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