Unexpected Surprise

I came home on Tuesday to find these beautiful things waiting for me on my doorstep: A handmade, knitted hat and fingerless gloves set.

 

Aren't they are made in the most beautiful colors on earth. The recipient of this quilt sent this to me. I had no idea she was going to do this but I am so thankful. Her Etsy site here, but she is on vacation right now. Early Christmas gift for me! Yay!

Happy Holidays to All!

Running out of time

Did your ever get the feeling that you should have started a project waaaay earlier than you did? Uh yeah, been there so many times I can't count. Should've started my 'handmade holidays' back in September but I over estimated how much time it would take to finish my gifts, given the fact that I don't get to touch my sewing machine, most times, til the weekends. Getting down to the wire here and running out of time fast, but I press on anyway. Here is a peak of a few of the other gifts I have been working on. Can't tell you which one is for who yet. But...

here is the fabric and a block from the first gift.

And here is the fabric and a peek at the second gift.

 

These little gifties will be revealed after Christmas.

Handmade Holidays

Here is the beginning of my next Christmas gift. I'm a little behind actually. Including this one, I have 3 to make by Christmas day. I don't want to give too much away in case the family is peeking at my blog :).

I was sort of bitten by the Handmade Holidays 'bug' last Christmas and handmade most of the gifts for my family.

First One Down

My first Christmas gift is done! It was actually done a few days ago but I was under the weather for a good portion of last week. Getting better day by day but it has been sooooo slow. Here it is folded, ready for gift wrapping, bagging or what ever it is I decide to do with it when I am ready to give out.

And here it is full out. Both front...

and back.

Ready for Binding

Its been awhile since I have posed an update for this quilt. Its for my mother-in-law, for Christmas. It took me a little longer than it should have to get to this point. I think the quilting part scares me a little. I don't meander/stipple that often so when I decide to actually use it on a quilt, I sort of psych myself out and procrastinate (which I am really good at) :). I prepared it for binding last night and it just waits for me to start that process.

Sent Off

Its been a few days since my last post but I have good news, at least for the recipient of her mini.  I finally finished my friends mini and sent it off this morning. Hopefully she will get it before Thanksgiving hits. Don't want it to get caught up in all the other massive amounts of boxes and packages that start flying around this time of year. This is the front and back of the mini I sent her.

I really hope she enjoys it.

Mini Update

Ok, I'm a little behind in my posting. I normally try to post at least twice a week but you know, life happens and sometimes you don't get to do what you want. :) Anyway, here are the blocks to my friends mini, all 20 of them.

Here are a few of what the blocks look like.

And lastly this is what the completed top looks like.

Looky...Looky

Well its raining and supposed to rain most of the day today and I have been sort of non-productive on the quilting front the past few days...well...there are a few good reasons at least...doing my civic duty on Tuesday and of course work everyday. I was looking through pics on my old computer and found few goodies I hadn't seen in awhile:

 

This is a quilt I made for my daughter, for Christmas, back in 2004. It was quilted diagonally across the blocks but hadn't been bound yet. And...

This is a quilt I made for my brand new (at the time) nephew in November 2004. This one was outline quilted but of course, at the time of this picture, hadn't been bound yet. Didn't do terribly well as far as documenting is concerned. See these are the only two pictures I have of these quilts. No connecting block process and no finally finished pics. I have no idea why I didn't take a final picture of them... knowing me, I was trying to finish them on a deadline and was rushing.

Mini for a friend

A little while ago a friend saw this mini and asked if I could make her one for her knitting sanctuary. She had purchase some fabric that she liked, some time ago and wasn't quite sure what to do with it. Of course I told her I could. How could I turn her down? :) Here is the fabric she wants a similar mini made from:

I started on the blocks. I'll post them either tomorrow or Wednesday.

Cathedrals Done

Raining here today. A little dark and gloomy and I would rather be home snug in my bed but gotta pay the bills somehow. :)

Alright, here is the cathedral background with the insert sitting on top. I think it looks pretty cool like this, but of course it is not finished.

And here is the finished product. Not bad for my first stab a this technique. I kinda just jumped in and hoped it would turn out well. This is just my personal opinion, but I think it did.

Something New

I decided to try something new over the weekend...Cathedral Windows. I followed the directions from one of the blogs I frequent here. It was quite a bit harder than I thought but here are a couple of blocks I started with.

Since this is my first stab at this technique I didn't want to do too many...so I ended up with nine background blocks that look like this.

 

I put in the safety pins to keep the folded flaps from flying open as I moved/sewed the blocks together. Tomorrow I will post the insert squares I used and the finished product.

Previously

Here is another quilt I made earlier this year. Of course the name is Karate Boy (how original). I made this for a friends brand new son.

Top Done

It's a little rainy here today and I'm feeling quite sleepy but the Karate Girl quilt top is done. I will probably get to the quilting this weekend and then of course...off to my next project.

Finally

Ok. Here is the completed Blue Points mini quilt. I need a lot more practice on my quilting technique but it's coming along.

Blue Points top

Oops. Missed posting yesterday, like I promised. But here it is today. It is the Blue Points top.

Blue Points

Kind of a dreary day today...rainy and a little chilly. Over the weekend I continued to work on my pink baby quilt but I also started a new mini. Here is how it started.



Which ended up in a bunch of these. More tomorrow.

Baby Quilt

Starting another quilt. This one is a baby quilt for a girl using these blocks and a few others.

Flower Box

Another of my minis - Flower Box.

Favorite Mini

Good Monday to you!. I thought I would post a pic of my favorite mini so far. This one has kind of an Asian flair to it.

Please pardon the quality of the pictures. I know they are not the greatest. Maybe Santa will visit early this year and bring me a a better camera. ;)

Another Mini

Here is another one of my minis. I call this one Sand Dollar.

Lastest Quilt

Here is part of the latest quilt I have been working on. It is a quilt for my mother-in-law.

Can you tell her favorite color is purple? All of the fabric came from my stash.

Happy Surprise

Yesterday when my husband picked me up from work, I had these waiting for me in the car:

These is actually three pictures of the same bouquet, but there were so many beautiful flowers I to take the picture from three different angles.

DC Metro complete

Here is my completed DC Metro mini.

Quilt Minis

Quilt minis are something that I started doing a few months ago for a couple of reasons. They are, of course a lot smaller that full sized quilts and therefore quicker to complete and it gives me a chance to practice different quilt techniques in a smaller space, to see if I later would want to complete a larger one. I also put them up in my office so that I can appreciate my own work. So many quilts are completed and then given as gifts not to be seen my me again. Unfortunately I didn't learn the true value of photographing my quilts until a year or so ago. Here is my latest completed one.

This was the the beginning of the mini. I finished this last month. I call it DC Metro. The inspiration for this mini was from a similar quilt I saw a few months ago called Tokyo Subway. I didn't realized it at the time, but the original mini quilt i saw, was done by one of my favorite quilters:  Elizabeth Hartman from Oh Fransson! (which incidentally she is doing a quilt-a-long for Tokyo Subway now).

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Hello world!

Hello indeed! I am very new to having my own blog. It's exciting; so much to learn. I had actually been thinking of starting a blog for several months now but I decided to just jump right in.