern quilts that are WAY out of my comfort zone!  This one was very easy to do - just one big star block and a few flying geese.

I added the baby's name to the back - have never heard this one before! It rhymes with Navy.

Straight line quilting made it pretty fast to do.

I saw this old hooked rug at an antique store today. It was about 30" x 50" with a $40 price tag.

Fun to flip it over and see how bright the colors used to be. Don't see these for sale in Utah very often. I did not bring it home with me!

...

Working on Tiny!

I recently saw the picture of a churn dash quilt that caught my attention and I decided to replicate it on a tiny scale. These blocks will measure about 1-3/4" when sewn together - talk about fun! I think I'm glad there are only twelve of these little treasures.

I finished my hit & miss mat awhile ago. Need to get something else started so I'll have a project to take to my rug group meetings next month!

A couple weeks ago Nancy was making progress on this flower rug - it's probably completed by now. It kinda reminds me of a poinsettia because of the shape of the petals.

Nancy's daughter Kathryn stopped by to show us a rug she had recently made for her table. It's her own design with words and symbols of personal significance hooked into the background.

Hope you all have a nice Thanksgiving!

Dibs & Dabs

I have finished appliqueing the wool pennies onto these blocks, and I've got them all sewn together. Now I need to add more pennies at the corners where the blocks meet, and find a good fabric for the border - I don't seem to have a piece that will work in my stash - imagine that! Guess I'll have to go shopping! LOL

I met a gal who makes and donates small quilts to her local Ronald McDonald House in Texas. I have sent her blocks before, but last week I made a couple of scrappy tops to send. I found wonderful fabrics on clearance for the backing & binding to accompany them - she will layer them and quilt them and deliver them. Such a good project! If any of you are interested in sending orphan blocks or tops or supplies, I can send you her address. She prefers 10" blocks so the backing doesn't need to be pieced.

I have discovered a new author that I like thanks to the suggestion of my friend Terri. These are murder mysteries and feature London police officers who are married to each other, as well as their friends, family & co-workers. I haven't read them in order, but that would be the best way to do it. Maybe you'll like them too!

On occasion I've been working on a new denim quilt. I'm in love with hexies, and this is a version of one that's new to me. I put the word out to my kids asking for old denim jeans, so as I receive them, I cut the hexagons and then cut larger hexies from homespun plaids. There is no batting in this - the edges are folded over and stitched. Then the hexies are butted up next to each other and joined by a decorative machine stitch. Not sure how large this will end up, depends on how quickly I tire of it!

I'm getting close to a finish on my 20" hit & miss mat. Only about 2" left to go on one side.

On Tuesday I met with my group of hooking friends and there was some great show & tell! Sharon had finished this small mat - she will back it with a nice piece of wool.

Sandy is filling in the background on this Susan Quicksall floral design - lovely colors!

Coralee is also working on the background of her Cranberry Gobbler.

Tonia has made arrangements with an antique dealer to make this rug for him in exchange for some nice antiques - it's looking great! It depicts the Kirkland Temple.

And the two bicycles below are SO fun to see side by side! This is a Polly Minick pattern. Jeanette is staying true to the original with an Americana color scheme.......

.....while Kim is switching it up by omitting the star border and doing her own color planning.

It was decided that at our December meeting we will exchange wooly ornaments - either hooked, or appliqued, or even needle punched. Can't wait to see what everyone comes up with! Hope you all had a nice Halloween - our trick-or-treaters were nearly non-existent this year - only 4 small groups came to our door - much different than it was when our children were small and we handed out hundreds of pieces of  candy!

Home Again

I returned to Utah on Thursday night from visiting my family in California. I took this stitching project to work on during the 12 hour (each way) drive and I did a bit more while I was there. The pattern is a design from Lisa Bongean and was in a recent issue of AP&Q. Lisa used flannel for her background fabrics, but I'm using regular cotton instead. Would have been a LOT faster and easier to cut the pennies with a die cut machine, but I used my trusty old scissors. Whew! Lots of variety in the colors of wool I used. Bought a few colors of DMC perle cotton to stitch with. I usually use crochet thread and it didn't really seem that different to me. I guess it's the variegated thread that makes the expensive stuff more desireable. There will be twelve blocks total when I'm finished - these still need to be pressed & trimmed to size so they look kind of distorted here.

On Saturday I attended our Guild's Hook-In and won this darling pumpkin man that was one of the door prizes. He's even cuter in person. Thanks Tonia!

Before going to California, I joined with the gals who always meet on the 1st Tuesday of each month. I'm making progress on my hit & miss rug.

There were some great projects being worked on. Coralee saw a metal sculpture while on vacation in Washington State and was inspired to hook her own version of a Cranberry Gobbler - very whimsical!

Sandy had her Day of the Dead rug completed......

......and was beginning work on a new floral (sorry for the crummy back-lit photo)

Sharon had finished a wild turkey done in needle punch.

And Stacy was punching a happy sunflower.

I seem to have missed several other rugs so hopefully I'll grab them next time.

Lots of Quilts (and a few rugs)

I've had the hand piecing done on this little hexie star for a couple months. Finally asked my son-in-law to make a frame for it out of lumber that I provided, and he whipped it right out for me. I love the way it turned out and found just the right place to display it in my studio!

Don't know if anyone is interested, but here are the steps I used when painting the frame. I wanted it to look a bit like old, recycled wood, so first I painted dabs of cream colored paint here & there. Then I added the blue - leaving a few places raw wood.

When stained it to make it look more aged, each area turned out a bit differently which is exactly what I wanted. Last step was a coat of clear satin, which I sanded off a bit because it was too shiny.

It isn't practical to display it on my wing back chair but the colors sure are right! LOL

Thursday afternoon I had the delightful experience of attending a backyard quilt show. It's been two years since these gals did a show and I'm so glad they did - I feel like this event is a gift to their circle of friends - a place to gather and enjoy what they love - and eat goodies provided for free. So fun! Here's the front of the house - looks welcoming, huh? Can you imagine driving by and seeing this sight - along with the invitation to stop and look around?

And as you head down the side driveway to the backyard pool area......

The detached garage is decked out with two different barn stars!

Pumpkins painted with quilt blocks.....

.....no doubt inspired by the cover of the new issue of Country Living magazine.

I'll share a bunch of photos with no commentary so you can enjoy the show.....

On Wednesday I was in SLC to meet with my rug group there. Myra's sky is looking so fabulous! She's working from a photograph and is doing a great job of capturing the landscape.

Nancy finished the pictorial she started in class with Anne-Marie Littenberg.......

.....and has begun a floral that she designed to try and use up some of her leftover worms. Great job!

What a fun week I had!