To give and to receive

I must have been really good this year...cause I got the best Christmas gifts ever!  I am so truly thankful for every wonderful item that I received!  It has taken me almost 4 days to write this post as I have been really busy enjoying my gifts (and catching up at work).  I want to take a few minutes to show off some of the gifts I made and to brag about what I received!  I've already posted about most of the things I made, but to recap:

A poinsettia table runner/wall hanging for Judy.

 A 'Frosty' pillow for Barb.

"Olive Juice" mini wall hanging for my sister, Margaret.

"Pixelated Heart" quilt for my sister, Margaret.

"Joy" table runner/wall hanging for my mom, Kimberly.

Aannnnddddd....

I conquered the "Sew Together Bag" for my mom, Kimberly! She was so excited! In case you can't tell, there are 4 zippers in this bad boy!

As far as receiving goes:

My sister, Margaret, made me this wonderful, lined, zipper cosmetic bag.

I got these wonderful quilty magnets and some other sewing notion from my mom, Kimberly (as well as clothes, socks, beauty products, oh, and a new computer!).

This stunning, quilted sleeve for said new computer, from Kimberly. I absolutely love this sleeve, I think it is my favorite gift (although it would be sort of useless with out the computer it came with).  I was so excited to see that it was made out of the scraps of Kimberly's fat quarter bundle of Nordika fabric. I love the colors and patterns so much.

Judy used a wood burner, acrylic paint, and varnish to make me this wonderful treasure chest.  She practices Wicca, hence the pentagram in the lid. She filled the inside with candles, some pretty stones and a bath fizzie.

I also got a new North Face fleece sweater from my main squeeze, Shain. 

I would say, hands down, this was the best Christmas ever.  We had wonderful meals on both Christmas Eve and Christmas day and it was so nice to spend time relaxing and laughing with my family.  Now that the whirlwind is over, we can get started on some new projects! I will be posting again in a few days about some fun plans for the new year, so stop back soon!

Francesca

Edit: I somehow managed to delete most of the photos from this post; still getting used to my new chromebook! I will try to find a way to get them back on here!

The true spirit

So, remember these churn dash blocks I made a little while back for Audrey? 

Here they are set in a beautiful quilt to be donated to tornado victims.

And here is the label; I absolutely love it.

I am so grateful to have had a chance to participate in making this quilt happen.  If I have a generous spirit or a commitment to service it's because of my mom, Kimberly.  She recent finished this quilt in conjunction with do.good stitches and it has been donated to a 4 year old boy in foster care in our rural county in WNY.

And on a non-quilting rated note: the Drs' office I work at donated $150 in gift cards for groceries and several toys to a local family in need who had made their Christmas tree out of paper as they couldn't afford to buy one.  The little girl is 3 and her brother is 12.

I strongly urge you, if you are able to this season, to drop some cans off at the food pantry, donate an old coat to the Salvation Army, or pop a Barbie in a toy drive box.  It will make you happier than opening your own presents, truly.

I hope your holidays are full of joy, light, laughter and love.

See you in a few days to reveal the neat stuff we've made and had to keep secret the last few weeks!

Francesca

WIPW #4

Welcome to Work in Progress Wednesday #4!

I have been so busy making Christmas presents lately but I really can't show you most of them until after Christmas! I haven't worked on any of my long term WIPs (read: PoD and diamond quilt) but I do have a few small Christmas WIPs I can share though. Both are wall hangings. I have been SO in to wall hangings lately. 

The tree is an original pattern by me! Made entirely out of scraps! I used 1 1/2" strips. I am going to sew on button for ornaments and then do some FMQ.

The olives are adapted from a pattern called Three Eggs that I found on sewhooked.com. I omitted one egg and added the pimiento to make olives instead of eggs. I used all solids to make it really modern.  I am a novice at hand embroidery but I don't think it came out too bad.

That's really all for this edition of WIP Wednesday. Stay tuned next week for the post-Christmas gift reveals.

I hope you all have a very safe and merry holiday, if you celebrate.  If not, enjoy the day off and the cookies!

Francesca

Edit: Linked with Lee at FreshlyPieced.com

Quilted Dresden Placemats

I spent most of the day yesterday finishing up the hand sewing on these Dresdens and then started quilting on my Innova.  I am using about a yard of fabric for the background and backing so I think it will be tricky to get them to stay lined up.  I am hoping by the time they are trimmed into four placemats that they are not too small!

The thread is a variegated from Superior (King Tut I think, but the label is missing).  I just love how it complements all the colors in the dresden blades.

I put a fresh needle in the Innova since my daughter was experincing some thread breakage last time she used it, and the machine ran like a dream - perfect tension with a few small adjustments to the bobbin case and upper tension assembly.    At one point after re-threading following bobbin winding, the thread somehow missed the upper tension assembly and caused some thread shredding.,  I know just by pulling on the thread at the needle end that there was a problem.  I followed the thread back towards the cone and spotted the issue.    I am so happy with this machine!  (And proud of myself for learning how to use it!)

A Mug Rug Story and a Finish!

So last night Kimberly and I battled the WNY snowy weather to attend the December meeting of the RMQG.  Click here to see the highlights from the meeting on the guild's blog. The real highlight, of course, was the highly anticipated exchange of the mug rugs.  

Once upon a time, Kimberly made a mug rug:

and that mug rug went to Julie...

who also made a mug rug:

that went to Francesca...

who also made a mug rug:

that went to Amy.

Good thing Andrea made this beautiful mug rug that went to Kimberly!

All the mug rugs:

Great work everyone!

And, if you are mug rugged out, here's a finish.  

I just put the last hand stitches in the binding of this festive poinsettia table runner/wall hanging.  It's really intended to be a center piece on a table, but I put hanging pockets on it just in case.  The poinsettia was made with the quick curves ruler and the tutorial found here.  I used my Bernina to FMQ in gold metallic thread- extra festive.  I'm very proud of my quilting on this piece and of myself for stepping outside of my comfort zone and sewing some curves.  I'm really looking forward to giving this gift to the intended recipient :) 

I hope all of you that celebrate it are having fun gearing up for the holiday!  I'm hoping to work on gifts all weekend (:

Linking with Amanda Jean and Sarah!

Francesca

Charity quilt finished - Crazy Geese

All quilted and bound!  I LOVE THIS QUILT!  I hope all my fellow do. Gooders  will agree the pain of piecing these little suckers was well worth the end result!  I did some ribbon candy quilting on the sashing strips with little flowers in the cornerstones.  The blocks were done with a simple meander.      Have I mentioned lately that my Innova rocks?  This is definitley another finish I am loathe to send away (sensing a pattern here?  I want to keep them all!).

Posting on Celebrate Good Stitches Flickr pool to enter the annual drawing  - hope I win!  And linking up with Kelly at My Quilt Infatuation  (http://myquiltinfatuation.blogspot.com).

Bring on the next quilt!

Final touches

I finished up the quilt for my Uncle.  The last thing needed was a label.  I used my a "Perfect Circles" template to make the circle and then hand appliqued it to the quilt back.  I am sorry to let this one go since I like it so much but it is going to a good home!

Mug Rugs (also affectionately referred to as Mud Grubs)

My first foray into the world of mug rugs (technically defined as bigger than a coaster and smaller than a placemat) has resulted in a cute little cookie and coffee mat.   I used some left over Dresden blades and a wild tropical fish fabric for the back.  I thought it might be done but it was looking rather plain so I added some embroidery.  The little chicks are from Aneela Hoey's book "Little Stitches."  So sweet!  The mug rug is for a Christmas exchange at the Rochester Modern Quilt Guild meeting tonite.

A review, a finish and an atta girl!

It seems like so long since I last posted but it's really only been a week.  Fair warning, I'm pretty talkative tonight and Shain is asleep, so this post might be pretty wordy.

First, a few days ago, I got my first order from a store on Esty called Zipit Zippers.  I'm not going to claim to be a serious critic, but let's just say, that unless I am in a REAL pinch, I may never buy zippers anywhere else.  The packaging, attention to detail, hand written and ink stamped thank you's, bonus items.  What a treat.  Not to mention the color, quality and selection of zippers is completely dreamy.  I will definitely be ordering from you again!

Second, I finished the binding on the Pixelated Heart Quilt yesterday and today it got a wash, dry and photo shoot on the neighbor's fence.  This is a snuggle blanket, about 64"x69".  I am disappointed that my whites don't match but other than that my seams meet up nicely and my binding has nice corners.  Plus I love the colors and fabric.  Most of the fabric is Cuzco by Kate Spain for Moda, including the pink geo print for the binding; hard to see in the picture.  I chose a bright orange flannel for the back and quilted large flowers loosely with light pink aurefil on the Innova.  I snuggled under this blanket a lot while I was sewing the binding on...it love it! And that's a WIP and UFO crossed of the list!

As far as the atta girl goes, I am very pleased with some quilting that I got done on my Bernina today.  Some FMQ and some straight line.  I always stuggle when I use this metallic thread, but it is soooo worth it.  I was shocked at how well I executed the idea in my head of what I wanted the quilting on the petals to look like.  Usually my quilting doesn't look a ton like what I imagine so this was a nice surprise.  This is going to be a Christmas gift for a friend of mine.

I think that's going to be all for tonight.  I did work on one other project today but it's TOP SECRET.  Kimberly and I will be attending the meeting of the RMQG on Wednesday night.  I will post sometime afterwards with our new mug rugs we will be bringing home!

Francesca

Edit: Linking with Freshly Pieced

Sewful Sunday

After all the rushing and bustle that accompanies a holiday, I am so thankful I got a chance to do some sewing today.  It's tricky this time of year to post about what I'm working on, as I'm not quite sure who reads this blog.  I know I can't post about Kimberly's present!

Today I finished hand sewing the binding down on this frosty pillow for "B".  I'm very pleased with how this turned out as it was my first attempt at applique.  I also like the FMQ and the covered zipper in the back.

I started this table runner/center piece for "J".  My first curves!  I borrowed used Kimberly's quick curves template and used the tutorial for 'Fun Poinsettias' from Sew Kind of Wonderful.  I am going to add some kind of borders and quilt with metallic thread :)

And I made 2 churn dash blocks for Audrey at Hot Pink Quilts.  First churn dash blocks though I have been thinking about making some for a long time since I love HST (half square triangles) so much.  These went together fast since they are so big! They will be 15" finished

I also completed the quilting on the Pixelated Heart quilt on the Innova yesterday.  I have to work on the binding next.

Francesca