Wake Up to Kona - Sneek Peek

I'm diligently working on my Wake Up to Kona Blog Hop project.  Started on it after dinner on Christmas. See the button to the right  for more details.

I made 224 of these

Which turned into these.

Which gave me a container of these small guys

and an almost finished  project using the big guys.  No picture of them since I was using them as fast as I was turning them out. Way before I thought to take in progress pictures.  Only remembered to take out the camera when I was ready to cut up the last batch.

The final pictures can be seen on January 13, my day to participate in the hop.

See ya then.

It's Done - Let the Festivities begin

Back at Thanksgiving my nephew asked if I would make his current love  a quilt for Christmas. I am an easy mark and it was not only Thanksgiving but his birthday too.  This is what we started with.  You see he wanted a quilt highlighting his girl. Her mom picked out the assortment of old photos.

This is the second one of these he has asked for.  I trust that it will be the last.  I don't mind making quilts but I don't particularly like working with the photos. Do LOVE the results.

Since he is supposed to come sometime tonight to pick it up and I  only finished it about half an hour ago I took the pictures in the house.  Really don't have a good picture of the actual colors.

I need to thank Joan over at http://moosestashquilting.blogspot.com/2013/12/eye-spy.html

for posting her eye-spy quilt which gave me the inspiration I needed.  I saw her quilt and I knew I had to use the snow globe idea.  She linked to the pattern in her posting. 

this is the back. I had one extra picture and I loved it centered back there.  The fabric on the bottom is a beautiful batik that just didn't want to photograph.

It is also the fabric I used for the border of the piece.

The most difficult part of this project, before I started, was what could i do with so many old, real pictures of so many different sizes. The snow globes were the perfect answer because i could make them any size I needed.

It's now complete and I can now start writing out my Christmas cards.  Maybe, just maybe, some of them will get delivered on time, or not.  It is the after all the thought that counts, is it not.

One last little thing.  This is a set of dish towels I also made this week for a couple  of the girls I work with.  I used them in place of tissue paper when wrapping their gifts.

Don't know if I'll get back here before the big day so I will take this opportunity to wish you one and all a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy 2014.

Productive pre Christmas week

I've been pretty busy this week.  I had a commission quilt to get done. it was requested for a surprise Christmas gift for the 8 year old grand daughter of one of my coworkers.

 10 years ago when her first grand daughter was born she had asked me to make a quilt.  When her second grand daughter was born we weren't working together and she never got around to asking for a quilt for her.

 Well apparently grand child #1 has been flaunting her quilt and the #2 started asking the question "where's myquilt grand ma".

Well this child loves the color pink and animals of all kinds.  I had purchased all of the cat fabric in the store for a previous project.  Grandma and I went to the LQS to pick out the other fabrics.

I actually have enough of the cat fabric left to make a pillow case, that should put her one up on her big sis.

Tried using the freshly fallen snow as a background.  It may be just too white for the quilt.

Next up,  just before Thanksgiving I saw a blog posting somewhere where they melted red and white mints to make things like platters and coasters.  Thought the idea was very cool and ran out and got the parchment paper and mints.  Both sat on the counter for the last 3 weeks.  Yesterday we were going to friends for our annual Christmas dinner and I was the dessert.   Now was my chance. 

Could I find the instructions anywhere???????????? of course not.  so going with my best memory of the plan I started.  I'm guessing that I got the temp wrong.   I thought I was supposed to use a 400 oven for 10 minutes.  After 4 minutes I heard the cookie sheet make that noise it makes when it warps.  well I can't say this was going to be a success before the warping but .....................

the whole thing was originally in the shape of a hexi. You can kinda sorta see that in the middle. Those really blurry ends and edges are where the mints got really thin and fragile and dripped off my cookie sheet.

I didn't get a picture of the end result but while the piece was still warm I was able to bend up the thin ends so that they looked vaguely like handles.  Once I covered the whole thing in 3 types of  brownies it looked wonderfully festive.  It also made for some great conversation and giggles over coffee.

Back to the sewing machine.  I have one more commissioned quilt to finish this week.  I really do need to learn to say no at this time of the year, but it's for my nephew and he is such a sweetie.

Christmas Postcard Swap

I participated in a Christmas  Post Card Swap coordinated by Sheila at  http://sheilasquiltworld.blogspot.com/  .  This is why I so love the blog WORLD.  I was fortunate enough to exchanged Post Cards internationally.

                   I was  matched up with Rachel  in Australia who sent me this wonderful little guy

                            and with Sharon in Nova Scotia who sent this wonderful winter scene

        My return postcard was of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I sent the same card to both ladies    cause I loved the way it came out.  He is a bit shiney because I took the photo after I put him in his mailing envelope.  I used the envelope to try and protect the beads from the machinery in the various Post Offices he would be visiting.
                                 

I'm really loving Post Cards.  I don't mind experimenting with small pieces. If I fail it just doesn't matter. I can start over with minimal loss of time and materials.   I am learning things like the fact that Rudolph's nose didn't make it intact to all of the people he has been sent to. Will need to use a less fragile type of bead in the future or do it as an applique or a stitch.  Learning, it's a good thing.

So Thanks Sheila, I'm sew looking forward to your next swapping event.

Presents for Cooper And the Winners ARe:

My niece called and asked if I could make a cover for some foam for a bed for her dog.  I'm a sucker for that dog.  He is a rescue who was originally found abandoned and tied to a street sign, malnourished and more than likely abused.

All I needed to do was make 2 pillow cases.  One for around the foam and one for over that.  I velcroed  the back clousure.  I had enough left over fabric to make a quilted pad for the top.

Cooper didnt' much like toys when he first arrived in the family but 3 years ago I brought him a duck for Thanksgiving.  He feel madly in love with it.  when I found that out I went out and got 4 more that I keep for replacement.

Here is Cooper and his buddy, the latest duck, last night after all the company went home.  I had intended that he sleep on the quilted pad.  Obviously my niece thought differently. I don't care so long as he's happy and safe.

********

I have contacted the winners of my rogue chickens.  You know the ones, the guys who thought it was just a tad to crowded living here.

Congratulations to Barb Corbitt and Bonnie Browne. Hopefully they will get back to me this week and I can get them out to their new homes before the Christmas rush.

Bottle Gift Bags

I am such a good aunt.

When my niece and her husband go to friends for dinner and bring a bottle of wine he thinks that it should be done with style and grace and not a brown paper bag.

Periodically I get a call to please make a supply of these goodie bags. This time the call was for Christmas and for non Christmas fabrics bags.   

They really are very easy to spit out and they do make a dent in the stash so it's a win all the way around.

The only real extra that I do is to finish off the seam. I do like the look of a flat feld seam.

Since the bag only has the one seam down the back and across the bottom it really isn't much of an effort but I always feel better once it's done.

The pathetic part of this process is that I never make bags for my wine gifts, but I do make the wine.

Have a great week and if you are celebrating, have a great Turkey day.

Black Tie Boogie

Welcome to the Black Tie Boogie Hop.  I have the awesome responsibility of being the first up. I hope to do Mdm Samm and Vickie proud. Thanks to you both for yet another challenge to our creative abilities.

Several years ago I made this Chicken quilt for my niece for Easter.  Such a good kid, she knew exactly where it was when I needed it for these pictures.

Her mom, my sister, asked if, when I had some free time could I make her one too. Not exactly the same, well the same but smaller..  I tried out using less blocks but it didn’t work so instead I reduced the size of the chicks  and by then I was tired of chicks so up on the shelf they all went.  Jump a couple of years ahead and we have a hop for Chicks, who ever would have thought.  Ok so down from the shelf they came.  All of them together, none had wondered off which was a bit surprising since about every 5 or 6 months I keep tripping over 1 stray chicken  block in my sewing room and I keep putting it in a safe place and we all know what that means. 

So here they both are so you can see the size difference.   I actually like the smaller one.  I think Sissie plans on hanging it in her powder room for Spring.   I only think that because she already has a Halloween quilt and a Christmas quilt and an Any Time quilt for that spot already. So it’s a good bet that this one will end up there too.

Here's an up close picture of the chickens. The large chickens were hand appliqued and the small chickens were machine blanket stitched.  Those cute little legs  and feet were done with  black pigma pens on both.

So now we are up to THE FOWL I wanted to make the most.  I fell in love with the Chicken Pin Cushions during the Pin It Hop. The Pinterest listings for each blog hop is a wonderful place to use as a reference tool.    I found and used the tutorial created by Deonn over at Quiltscapes that can be found here. http://www.rileyblakedesigns.com/cutting-corners/2012/03/02/spring-chickens/

I started with this trio.  I didn't have a plan for size or color so I spent a couple of hours just playing in the scrap drawer.

I found this neat plaid and thought I'd give it a try but I couldn't settle on a size I really favored.

Then I saw my Christmas Stash/Scraps.

So these guys are winter themed.

Then some Hanucah Chickens,

Then some Merry Christmas fowls

This was a really easy pin cushion to do. I made all of the seasonal birds in an afternoon. I also discovered that I like them in groups of 3, could you quess.

  

This group has decided to turn their backs on me. They have declared that they want a new home. They weren't up for the competition as to who was the cutest.

So if you leave a comment I will pick a couple of names to send these deserters to.

I hope you will take the time to visit each and every participant in this hop.  I am so sure that there will be loads of inspirational ideas.  And what we all need in mid November is more inspiration as we head into the holidays. Tee hee hee

Thanks so much for stopping by.  Here is a list of the rest of today’s players.

November 19

Selina Quilts (you are here)

Sew Peace To Peace

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs
The Quilting Queen Online

http://marlarockscrafts.blogspot.com/

Baby Girl Shower Gift

This is a quilt from my tops stash.  This is for a baby shower for a pending baby girl.

Finished up last night.  Good thing since the shower is this afternoon.

Love that squiggle quilting. It is so fast and so fun for kid quilts.

I found this wonderful backing at the Hobby Lobby.

Aren't they the cutest collection of kitties.  I think I need to go back and get some more for my stash.

For the Boys

Wow the timing on this hop was wonderful.  I knew I needed a baby quilt or two for the late fall -  early winter but I didn’t have a clue if they would be for boys or girls or one of each. 

Turns out I need one of each.  By the time I heard about the second child being a girl it was too late I had already started to quilt my second boy quilt.  It’s OK she will get a lovely quilt from my stash of completed tops.

Before the pictures comes the Thank you’s.  As always a big thanks to Mdm Samm for her creative mind and her organizing skills and  a special thanks for this hops special Cheerleader   Amy over at  http://sewincrediblycrazy.blogspot.com/

Without each of these ladies this would be an empty post.

I’m going to start with an oldie but goodie Manly  quilt I made for MJ several years ago.  It is from a kit I got from Country Threads called BUNK HOUSE QUILT. 

It is definitely a MAN’S quilt. It is made from several different home spuns and is truly a  masculine looking quilt.  MJ is just over 6’3” so the length of this quilt was wonderful for him to snuggle under in the man cave while watching football and the like. 

 I did a simple cross hatch for the quilting keeping true to the basic style and functionality of the pattern.  OK so the snuggling while watching football is not what I was originally going for but there wasn’t a cowboy available, more the pity.

Next up is the first of the 2  baby boy quilts I made. This one using some novelty fabric of rockets  and some coordinating fabrics from my stash.  

I love this little boy quilt. I love that it’s so simple but bold,  bright and cheery.  I have done some squiggly quilting lines down and across.

I backed it with my buy of the year.  I got this fabric in green, blue and pink with and without flowers as it was being sold out at by LQS.   Think I got close to 15 yds in total at 40% off.

 Back in Aug/Sept I made some Anvil blocks for  Victoria Wolfe at  http://www.15minutesplay.com/    Victoria collects these blocks and makes quilts for Cancer patients with them.  She collects blocks from anyone who is willing to help.   You can find a tutorial for the block on her blog   

 I had never made this block before.  I fell in love with it.  While home recouping from the Gallbladder surgery I whipped out 2 tops in about a week and a half.  I’ll get around to posting them sometime. Anyway, I thought this block would make a great “boy” quilt.  

Last month a Hobby Lobby opened about 10 minutes from work.   It is amazing how much trouble you can get into in 40 minutes.  I wanted to find out how their fabrics were so I picked up the makings for this Anvil Block quilt top for my baby Boy quilt #2. 

Aren’t  these dinosaurs great?  I liked the quality of the dinosaur and dotted fabrics but the solid fabric left me wanting.   I also quilted this one with the squiggles down and across.  

I backed  and bound the quilt with the orange dot fabric.  Needed to expand it a tad so I added the white strips.

Last spring I went to a baby shower where we were asked to decorate baby tee’s and onesies. This idea in my opinion was way better than playing games.  They supplied lots of things to use as stencils, fusible bond and misc fat quarters to choose from.  The mom’s sister was stationed at an ironing board and matched up the pieces.  She ended up with about 15 “designer" onesies and about 15 tee shirts.

Running with that idea I am adding these to the quilted gift.

I was planning on doing 4 shirts.  I pulled the fabrics from my stash bonded the fusible and cut out the little guys.   Little Dino #4 was done on some terrific fabric that looked like confetti.   Honestly it looked like confetti, not like godzilla.  I could not have done this if I tried.

I'm gonna have to save this little guy for next years Halloween Hop.

I had a great time, as always participating in this hop.  I hope you are enjoying the fun and are absorbing all the great ideas for guy gifts included in last week’s postings and those coming this week.  Please stop by and visit the other hop participants up today, you won’t be sorry that you did.

Jane's Quilting

Pieces By Polly

how Art you

Selina Quilts  ( you are here)

Upcycled Fabric

BQuiltin Studio

In The Boon Docks

Gemini Stitches

Secretly Stitching