Christmas presents

 I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. We had a great day, but we wish you all were here. This picture above is a wall hanging I made for my mom. It is about 9" by 12". ( I made one for myself too). It is kind of country folksy with a lot of hand stitching.
 The quilt below is a quilt I fell in love with in a magazine(McCall's Quick Quilts) and another blog, Jaybird Quilts. It is called Julie's Snuggler. It is about 54" square. Remember a few posts ago? I showed you a quilt that was a surprise for someone. That one, the Whiligig, was for Baylee and this one was for Hannah. This is made from a jelly roll. A jelly roll is made up of strips of fabric that are 2 1/2".

 I layered the backing, batting, the cream fabric, then weaved the strips on top. Then I sewed straight lines about 1/4" on each side of the strips. I then added the border and straight stitched a couple of lines. I made the binding with several different strips from the jelly roll.

This is a doll quilt I made for Malaya. It is called the Sudoko quilt. If you study it there are nine fabrics. And just like the puzzle each of the nine fabrics are use only once in the horizontal and  vertical rows and the square blocks.

These are the chalkboard mats I made for the older grandkids. They are made so you can roll them up to store or carry them around.

It's so fun making things. Now I get to start on next year. As soon as I finish Bryan's late birthday quilt.

Now on to the quilty stuff

I am itching to post the pictures of the Christmas presents I've made, but a few more days so I don't spoil the surprises. I have had this done for awhile but hadn't taken a picture of it. I made this for Ethan.

 I should have taken a close up of the inspiration fabric. The five blocks in the middle that are in the x have US Air Force planes. I picked the block pattern because it reminded me of a window and I thought it would look like the airplanes were flying out the window. But alas, I cut the fabric wrong and some of them are flying sideways. I only had 2 fat quarters of the fabric. Ethan helped me pick out the other fabrics.

 It is very hard to see, but I quilted stars in the 3 small squares within the block and on the border top and bottom. The side borders I quilted with a slanted line about 1-2" apart.

This is the back of the quilt.
Merry Christmas everyone. Have a wonderful day.

The Pizza

OK, You know that Dave loves pizza. He could eat it 3 times a day for months and not get tired of it. If I ask him what he'd like for dinner the answer is always 'Pizza'. So here is the pizza we got last weekend. It is hard to get enough pizza now that Matt is home and Ethan is shoveling it down too.

It was 29". We had to put it in the trunk to bring it home. Enough said.

Well I have been so busy getting all the Christmas presents done and bought and wrapped and sent out that I haven't been good at posting my projects. So tonight I will show you one thing that I've been waiting to show. This is the first quilt top that I pieced after the Christmas tree quilt. I saw the whirligig block and liked it so much that I wanted to use it. I couldn't really find a pattern for it so I just figured out the ratio for cutting it. I used a charm pack, which is a package of precut 5" squares. I finished the top in the spring sometime and it just sat there for a long time because of my bad experience of free motion quilting with my home sewing machine. I wanted to use the long arm to quilt it. The summer came and went and it was finally Oct. when I set up a time with Chris for her to show me how to use "Sally" (her long arm machine she rents out). I forgot to get a picture of me using the machine, but I'll try to remember next time.

I don't know if you can see it in the picture, but I used a variegated thread (multi-colored). It was so fun to quilt. And so much faster and easier than on the home machine. I will let you know the owner of this quilt after Christmas.  That's all for now, because I can't give anything else away before Christmas.

The cruise and other stuff

We went on a 2 1/2 day cruise after Thanksgiving. It was a surprise for Dave's moms 80th birthday. She was very surprise when we showed up and then Charles and his family showed up in the dining room the first evening. She had tears in her eyes and was very touched. We had lots of fun. We ate so much food and saw some beautiful islands. Here are some pics.

 This is as we are leave the port in Florida.

 Me, Peggy and Aunt Doris on a carriage ride around Nassau, Bahamas.

 Dave and I relaxing on the boat.

 All of us having fun Sunday afternoon before dinner.

 Dan, Peggy, Dave and Charles. I am hoping someone else snapped a better picture. Mine didn't turn out to well.

 We flew in on Thurs. night, so we got to have brunch with Izzy and Mark. We were so glad to see them. And this last picture is the wild and crazy vacation fun I had. Although I could only stand it for about 6 hours if that. The Bahama ladies wait for unsuspecting tourists off the cruise ships!

Now I have to go back to work on Christmas presents. We put up our tree last night. It took us about 20 minutes from the time we left the house until we were back in the truck with the tree. Very decisive this year. We miss everyone and wish you all were coming here for Christmas.

Finally some finishes

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!  I am so thankful for all my family. Love you all.

Ok, I've gotten Malaya's  present done, but no picture. And Jonas, Brynnan and Jesse's done but no pictures. I can't give them away.

Here is a picture on the lap quilt I made for Grandma Peggy. (Surprise for her birthday, Don't give it away!)

I just decided to make this for her 80th birthday in Oct. So I was scrambling to find some fabric out of what I already had. It is hard to tell from the pictures but this is a royal blue and coordinating floral prints. I had found this block pattern on a blog and had just drawn it on a sticky note on my desk. I really wanted to try it so that is how this quilt came to be. The back is a minky fabric, which is so soft and lux. (kind of like soft fur) With the minky, the quilt did not need batting. Also she lives in Florida, the minky is heavy enough. I straight stitched it using my walking foot. Really simple, but it turned out great.

This is so Fun, Fun, Fun. More finishes after I get back from holiday.

The creative space!

I have been working hard on some projects, but haven't had a lot of pictures, so in the interim here are a few of my sewing space. It is in the corner of the family room between the computer and the TV.

It is really messy because there are so many projects going on. Can you see the sticky notes on the top of the bookcase (that I got at a garage sale for $5, btw)? Those are the lists of everything I have in progress. And I have many more in my head. The white felt hanging on the back wall is my design wall. I hang my blocks up to see how the look and to work on the arrangement and keep them in order.

 This is a stack of tops and bottoms that are waiting to be quilted. On Tuesday I had my first lesson on Sally. More on that later, waiting on pictures.

This is the start of my stash of fabric. Not a lot but it's growing.

And last but not least is a sneak peak of the quilt I made for Grandma Peggy for her 80th birthday. I actually finished it Monday night, but don't have a picture yet.

Enjoy Life.