Yay!

It was a good mail day today! Last week Lauren, who blogs at Rugs and Pugs, drew my name as the lucky winner of her giveaway. I pulled a fat squishy envelope out of my mailbox today and squealed when I saw this lovely little heart mat. Her loops are so nice and even - and her finishing on the back is perfect. I love that the heart isn't red - this way I can display this rug year round!

I like it sitting on my coffee table with these little additions. I think she must have hooked it in an 8.5 or a 9 - I need to use wider cuts more often because the few times I've done so, I really, really liked it! Thank you SO much for your generosity Lauren!

Last night I finished hooking this little 12" tree skirt. I decided it would also work well for a chair mat because the tiny hole in the middle is hardly noticeable, and if I did that it might be easier to find when Christmas rolls around again.

I've also been doing a bit of sewing. I made these five blocks for the sew along that Temecula Quilt Co. is sharing right now. The next set of instructions have been posted so I need to get busy and stitch them up too.

I've finished the forth 4" block that Pam Buda posted for her sew along - I found a really fun way to sew these together on a new blog I just visited, so I'll try and get this done soon. My friend Janet also sewed hers together differently than what Pam suggested - go here to see how cute they are!

I cut strips to make the Scrappy Trip Around the World that's been taking blogland by storm. Mine will be half the size suggested by Bonnie Hunter so my strips measure 1-1/2" x 10" . I also cut squares to make the snowball blocks for the quilt center that Darlene is sharing. Haven't done any sewing on these two projects yet......

So much to do!

Salt Lake Rug Group

I just realized that I never shared pictures from my meeting with the Salt Lake rug group earlier this month. A few posts back I shared a picture of Nancy's rug that was just getting started. Well, she has it all finished and it is great! She started her next project while we were at her house and it is her own design based on a cross stitch that she did back in the 90's. It's going to be wonderful too!

Myra was working on a Santa rug - she designed it herself and has also made Christmas stockings using this same Santa - the beading around the edge makes you think of candy canes!

Michelle is hooking a floral designed by Sharon Smith - the brightly colored poppies are really going to pop against the black background that she is planning to use.

Yvonne came late and couldn't stay very long, so she didn't want to drag all her rug hooking supplies with her for such a short visit. Instead, she brought this beautiful quilt so she could work on hand quilting the cross hatching in the border - the rest of it she will quilt on her machine. 

Kathryn isn't able to come very often, but she did stop by this month and she brought lots of wonderful show & tell, including this great checkerboard rug that she made to cover her piano bench. The fleur-de-lis squares hang off the end of the bench.

She also showed us this cute tree ornament that she hooked for Christmas - - -

- - - and she's made some fun projects using felted wool sweaters. Two wreaths - - -

- - - and several flowers that can be worn as pins. I love the bright pastels that she used - I never find those colors when I look at wool sweaters - they're always drab winter colors - sigh!

It was wonderful to see all the gals & their projects since I missed our December meeting because of the trip hubby & I took to Las Vegas.

Small Quilts

I got my tumbler all quilted and bound - now I'm not crazy about the inner green border that I used so I might end up tea dyeing the quilt like Cheri Payne does to all of hers - that should tone it down a bit and soften all the other colors too.

You might be able to see the vertical wavy quilting lines that I used. The quilt finished at 17" x 24".

While my machine was set up for free motion quilting, I decided to finish this little HST quilt too - it's been waiting for several months. 

I really like the curved line quilting that I did on each side of each triangle. This quilt finished at 16" x 16".

I was looking through the pictures on my digital camera, and realized that I hadn't shared these yet. Hubby was off work for three weeks in December because he had accumulated too much vacation time to carry over to the new year - he had to use it or loose it. So we took a little trip before Christmas and went south where we thought it would be a little warmer (HA!)  After we explored Hoover Dam I talked him into visiting a darling quilt shop in Boulder City Nevada called Fiddlesticks Quilts.  I snapped these pictures which were the results from a small quilt challenge that the store sponsored and I thought you'd enjoy seeing them. Wish I'd jotted down the sizes, but I don't think any of them were more than 20" on a side.

I'm not sure if prizes were awarded, but it sure was fun to see the creativity involved in making them.This one was in a window display and I liked it too.

We also explored a bit of the State Park called Valley of Fire after learning about it from my friend Nedra, who blogs at Cactus Needle Quilts. The summer temperatures can reach 120 degrees, so December was a good time to go. We hiked around in some of the cool rock formations a bit - - - -

- - - - and as we were driving out of the park we saw several mountain sheep to the side of the road. These posed very nicely for me!

Abundance of Stuff

Last week Lori - who blogs at Humble Quilts - showed a sweet vintage doll quilt that she wanted to reproduce, so she planned to post instructions on how to do it. The first section was posted this morning. But last week when she mentioned that the finished size of the quilt was 12" square, I quickly did the math and pulled fabrics from my stash - got it pieced on Saturday - and on Sunday I quilted it by machine and stitched on the binding. DONE! I really had to chuckle while I worked on this because I auditioned many, many different pieces of fabric to find just the right ones and I realized that the lady who made the original years and years ago probably had very little choice for her fabric selection. How times have changed, huh? Anyway, here is my version of Lori's little quilt she calls Abundance - - - -

I can't seem to post a picture of the original quilt, or her new reproduction, so you'll have to visit her blog to view them here. Fun project! I used a cotton batting, but now that it's done I wish I had used a piece of white flannel for the batting instead to make it more flimsy. Oh well.

Over the weekend I also completed the newest 4" block from Pam Burda's stitch along.

I have been seeing this version of a tumbler quilt on Pinterest and on other quilt blogs. I guess there is a special template you can buy to make it, but I tried my Dresden Plate template and it worked perfectly.

It's a fun little quilt too! It's all sandwiched and pin basted, and I decided how to quilt it while I was sleeping last night, so hopefully I can get it finished soon.

Stitching

I haven't been posting a lot lately, but I have been busy. Here are some of the projects I've been working on.

I'm doing the Easy Street Mystery Quilt from Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville. I have all the sub-sections finished - - - -

- - - - and have started sewing them into blocks and setting triangles. This is going to be a BIG quilt when it's done!

I also string pieced these scrappy 9" blocks onto muslin foundations with the same brown fabric sewn on the center diagonal.

I'm working on Pam Buda's Orphans & Scraps project - fun to make these little 4" blocks that she posts each Friday. The one on the right with 4-patches set on point, was made in the most unique manner - I never would have thought of doing it this way if it weren't for her instructions! Look at it here and be amazed!

Using one of the leftover hourglass blocks from that project, I made this little pillow.  I'm not in love with it cuz the proportions are wrong - I should have either trimmed down the center block, or made the logs surrounding it a little wider and the pillow bigger - oh well.

My Dad's wife has a birthday coming up in a couple of weeks. She has a little lap dog that she loves dearly, so I used a picture of him to make a pendant and turned it into a key fob with charms that she can attach to her key chain or purse strap. I suppose she could wear it as a necklace too if she liked it that way.

Then I wrapped it in an old book page that I stamped and embellished - then stitched it closed with my sewing machine.

And I put it into this ruffled gift bag that will include a few other small items. I used Rae Missigman's tutorial  and it was so fun using newspapers and coffee filters to make something functional and beautiful and unusual. 

In closing, I got spammed like crazy a few days ago - over 60 different comments were left on some of my blog posts - thankfully none of them were terribly offensive - but that's just crazy to have to deal with that. In an effort to prevent it from happening again, I have made it so anonymous comments cannot be left anymore. If you don't have a blog and want to leave a comment, you'll have to email it to me by clicking on the postcard near the top of the page. Sorry for the inconvenience!

January Rug Group

Sandy has been producing rugs like crazy the last few weeks. This is one that she brought for show & tell yesterday - a free pattern available in a recent issue of RHM. When I saw it in the magazine, I thought I might want to make one myself. After seeing her's, I know I want to make one - it's delightful!

She finished the shape rug for her granddaughter's little stool - - - 

- - - and has started working on this new floral - - - 

Jeanette is making this little rabbit rug - pattern available in Create & Decorate magazine.

Victoria has started a 'Back Door' rug - I really like the half circle shape of it.

Sharon drew this fun rug with a wonky log cabin and some chickens milling about in the yard.

And this is my project - it's going to be a little tree skirt for one of the wooly feather trees that I made a couple years ago.

Rug Group

I attended the December meeting of my rug group a few weeks ago - we all brought goodies to share for a brunch - mmmm....... and we also exchanged white elephant gifts - why didn't I think to take pictures of those? 

There was some great show & tell. Tonia enjoyed the spotlight by bringing this beautiful rug that she's finished hooking. She started the crocheted edge while we sat & visited. It's a Tree of Life design and is absolutely spectacular. The light outlining around the tree just makes it glow against the dark background - BEAUTIFUL!

And Sharon started the crocheted edge on this small floral mat she made - her colors are always so drab and primitive - she's got great taste!

Angela was working on a small chair mat with a house & some trees - it's so cute.

Sandy started this today - a little mat to put on her granddaughter's stool - she's just two years old and it'll be fun for her to learn her shapes by seeing this rug.

Maryann joined us for the very first time and was working on this kit with a bird & tree that she got from Angela  - looks like we've got us a new member - yay!

As always, it was great to visit with all the gals!