Christmas Gifts 2007

I was reminded of this wall hanging yesterday and realized that I haven't updated this blog in a while. To be honest, I haven't done any sewing this month. With my daughter moving back with her friend, my sewing room became the place to store everything, but slowly, it's getting cleaned back out and I can get motivated again.

This wall hanging I called Jonathan's Star. It was made from the scraps of Sally's graduation quilt. The star pattern was on the cover of one of Grannie's old magazines and I made the pattern from the picture. It was my nephew's gift.

This is all the wall hangings I did for Christmas this past year. They were machine and hand pieced and all hand quilted.

The snowman was for my Grandmother. My pictures didn't come out too good, but Grannie love it. The red and white was done for my neice, Crystal. I see alot of pictures and try to make patterns from them. This is one such example. The red diamonds are actually strips of about 5 shades of tye died reds I used to make some scrafs. I quilted with red thread, snowflakes in the white blocks. It wa actually prettier than the picture lets on and she was happy with it. I've got about 5 months to figure out what I'm going to do this Christmas.

Devil's Puzzle

Devil's Puzzle - Adam's quilt


This quilt is going to be made up of 9 blocks made with 2 sets of this section. Then the borders are made up of sets of the 2 bottom rolls.


Figuring out how to get the curved pieces took some research. Since Mother only gave the a picture of the layout, I've had to figure how to sew on the curve (something I've never done in a quilt before). This is all the pieces. I have this nifty little mini cutting board that has a cushioned grid on the one side.




If I postion one piece over the other (right sides together) straight edges matching, and pin at the diagional line on the grid, it gives me the center of the curve.






Then I simply pin the edges and fit the curves in. I'll be honest, I tried to sew it on the sewing machine, but I got pleats in the curve, so I'll do it by hand. I did go ahead and pin all the pieces for the rest of the block, so tonight all I have to do is sew.





To size the block (which is a 4inch block), I flip the board over and trim it using the cutting board.

I really like this cutting board. It gives me a little working area when I'm watching TV without bringing out my big work table. It's also small enough I can take it to work with me and have a work area when I'm sewing in my car.



I went to Mother's yesterday, and she was quilting on this throw quilt. Her hands will probably have to have surgery soon, her fingers are "locking up" on her. But she is quilting this one by hand. She really loves to lap quilt (no frame or hoop at all).

All Those Scraps

I started pulling out the quilts in one corner of the room last night to document. I almost forgot about these throws I made for the kids one Christmas. I made several that year and gave as gifts to my nephew and brother. I believe that they were made with three blocks of a goose on one. I can't remember what was on the other one, but I believe it was red, pieced block. These strips were added to fleece blankets.





This one is Adam's. They were fused onto the blocks and then I used invisible thread to make sure they stayed. I have never really trusted the fused stuff. I was trying to make the blocks out of material left over from outfits I had made the kids. But Adam was only about 2 at the time and just the blue square and the red colored square were from his clothes.








With Sally's, I was making her clothes all the time. I srarted this hand appliqued dutch doll, thinking I would one day make a full quilt of a calendar quilt...well, I got the first 3 months. Almost every part of this strip was made from her clothes. The red hat was her first Valentine dress and the green hat was her first dress that I made her. The green on the March block was one of her Easter dresses, as was the border strips.




This log cabin was made by my mohter when I was a kid. This block shows some of the scraps that she used from my clothes. I remember the Ragedy Ann material, one of favorite blouses and the blue flowers was a dress. I had to be in the 1st or 2nd grade then.











I took the quilt to college with me and still have it. There are alot of strips that are thred bare and the quilt's batting is worn out. Alot of the light strips were made from material my Grannie L. brought in from the shirt factory she worked at years before. They always reminded me of pajama tops.




The first time my brothers came for a visit to our home in Alabama I got into some trouble with my quilts. With all their families staying with us, we had to pull out all the blankets for kids to have beds. This blanket caused some questions and then they started looking at all the other quilts. It seems that this quilt (and some of the others) had been on their beds at one time. Of course, they both moved out and didn't take their quilts unless Mother gave it to them.




Well, I took my quilts with me. It had been on my bed too. So now, no one will let me sleep under any of their quilts because I have been know to keep them if I sleep under them. But I don't let anyone else keep them if they sleep under them....although Sally seems to be taking up my habits.