Christmas Gifts 2010

Now that the suspense is over, I can unveil some of what I made and gave for Christmas this year.

First, here's my big brother Bob holding up a rag quilt. Now that I have the Accuquilt rag quilt die for my cutter, it's so simple to cut and make these quilts. And since they're quilt as you go, I don't have to send them out.


Here's Fred playing like he's sleeping under the one I made him for his recliner:


My sister-in-law Paula also got gifts made with the Accuquilt cutter - the triangle-in-square die cutter made it simple to cut the bits for these three pillows:


Mom got a red and white table runner. These arrowhead blocks were from Quiltmaker's last issue (scroll down to see some of the blocks in progress, in a previous post.) The blocks went together very quickly. Here they are on her coffee table with some candles on top:


And here is the whole runner, on my design wall:



In other news, I'm now a member of Quiltmaker's Scrap Squad for 2011! I never thought when I sent in my application that they'd accept me. But now I have my first assignment from them, I've already picked fabric from my stash for it, and I plan to start cutting tomorrow. Can't tell you much about the project we're doing yet, but I hope to use up a lot of the blue and khaki flannel left over from my two rag quilts above.

More Gift-Making

Anyone else being a busy little Santa's helper? Here's three pillows for someone who said they wanted 'just a couple of plain pillows.' Do you know how hard it was for a quilter to make PLAIN pillows? But I can agree with her, they're to go with a scrappy, busy quilt, remember this one?


I had a few brick sized scraps left from the border of the quilt, so in addition to the two 16 inch square pillows she requested, she's getting a bonus 12 inch square pillow, the little not-plain one in the front. :D

And here's some gifts for co-workers:


More notebook covers and a hotpad. I actually made several more of these, but they all look the same. It's all completely from stash, and I chained my way through the log cabin style blocks for the hotpads, then stitched around the edge (including the batting) and turned them inside out to avoid having to bind them. That ethnic Santa fabric was hard to find, but it's a really pretty glittery fabric. The candycane pens add a nice touch, I think.

Then some glasses cases for family. Betcha can't guess which one of the three is for my older brother!


I'm using fleece or flannel for the inside lining of them, I tried quilting weight fabric, and the glue from the Timtex made it feel scratchy. I'm learning some heirloom sewing techniques too - can you see on the right, below, my first try at pintucks? And on the front, above, an embroidered rose. It reminds me of the little rose I used to have on the middle of my bras, back in high school. :D


And just for those who didn't notice... did you see that the camouflage fabric isn't quite... the usual camo? If you look close, you see that the shapes are silhouettes of nekkid ladies:


I'm sure my brother will appreciate it!

Christmas Gifts

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Unveiling some of the things I couldn't blog about in case family read my blog. First, my sister in law holding a set of hot mats and a table topper kind of thing I made for her granite countertops. She says the chilly granite seems to absorb the heat from any food she puts out on it. The silvery looking fabric used on the back is what they sell for ironing board re-covering, it should be able to take a very hot pan, AND reflect the heat back. I used a very thick cotton towelling for the batting:


Then, here's my folks opening their new pillow shams to match the new quilt made for their king size bed. Does anyone have any good way to wrap a big quilt? I ended up just using a large leaf bag after looking in vain for one of those huge green ones they sell to bag the old tree with.


Here they're being silly under their new quilt. The EQ pattern for this one you may have seen waaaaay back on my blog in February '07. I can't believe it's been a year in the making - I started all the half square triangles starting last January. The only change I made to that design was to increase the border sizes.


Here's my mom reading the label - I tried to burn that part of the photo in, so you could read the words, but the flash whited it out too much. When I was cutting the fan blade shaped wedges, I saved all the scraps, and where I could salvage a 2½ square, I did. I used some of them for the label border, and still have a lot left. Little blue and white squares will be useful somewhere, I'm sure!


Finally, here's my older two grand nieces, sitting on the couch, opening gifts: