Dillon's Stocking - #20 December

Dillon did not have a stocking with his name on it for his first Christmas.  I had been intending to make a stocking similar to Keegan's stocking.  The stocking was just not finished in time for Christmas.  I had 9 months to get the stocking completed but it just didn't happen for Dillon's first Christmas.

I did the paper piecing at a quilt retreat in Red Lodge in November.  I finished the stocking Christmas Eve day this year.

The first time I sewed the stocking together, I had the hanging tab in the wrong layer - it was in the layer between the body of the stocking and the cuff.  I had to take that part out and make sure the hanger was on the outside of the stocking so the stocking could hang above the fireplace.  The hanger is in the back and it should have been on the edge.  And the hanger could have been a little bit longer so the stocking had more room to hang and swing.  But I followed the directions as printed for the hanger.

Keegan's Flannel Quilt

One of the ladies at the Sew N Sew group, DeAnne, has an aunt that can no longer quilt due to back issues.  Iretta was looking for a good home for her fabric.  I said I would take her treasures.  The boys and I went to Iretta's house and brought 23 new boxes of treasures to our house.  Iretta is a really good organizer;  all of the boxes are labeled and contain what the label states.

Keegan had been mentioning that he wanted to quilt every time I was quilting.  I hadn't been letting him quilt because I wanted a specific pattern on the quilts I was working on.  We decided to make a quilt, using Iretta's flannel, for Keegan's Grandma, Connie.  We went through the flannel.  I had 2 fabrics selected.  Keegan wasn't happy with two colors.  He picked more colors.  He added a lot of variety to the pile.

Keegan helped me draw and decide on a pattern we would use to make Connie's quilt.  Keegan and Dillon also "helped" sew.  They sat on my lap, pressed buttons on the sewing machine, played with the pins, and pushed the go pedal on the sewing machine.

I lined up 5 chairs in front of the quilting machine so Keegan could walk the machine across the quilt.  Keegan did all of the quilting.  I had to keep after Keegan to finish the quilt because I over-committed us and made a big quilt.  But Keegan finished it.  I thought he would no longer be interested in quilting after that much quilting but Keegan was asking to quilt again on the next project I did.  Dillon also held onto the machine while I re-threaded the machine and got it started.

Keegan also selected the thread for the quilting.  Keegan says his favorite color is purple.  He picked purple thread.  I tried to steer Keegan to pink thread.  But he wanted purple.  That is that.  There is purple thread on this quilt.

Keegan presented this quilt to his Grandma Connie when we went to Butte to visit before Christmas.  He just handed it to his grandma.  Then he raced off to play with the toys that are at their house because those toys are new and exciting.

Timing is important for kids at age 3.  We started working on this quilt when we first brought the fabric home.  Keegan finished quilting it the beginning of December.  I put the binding on this quilt the night before we were headed to Butte (the weekend before Christmas).  When I was taking pictures of it the day we left, Keegan said, "That was a long time ago."  So, by the time he gave it to Grandma Connie, it had been in the works for a month.  Most of that month it had been in this pile or that waiting for the next step.  Keegan had lost interest with that much time passing.

Feather Fancy 2

Each year, I have been creating something for my friend, Melissa, for Christmas.  This year, Melissa's Mom passed away.  I helped Melissa make the coffin liner.  There was fabric left over when we were done and Melissa didn't want the extra fabric.  I told Melissa that I could use the fabric.  I used the white sateen as the background for Melissa's Feather Fancy.

The shiny background looked really cool.  But I could not do much quilting on the background because every needle puncture made the sateen fabric fray and run.  I had a difficult time just getting the wall hanging stabilized on the edges onto the backing before I started quilting.  I ended up cutting a bit off the borders to make sure the zigs didn't show up in the background.

Feather Fancy

Each year, as part of the Christmas party for the Sew N Sew group, we exchange quilted items we have created.  It is to be something small.  Many of the items are Christmas related.

This year I ran across the Feather Fancy pattern by Cherry Blossoms at Four Winds Quilting.  What caught my eye on the pattern was the awesome quilting.  I just had to purchase the pattern.  I created one for the Sew N Sew exchange.  The finished size is around 28" x 28".

White is white.  I used backing fabric that was on the machine when quilted this wall hanging.  It was pieced and multi-colored homespun.  The color of the back pulled through to the front.  There are patches of orange, red, brown, etc on the front of this wall hanging.  I guess I have to learn something with every quilt.  Wow.  Crazy learning curve on this wall hanging.

I did the piped binding on this wall hanging.  The outer binding was white and the piping was red.  I thought the piped binding worked really well for this project.

I had the task of create a gift for the Sew N Sew exchange on my list for most of the summer.  I did not have any idea of what I was going to create.  I finally found this pattern the end of November.  I had to finish my brown bag chicken quilt first so I didn't get started on this wall hanging until a week before it was due to be exchanged.  It seems like a small wall hanging like this would not take a while week.  It took me a while week and I even had to watch TV with Keegan on the Monday of the exchange to finish the yo-yos.  If I would have allowed myself more time, I should have put a hanging sleeve on this wall hanging.  That didn't happen though.

After playing the game at the Sew N Sew Christmas party, I received this super cute snowman wall hanging from Bev F.  It ended up that she also received the wall hanging I created.  Funny!

I do enjoy the Sew N Sew Christmas party but it does seem like I do not finish anything until the very last minute.  What is the saying . . . if not for last minute, I would never get anything done?

Brown Bag - The Chicken Quilt

As you may have noticed in an earlier post, I received chicken novelty fabric in the brown bag that I received this year from the day guild group.  I decided to do an attic windows quilt in an attempt to tie all of the different chickens together.  I even did Y seams.

I quilted pretty closely around the chickens.  One handy thing about the quilting I did on this quilt was that I used the same color for everything.  I didn't have to spend time changing thread all of the time.  That was quite a cool concept that I do not usually do.  It was pretty fun that way. 

The fabric that I put in my brown bag for someone to create something cool for me was penguin fabric.  I had originally intended to make something from the penguin fabric for my mother in law.  I was not getting around to making anything, and it was the only line of fabric that I had that went together at the time I was putting my brown bag together, so I let Lyn B. of day guild create something cool for me.  Check out the awesome Around the World penguin quilt I received!

Brown bag is an interesting thing to do with your guild members.  I like it though.  I didn't do the brown bag exchange with the night guild this year.  The Christmas party was a bit anti-climatic for me at night guild.  I did enjoy the day guild Christmas party more this year because I participated.

Bow Ties - #19 November

Many years ago, I thought that I would do some stash busting as I was working on projects.  I thought that a good stash busting project that I could continually do would be bow ties.  Later, I decided I didn't want to do bow ties any more.  But I had some bow tie blocks created so I just added additional squares to the bow ties and made a quilt top.  I did this until I had used up all of the bow ties I had created.  There were bow ties made out of different sized squares so there will be a number of bow tie quilts.

I had to pay attention when quilting the bow tie quilts because they are 3D.  I had to make sure I didn't run the machine over the quilt top and rip the bow ties.

It was sheer luck that I finished a project for November.  I had big plans to finish a number of projects but nothing happened.  I just took this small quilt to Sew N Sew group on Monday nights to have some hand project to work on while I was visiting with the ladies.  It took me two Monday evenings of visiting to finish the binding.  But it was the only item I completed in November!