selina quilts

Monday, December 1, 2025

Virtual Christmas Cookie Exchange 2025

Yahoo, we're back to celebrate the holidays. What a wonderful gift from Carol and Joan.

I think I'm so happy that I'll do a gift too. Details somewhere below.

I am writing this up while watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, one of my favorite shows to watch . I have been known to cry when I see Santa. (this year no tears just sniffles)

So some hops are harder than others to come up with wonderful ideas. This hop was the opposite. 4 weeks ago one of the crafting groups I belong to had a group sew and we made Santa Hat Pillows using Quilt Company Designs by Karen Montgomery - Santa Hat Pillow pattern.

It was a super easy project that holds a 14 inch pillow. I've made 2 already. I don't think anyone in the group stopped at 1. It's a project that has tons of potential. Several members added names of kids or grands or one side saying Naughty and the other Nice

I already know who is Naughty and Nice at our house.

The flap of the hat can go either way. I though that this year I would send this to my sister without telling her in advance what was coming. That way I only had to send one. Well the bonus to sending this unannounced was that I had to use a box that was too small and I really jammed the pillow in and super taped the box shut.

5 days later I get a call from sissie. Apparently when she opened the box the pillow sprang out of the box pom pom first and her first thought was that it was a live animal. So, so sorry I didn't get to see that reaction live and in person. thankfully by the time she called me she was laughing.

I generally participate in the swaps organized by Heather at Sewing With Scraps. They are usually scrap based, I needed to swap a placemat by 12/1. I went into my bin of unfinished mini projects looking for a something to use as a starting point and found this block from I don't know when. My best guess is I was making it for me and didn't get if finished before the holidays and lost interest .

Not only did I find this for the center I still had a chunk of one of the fabrics that was big enough to make it a full size placemat.

Forgot to take a real picture before mailing it out but it did make for a great placemat. Hope my swap partner likes it. She should be getting it Monday.

While seeking out a mini block for the placemat I found the center for a table runner. I think the block was a design from Cindy at Quilt Doodle Doodles.

Just another seasonal UFO. I took it to a mini quilt retreat 2 weeks ago and is now a finished and active Christmas decoration or maybe a gift??????

My most recent crafting adventure is using a Glowforge Laser. I started using it around Halloween at The Villages Woodworking Shop.

I have included a couple of pictures of several of the Christmas items I have made in the last couple of weeks. Hope you don't mind.

This Merry Christmas piece is my give away. It is made of MDF and is Laser cut.

It measures approx. 11 inches across, 3 inches high and

the base is about 1.5 wide.

I won't be able to mail it until 12/10 so I will draw a name from the comment list on the 9th. All you need to do is mention that you would like to be included in the drawing.

Last but not least I am including Christmas Cookies for the Cookie Exchange, sort of. I found this recipe back in 2023 I think for gingerbread kids and a gingerbread house..

This batch is fresh. I made them this week specifically for this hop.

When your recipe calls for cork they don't get moldy with time. They will be good til they hang on the tree for Christmas.

This was a wonderful way to kick off My Holiday season. I'm one of those people who believes that Christmas season starts when Santa in his sleigh passes Macy's.

Thanks so much Carol for coordinating yet one more wonderful Exchange of Cookies and Holiday ideas with friends.

I am including a full list of participants.

Stop by and visit and get inspired and leave a note of good cheer.

Wishing you and yours a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy New Year.

DECEMBER 1^st
Just Let Me Quilt
Hill Valley Quilter
Karrin’s Crazy World
Lynn's Blog
Quilted Delights
Quilt Schmilt
Selina Quilts

DECEMBER 2^nd
A Quiltery
Ms P Designs USA
Bumbleberry Stitches
Texas Quilt Gal
Beaquilter
Quilted Snail
DECEMBER 3^rd
Just Because Quilts
Just Sew Quilter
Kathleen McMusing
Songbird Designs
Quilting Between The Rails
Words & Stitches

DECEMBER 4^TH

MooseStashQuilting
Scrapdash
Sew Many Yarns
Happy Cottage Quilter
Days Filled With Joy
That Fabric Feeling

Wednesday, October 22, 2025

Out of the Dark - Blog Hop

Good morning fellow hoppers. It is wonderful to be back and hopping with all of you again. Thanks so much Carol and Joan for taking the time and energy to host these 2 hops.

When I signed on to this hop and started to look for a new idea or 2 I tripped over this unfinished table runner. I know I made the bulk of it at least 11 years ago but never did the binding. I assumed that I had started it for a Halloween Hop back in the day but I can't find where it may have appeared. I do know that I used it for several fall seasons on my dinning room table.without the binding and no one ever noticed.

Sew in honor of this hop, it is officially finished. Ya Hoo,

Next up, Bouncing around the internet I found the Free Pattern for this adorable Ghost. If you look her up you may see a slight difference.

I have a very, very bad habit of seeing a pattern and breezing through the instructions a little tooooooo fast. My little Ghost is stuffed, the patterns adorable ghost was not stuffed. Hers holds its goody box well, mine needed a few props to get her to remain standing. I did do all of the stitches by hand as in the pattern which is something I haven't done in quite some time.

The pattern included the design for our sweeties treat bag.

On an annual basis we go to Disney World to celebrate at their Halloween Event. We went earlier this month. I feel that their price for this event is a bit much even though you can trick or treat throughout the park. They even give you a bag. Did you notice the candy displayed around my ghost?

Well that is what we came home with from the trick or treat part of the evening. Yes it is more than average but I need to get something for my money. I worked diligently on finding every candy location that there was in the park, a couple more than once.. tee, hee, tee, hee.

We were at the park for 3 days. Michael loves the Haunted Mansion and we always visit it every day we are at the park. I decided that I would memorialize this trip by taking a couple of the photos that were taken while you are on the ride and making them into Placemats.

Michael loved them but I don't think he understands that they are for him to look at not eat on. That they fall under the heading Halloween decoration.

Well this has been a wonderful Hop. Sharing again with all of you. Thanks again to Joan and Carol . I do hope to visit with you all again for the Virtual Christmas Hop.

But before we get to far off track please take a few moments to visit with everyone participating in this hop and if possible leave them a good word on their wonderful work. They are all listed below for your convenience.

Monday Oct 20

Tuesday Oct 21

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Wednesday Oct 22

Quilting Between the Rails (on Facebook)

Thursday Oct 23

Tuesday, December 3, 2024

Virtual Christmas Cookie Exchange

This is always such a fun hop but this year it will also be a sad hop knowing it's our last.

Thanks so much Carol and Joan for the years of fun, learning and sharing with friends.

On to our cookie Exchange. Over the years I have participated in this hop but it has always been a major test of my Dessert making skills cause I don't bake because I'm always in too much of a hurry to follow directions.

This year I am serving Christmas dinner and decided that I was going to have dessert but I was not going to bake it. When I am not doing quilty things I do Cricut crafting things. Right now there are a lot of Cricut groups doing daily ideas to Cricut for Christmas. So pretty much every night I find myself trying a small idea that was posted during that day which gave me a fun idea to use my Cricut and some of these great ideas for dessert. I even decorated the paper napkins.

WARNING This is a bit picture heavy:

I did attempt a new dessert idea. A friend made chunky apple sauce and gave me about a cup and a half of it to try. It was wonderful but too much for me to use in a timely manner. I had a brain storm. I got a piece of Pillsbury Pie Crust, laid it in a pie dish, placed the apple sauce in the middle and rolled up the sides of the crust. Baked it for 40 minutes and got this beauty for my troubles. It was wonderful.

It is sitting on a muffin tin to cool. Once it was cool enough to eat, I did and forgot to get another picture.

I did do a little quilting for Christmas. I am in a Scrappy Pot Holder Hop. I did the main one in Court House Steps but included a smaller one of a Gnomes from last hop so I had to come up with something sewing/embroidery machine driven for this event.

I saw these on "OMA'S Place" embroidery Designs and fell in love.

Then my "baby" sister, she who talked me into machine embroidery in the first place, saw these cute fella's that she would like me to make and mail to her ASAP. She only asked for 14.

I did start making them. The design is from GG Designs.

This is what you get when you don't have any Candy Canes handy. It's OK , she offered to supply the candy canes to cut down on my shipping expense.

And no she will not be getting 14, I think she was joking and just being a "little sister".

That brings me to the end of this post and this wonderful Hopping Relationship. I will miss you all but will check in on you to see what you are up to. Of course you may or may not see my name as Blogger keeps playing its mind games with us but I will visit.

Thanks once more to Carol and Joan for playing with us for so long. You are loved and appreciated.

I am including a list of all of this hops members, stop by and leave a sweet comment

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good life.

December 2

December 3

December 4

Homespun Hannah's Blog

Quilt Schmilt

December 5

DecembeMooseStashQuilting

Bumbleberry Stitches

Sew Many Yarns

Days Filled With Joy

Wednesday, November 20, 2024

Gnome for the Holidays

Time to be Thankful for so many things. Thanks to Carol and Joan for all of the hard work they have put in over the years keeping this wonderful group of creatives together. Thanks also to the crafters/quilters for keeping all of our minds challenged when interpreting our monthly topics.

I tried to figure out when I started with this group and the earliest post I could find that I participated in was The Ghastlies from October 27, 2011. I am still using some of the items I made for that post :-} I really love that fabric still.

OK so on to this months challenge. For me this was a very hard topic. I am not into Gnomes and that being the case I almost missed signing up. Somewhere in the back of my memory bank I remembered that I have only missed one hop intentionally since I started. I didn't enter the hop where there were several cups and saucers stacked. I think I didn't join because it was applique and I didn't do that. I will admit that I regret that miss. It was an opportunity to learn and I passed it by. Over the years I have learned so much from the hops and the very generous participants. To this day that miss still bothers me.

So once I signed up I went on a Gnome search. I found these 3 fellows who are so into the season of Thanks.

I loved how the fall designs pop through their hats.

And here we are back to applique, NOT.

I cheated, My guys are actually Heat Transfer Vinyl.

I was so Thankful when I found this wonderful Batik, that in my opinion, was just perfect fall and wonderful for peeking through the designs in their hats.

The hop timing was perfect. I had a mini quilt retreat 2 weeks ago and got this runner totally finished.

Not only did I get it finished, I Thankfully found it a loving home. One of my fellow quilters mentioned that she always went away for Thanksgiving and really had no Seasonal decorations. Ta Da.

I belong to another group of crafters and this week at our meeting we are bringing in the unwanted crafting supplies we no longer use or want to house. We can take what we want on a first come first served basis and the left overs will be taken by a volunteer to a local charity.

With that incentive I spent a good bit of Saturday sorting through the forgotten. Found some great stuff to work on like a couple of quilts that only need binding and lots of stuff I have no idea where it came from including a pattern for a Christmas Gnome Potholder. Weird huh? Gnome how odd found 4 days before this Gnome event. Not only to have found the pattern but I have no idea where it came from. The pattern mentioned a shop hop that I have no idea about going on. but I took it as a sign and sat down and whipped one out for this hop.

Well we all know that I don't have any idea of how to make one of anything so on Sunday morning after breakfast I made him a buddy.

I'm not sure if I think he looks like a Gnome but that's what it is called on the instruction sheet so I'm running with it.

The main problem I had with them is that the pattern was marked for Christmas and at 9PM on Saturday my brain was so happy with a an additional item for this hop it wasn't grasping that just because the pattern said red and red print I should have switched the colors to fall. Didn't catch it on Sunday morning either when I went green.

So time to wish all of you who celebrate, a Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you all for being a part of my quilting/crafting life.

Here is a list of all of the participants this month. Hope you have a few minutes to visit them all and leave a word of kindness.

Hope to see you next month.

Monday Nov 18

Tuesday Nov 19

Wednesday Nov 20

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Quilted Snail

Selina Quilts

Thursday Nov 21

Just Let Me Quilt

Patchouli Moon Studio

Songbird Designs

Tuesday, October 22, 2024

WICKED HOP

Gosh I'm gonna miss this annual hop the most. Thank you Joan and Carol for the many years of creepyness.

I love October and all it brings with it especially Halloween. Lots of us are already working on Christmas but I'm not there yet. I see something Halloweenie and I drop everything to give it a try no matter what craft type it falls under. So while this hop is generally a Quilting group I will be tossing in a couple of other ideas with my quilted stuff.

Last month one of my crafting groups picked an easy table runner from Jenny at Missouri Star from 2011 to work on. The group in general picked Christmas as the theme. Not me I started with a fall leading into Halloween theme

I finished it and decided that I needed to make one a bit more Halloween based. One of my nieces ( the one who also loves Halloween) just moved into her first house and I decided she needed it to start the Creepy season off right.

Ok, I have a few non quilt things to toss here in the middle of this posting including a small give away.

This month I got dragged into Rhinestones. The group I mentioned earlier is having a mini retreat and the big item on the to do list is learning to add Rhinestones to a tee shirt. I was the test subject. I never liked shirts with Rhinestones so I didn't enter into the test with a great attitude. Well I got hooked on the process if not the Tee Shirt concept. The test was for a Christmas design. it was successful. I left and tried my hand at a more ME idea. The design for this Batty Tee were cut on my Cricut.

I couldn't let it go and tried it on a card (several actually, but the others weren't Halloweenish)

It was suggested that I try Holographic Vinyl instead of real Rhinestones so that's what I used on my cards.

Before I get back to quilty stuff here are few of the other Halloween goodies I have been up to.

How about a creepy candy holder

Or maybe a lollipop holder or 2

Oh and then there is my tiny give away, I have 5 creepy book marks to send to the first 5 of you who request one. Just make sure I have a way to reach you for mailing info. I was amazed at how many of my friends requested them, I didn't think that many of them still read real books.

So lets close with a couple more of my sewing machine projects

This sweet Trick or Treat bag was a combo of sewing and Rhinestones. It was made for me to use in Disney World last week for our annual visit for their Halloween event. Didn't get to use it due to MILTON shutting down the parks and the Event.

Did you notice that the tee shirt above has Mickey Mouse Bats. I made it for the trip too.

This is the second year of making and posting my ghosts. Last year I posted them hanging on my front door. These ghosts are brand new for this year. I was requested to do a demo on them for another group I quilt with. They are actually meant to be mug rugs. I'm glad I still have the ones from last year as these have already flown away to friends.

the difference in size is due to the thickness of the rope I used. the instructions can be found on the Bernina web site.

Wishing you a very happy, creepy, scary, treat filled etc. etc. Halloween. This hop is a great start so be sure to visit everyone and leave a note, even a creepy one would be appreciated. Here is the whole list of Hoppers to make it as easy as possible.

OCTOBER 21

Just Let Me Quilt

Just Sew Quilter

Sew Many Yarns

Patchouli Moon Studio

OCTOBER 22