Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Sent with Santa





Now that my gifts have been delivered by Santa, I can show a few items that I did finish just before christmas.  My sister Tracy wanted a couple of table runners for her home so I did finish this holiday one in time to get to her.  The rest of them will have to wait a bit as I try and finish up some projects around here before I start something new.









And I made my neighbor whose kitchen is decorated in apples these simple potholders and cloth napkins.  Her dishes are a brown and green stoneware so these worked perfectly!







And my friend Penny gave me the perfect tin sign!  It captures my quilting philosophy wonderfully!


Hope you had a wonderful holiday and are enjoying leftovers, new toys and finding time to get back into your sewing rooms and play with fabric!


Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Eighteen...

Every year I try and take note of all the projects I have started and make a resolution to focus on finishing them.  So today I took the day off and organized the quilting studio, fabric closet and sewing room.  I spent hours going through bags, projects boxes and various piles of fabric and tallied up where I am.

Eighteen!  I currently have 18 projects in process - there are 6 just up on my designs walls.  And this isn't the whole picture.  I also have 8 more that are ready for that first cut and another 10 that just need to be quilted.  I knew things had gotten out of hand but this is crazy!

So I have told myself that I REALLY have to focus on some finishes.  I have scheduled time to quilt some of my own tops over the holidays and I identified those that I can easily finish with just a little focus.





Rather than move this little table runner around my sewing room, I sat down and sewed the final outside border, prepared the binding and sewed the backing.  In a matter of minutes, I moved it from the "WIP" to the "Needs Quilting" pile.









This quilt top just needs the outside border cut and sewn.  I already have the binding and the back prepared....Why is it borders always seem to hold up a project?

I will complete on my next sew day with friends scheduled later this week!









And this one is taking up space on the design wall.  All the blocks are sewn and laid out.  It just needs to be pieced together.  I vow to work on it and finish it over the holidays.








Sadly, the rest on my list are a little more involved.  Many have been stashed away because of fabric shortages, fit issues, and dislike.  I have others that need some redesigning and others that are just plain time consuming.  But my intentions are good and my determination to whittle these numbers down is strong.  I'm hoping you'll see a number of finishes soon.



...for those who know me, I'm sure you noticed I didn't promise not to start anything else.  Even as I was breaking down the projects I have chosen not to finish, I found myself pairing up fabric for new projects.  I just can't help myself!
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WIPWednesday

 Linking up with Freshly Pieced and Quiltsy today.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Holiday Swap Project

Rather than a quilt activity, my Project:Quilt group decided to have a small party with a handmade gift exchange for our December get-together.  This meant I needed a quick project.



After looking through a number of patterns, books and blogs, I decided to make something out of Kumiko Sudo's Omiyage book.  The project I had in mind needed no sewing and only required a few pieces of fabric and some cardboard.  It was a little smaller than I wanted but I knew I could easily resize it.  I had some lovely fabrics that I thought would work nicely so I started in one evening.





After MANY more evenings of cutting, glueing, clamping, recutting, bending, resizing, trimming and reglueing, I ended up with this cute little box....




with a very fun surprise inside.  It has a pincushion for the lid and is filled with little sewing notions (many of which are also handmade.)




This little item can inconspicuously reside in a living space and be opened up when a little mending is needed and you don't want to go into your sewing room.  I thought it was very clever and I was quite pleased with the final product.


Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Finishing UFOs

This time of year, about the only UFOs I get to work on are the quilts of others.  Thankfully, I do know to plan ahead and complete any of my own holiday projects in the early fall so I can work like an elf and get as many of my customer's holidays gifts done as possible.





This quilt for Julie is not a holiday gift but I couldn't wait to work on it as I was really taken with it.  Love the colors, the pattern and had some great fun with the quilting.




The piecing pattern is Ballerina by Jaybird Quilts.   It might be one I will have to make in the future when I can get back to my own projects.
 
 Luckily the sun popped out from behind the clouds for a minute and I was able to snap this photo of the entire quilt.  Great job Julie!



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