Christmas Completed Projects

Bonnie Hunter is having a link up party of people showing off their project(s) they have done for Christmas.

Here are my Christmas Projects of past and current:

This is a Thimbleberries project for one of the clubs I participated in a quite few years ago.  I just love the rework of Santa on the rooftop dropping toys down the chimney.  I also like the colors used in the borders.  I have this hanging on my door that goes into my sewing room.

During 2014, I worked on many of the UFO's I have, and this one is from a Thimbleberries Club from 2003.  You can read about the whole club and process of making this here.  I have this hanging in my hallway for this Christmas Season, even though I took the picture of it hanging on the door to my sewing room.

Again, here is another Thimbleberries project for one of those past clubs I participated in that you can read all about it here.  This is hanging in my office corner that I have set up in my living room.  While doing computer work and paperwork, I reach up and run my hand over the quilt top.  I am so calmed when I do that to quilts.  Call me weird, it just works that way for me.

So there you have it, my three small projects that I have done in "Christmas" themed patterns that sprinkle some added decorations around my house.

Warmest...

A Few Activities This Week

I have worked on some other actives this week besides the Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt.

I have an older dog who is having a harder time eating dry dog food.  I don't want to start feeding her the boughten canned food, as it can get expensive.  So once a month, I make her my own recipe for soft dog food.  Basically, it contains, about a pound of meat (I used some older frozen meat that had started to get a little freezer burned.  This time I had a small baggie of leftover turkey, left over ham, and a couple of salmon patties), six cans of vegetables (I used some of my canned carrots from prior years) and enough cooked rice to hold the mixture.  Rice is very gentle on her stomach as well.  I scoop out about 3/4 cup size onto cookie sheets, freeze them, and then take out one a day for her evening meal.  Total cost is about $4.00 and about 2 hours of time.

A few posts back, I posted about a quilt I did for one of my sons that will be part of his Christmas present.  His twin brother is also getting a quilt for Christmas quilt that I posted about awhile back when I first started working on it.  I managed to get it quilted this week.  

I quilted it using what I call the straight line method by quilting lengthwise down the long prints and then quilting crosswise on the various different prints.  

This is a peek at the backing of this quilt.  I had do some piecing of the backing fabric, as I did not originally purchase enough to do a backing for this sized quilt.  I rather like the look of the stripe down the middle of this one.

This is just a close up of the fabric used on the backing.  Perfect for this son who is a avid fisherman. 

I also did work on the next part / clue #3 for the Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt, but I will save that for my post tomorrow, so I can link up on Bonnie Hunters blog.

Warmest...

Next Christmas Project

Yesterday, I spent most of the day working on this quilt for my other son for his Christmas present.  He is an insane avid fisherman.  He spends every spare minute either fishing, planning a fishing trip, or doing prep work for fishing (like tying flies).  He is such a die hard, that when he works on finding that "special hole", sometimes hiking in 5 miles just to do a little fishing.

I picked up this pattern and the fabric about 5 years ago, with the intent of making the quilt for him at some later date.  Well, this is the year that I have enough free time to do the quilts for both boys (30 year old twins).

This pattern is true to it's name, it takes 5 minutes to shop and 10 minutes to cut it out.  Layering the eleven fat quarters and cutting them from the diagram included in the pattern, really lets you get it cut out in 10 minutes.  Credit:  5 & Dime, by All Washed Up.  It looks as though her blog has been idle since 2011, but you can find this pattern all over the internet by just googling All Washed Up.

This is the focal point fabric, a Robert Kaufman "Wilderness Ridge".  It is a screen print, rather than a woven design or pattern. This is a close up of this fabric, which includes fishing poles, flies, lures, bobbers, etc:

Here is the completed top.  the smaller blocks cut from the eleven fat quarters includes prints with fish, river bed rocks, grass, woods, sunrise/sunset, sand, and other fishing gear. 

I chose this simple pattern, because he also, like his brother, like things simple.  So I will be doing some simple quilting on his as well.  Probably some straight line quilting from top to bottom about 4" apart.

Warmest...

A Little More Christmas

I have three sons, and I have made a quilt for the oldest, when he joined the Army.  He has taken it wherever he has been stationed, even overseas on his deployments.  I have been meaning to get the quilts done for the other two boys (twins), but just keep getting side tracked.  I think it is because I feel I needed to have both done at the same time (it's a twin thing)  and the task was to daunting to get done, say for their birthday or Christmas.

I finally decided to tackle this goal of getting their quilts done for Christmas.  I can also share the progress of these quilts, as neither one of them ever read my blog.

So, this is the first one that I worked on the night before last and yesterday.  This is a wonderful pattern for a panel or focal print, as the center theme is surrounded by piano block strips and borders. That being said, it works up really fast, and looks great.

This son is an avid Dallas Cowboys fan, so I picked up the focal print a couple of years ago, and it happened to be a 60" wide cotton/poly mix and in a print I have not seen since.

The piano border blocks were a selection of nine prints and tone on tones.  Seven of the prints are batiks, and the other two are the tone on tone called "Rock Candy" by Blank.  The two light colored borders are also the "Rock Candy".  I picked the prints for this border, trying to pick ones that would fit color wise, but also had a star in the print.  This would tie it into the Dallas Cowboys logo of a star.

This is a close up of all the prints used in this quilt.  I finished the top early in the afternoon, and then paired it with the backing of a nice thick gray fleece.  I am not sandwiching in a batting for this quilt, as my Son doesn't like a heavy blanket, and using a thick fleece, it will be soft and warm for him without the weight.  He also is of the younger generation that is not to hip on the quilting part of my quilts, so I will be doing nothing but stitching in the ditch around the two light borders, and in between each piano piece.  I think in the middle focal point I will outline all the stars in the print.

Warmest...