Thursday, December 18, 2025

Christmas mat finish

Bonjour and welcome! 😃I hope that you've had a good week. Nope, I'm not ready, not at all!!!! I did however finish my second Christmas mat.

Hand-stitched mats

For the November Table Scraps Challenge, I made two very scrappy Christmas mats. I had a wonderful time stitching them with a running stitch. I finished the second one this week.

Two Christmas mats with running stitches

For the first mat I used only a couple of yarns - green perle cotton and red linen. All of the stitches went in the same direction. For the second mat, I wanted to shake things up 😁. I used many different colours of both perle cotton and linen yarn. The stitches went in many different directions, including in a circle and diagonally!

Second mat with running stitches

First mat - in two colours and yarns

Hand-dyed silk thread

Last week I received this amazing hand-dyed silk thread. I ordered it from Karen Turner in the UK. I chose a package of 5 pink/purple silk thread. They are so pretty! I did start stitching with one of them.

Hand-dyed silk thread by Karen Turner

Stitching a leaf on my not-so-daily stitching project

My stitches are not very good - I'll need more practice, and possibly a finer needle, to get the hang of stitching with such fine thread.

A Win!

I want to thank Gail of Quilting Gail and Sandra of mmm quilts for the lovely Arabesque quilt pattern. Gail made a sample for Sandra's new quilt pattern and I won the draw. You can see Sandra's quilt, "Happy Christmas" in FM Mavericks below 😊

What I learned

I didn't even think of stitching the first mat in different directions, but when I got to the second mat, I just wanted to do something different!
I stitched with three colours of linen yarns. Even if it was tricky getting them into the needle, I love the heavier stitches.
The Snowman in the photo was my mother's. We teased her about it because it had the same hat as she did 😀
Stitching with the silk thread takes getting used to. I had forgotten how fine it is. It's lovely using it as a double strand but then you really have to watch the tension. No worries, it's well worth it and it will be fun playing with!
There is a local yarn shop that is closing down next month, because the owner is retiring. I've been in there twice in the last few weeks. The green yarn that I used for the leaf above is a very fine cotton yarn from Japan. I love stitching with yarn that isn't necessarily intended for embroidery. It's so much fun experimenting!

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 562 of Free Motion Mavericks! It was a productive week! Thanks for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting.

Kat from Scrapbox Quilts made a wall hanging and a runner using Angela Walter's panels.

Kat's FMQ wall hanging panel

Kat's FMQ from the back

Runner panel FMQ by Kat

You can see the FMQ on the
back of Kat's runner panel

Sandra from mmm quilts has a new pattern, Arabesque, that she quilted up using lovely Christmas fabrics. Happy Christmas is a lovely wall hanging! Sandra stitched-in-the-ditch and then some meandering.

Sandra's Happy Christmas wall hanging

Details of Sandra's Happy Christmas

It's now your turn! 😊

Saturday, December 13, 2025

The Power of Print Exhibition in Copenhagen - Part 1

Hi and welcome 😊. I have a special treat for you! This fall, when I visited my brother and his family in Copenhagen, my lovely SIL took me to the Design Museum Danmark to see the Power of Print exhibition - Danish Textile Prints Through 100 Years. Here is a very quick overview.

If you're looking for the Free Motion Mavericks post, it's here.

Power of Print

It was a large exhibition in two sections. The first featured works by eight contemporary fabric printing designers/artists in Denmark. These artists hand-printed textiles specifically for the exhibition. This is what I'll share with you in this post. The second part of the exhibit showcased textiles from the museum's archives. It was arranged to examine all aspects of textile printing, from various printing techniques, to colour, stripes and the design of repeats. This will make a good second post.

Here are some of my favourite pieces by contemporary Danish textile artists. What I loved most about these were the colours; sometimes rich and bright, others more whimsical and light, and often with colours that you wouldn't think played well together! I also love how many of the designers use space within their prints.

Bitten Hegelund and Lisbeth Friis offer vibrant and interesting colours and unexpected lines

Bitten Hegelund’s broken lines

Lisbeth Friis’ stripes, dots, and checks

The next two fabrics are floral motifs by Josefina Enevold, who worked with and was influenced by Swedish designers.

Josefina Enevold's botanic motifs

One of my favourite - flower motif by Josefina Enevold

Next is the duo Tronhjem Rømer, which consists of artists Liv Marie Rømer and Trine Tronhjem, Their rich, flowing fabric requires a second look to see its complexity of both line and colour.

Flowing fabric by Tronhjem Rømer

A close up of the lines and colours at play

Janne Wendt's work was fascinating. In the display case below, we see how Janne used the hair of an ancient Greek and Roman statues as inspiration.

Inspired by the hair of an ancient statue

Printing by Janne Wendt, inspired by sculptured hair

Another interesting artist is Anne Fabricius Møller. She loves to use everyday objects as printing tools. Once you see her work, you know that it's not the actual object but the way that it plays with all of the elements of the design that make them special!

One of Anne Fabricius Møller's
prints

Details of Anne Fabricius Møller's print

Two prints by
Anne Fabricius Møller

Details of another print by Anne Fabricius Møller

Else Borup Kallesøe's work is geometric. It goes from light, such as the Flying Palette on silk organza below, to intricate stripes.

Else Borup Kallesøe's Flying Palette

Details of Flying Palette

The geometric work of Else Borup Kallesøe

What I learned

The Power of Print is a large exhibition and I'm sure that I could have discovered new things if I had a chance to go again.
The printed textiles were amazing, a real treat for the eyes!
As I mentioned, one of the things that I noticed in many of the textiles was the interesting use of colour. Many of the colours I wouldn't expect to play nice but I think that value probably plays a large part in that.
As I toured the exhibition, I knew that I wanted to write a post on this. So I ended up taking a lot more photos of the explanations, rather than reading it all there.
In this instance, this worked well for me. I easily get overwhelmed by everything. This way, I examined and took pictures of what I liked but then when I wrote the post, I read all of the information and looked at the textiles.
I was also lucky that there are a few good articles about the exhibition so I was able to match the images to the artist. In most instances the textiles were placed together, but that's not necessarily how I took my pictures. 😵‍💫
I was also surprised that many of the artists' don't have websites.
I had a really hard time finding the Design Museum. I tried the day before my visit, but managed to go the opposite way. When I figured this out, I was so tired that I took a lovely boat tour on the canals of Copenhagen. It was all good 👍, actually great!!

Thursday, December 11, 2025

Updates and FM Mavericks

Hi and welcome! 😊 I'm so glad that you're here. It's snowing In Ottawa, but it's not the heavy wet snow, so that's a relief! I have some updates and progress to share with you today.

Christmas Panel - a flimsy

Christmas Panel, ready to be sandwiched!

I really, really hope that my DIL will love it as much as I do! It was so much fun to make. Yesterday I checked the backing fabric and yes, I have enough. I cut it up to fit on the back. It'll be tight but fine. Now to take out the batting and take everything to the dining room to pin it together.

Christmas Mat

I finished stitching the first Christmas mat - and had a photo shoot with my mother's Christmas teddy bear. I used green perle cotton and a red linen yarn that is thicker than perle cotton but still fits in the eye of my needle!

Christmas mat stitched with cotton and linen yarns

More poses!

Desert Landscape

Finally, I have also finished and given the Desert Landscape to hubby. It's now in his home office.

Finished Desert Landscape

In case you're wondering, here are a couple of photos of how I finished the piece in the hoop. I didn't mention the details of finishing Sunset Over Water but I remembered that I hadn't cut the excess fabric well around the hoop, so I made sure to measure before cutting it. That did help in the finishing.

Cutting the excess fabric evenly

After that, I added fabric glue (Aleene's Tacky Glue) on the top of the inner wooden hoop and pressed the fabric down. The next step was to add a piece of felt or flannel inside the finished hoop. I also wrote an inscription but managed to glue it upside down! 😂

Bunching up the fabric before covering it up

What I learned

Measuring the excess fabric around the hoop, before cutting it, made a difference to the finishing of the piece.
Next time though, I should check that the backing inscription is positioned correctly!
There are many different ways of finishing a hoop. So far, I think that this is my favourite - fast and easy!
I'm really looking forward to FMQ the Christmas Panel. I'm not sure what I'll do, but it will be simple! I do enjoy stitching around elements of a panel or fabric, so that's probably what I'll do for the inside.
This mat was stitched with running stitches going in the same direction. I'm having fun switching that around for the second mat!😄

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 561 of Free Motion Mavericks! It was a productive week! Thanks for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting.

Kat from Scrapbox Quilts finished up this beauty, Crimson Christmas. She did learn that matchstick quilting takes a long time and can result in a stiff quilt. It's still a gorgeous quilt and will make a lovely wall hanging!

Crimson Christmas made by Kat

Melva, from Melva Loves Scraps, finished Memory Keeper III.

Melva's Memory Keeper III

Deb, A Scrappy Quilter finished her first Hip Hop Hopscotch quilt. She FMQ each whirly gig block with a stylized swirl surrounded by flower petals. What a sweet quilt!

Hip Hop Hopscotch quilt by Deb

Deb FMQ a stylized flower over each whirly gig

Sandra Walker of mmm quilts finished a UFO last week. Kindred Spirit was a quilt along hosted in 2017. You'll want to read more about it in Sandra's post!

Sandra's Kindred Spirit, a gorgeous UFO finish!

Details of the FMQ on Kindred Spirit by Sandra

It's now your turn!😍

Wednesday, December 03, 2025

December OMG and Table Scraps Challenge

Bonjour and welcome! 😄 I've managed to get a few things done! Yay!!!!

December's OMG

I mentioned in my last post that I would be working on my Christmas panel quilt, one of my SAHRR 2025 projects. Well, it turns out that after putting together the Cowboy panel quilt, this second one was a breeze! It came together without any re-stitching which is quite the accomplishment when you're making it up as you go along. 😂

All four borders ready to attach

I found it difficult to decide on the fabrics to use for the borders. At first I wasn't going to have a border and I was just going to use "quiet" fabrics between each block, but it was just too chaotic. I was doubtful as I was doing it, but after looking at the picture, I knew that it was NOT going to happen!

A failed experiment

I was hoping to use blue in the border but none of the blue fabrics were correct. I also didn't have the right green. So, going through my fabrics, I found a checkered fabric that had all of the right colours!

The perfect inner border

I then looked at my friend's finished Christmas panel quilt. We bought these panels last year to make together. She finished her quilt early in 2025, but I made it for the SAHRR and it took a while to make, especially since it was one of two quilts!

My friend Sylvie's Christmas panel

Isn't the yellow amazing as a border? I was lucky to find a large piece of bright yellow fabric in my stash. After making the pieces around the blocks, I should have enough for the binding.

Borders around the quilt

At this point I've added three of the borders - I just need to add the bottom border. It will then get sandwiched and quilted! 😊 That is a reasonable December One Monthly Goal (OMG).

Table Scraps Challenge

I really wanted to make something for the November Table Scraps Challenge. After all, the colours were ours to choose and the theme was ~~music~~ book or movie. Since I was playing with Christmas fabric scraps, I decided to make a couple of small mats that I will stitch up using colourful running stitches. I'm not finished stitching them, but that's something that shouldn't be rushed.

As for a song (sorry, it should have been a book or movie!), I'm going to say that the song "River" came up most often as I was working on this. Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded it (1971) and it was later recorded by Sarah McLachlan (2006).

Two Christmas fabric mats - lot of colours!

First mat - stitching with colourful running stitches

The second mat, ready to stitch

The backs of the mats

What I learned

After working on the Christmas panel quilt, I'm happy to say that I'm no longer in denial about Christmas coming!
I was really surprised by how quickly the Christmas panel quilt came together. I'm happy because it shows that I did learn a lot making the first one!
I'm so grateful that I had the fabric necessary to finish the borders around the quilt.
I looked in my Christmas fabric stash and found a nice print for the back, so it should be easy enough to piece together and then sandwich.
I'll be putting together a post with all of the links to the Christmas panel quilt like I did for the Cowboy quilt. At this time, I'm just including my last post on the Christmas panel. It has all of the related links
I'll enjoy slow stitching the Christmas mats.

Related links

SAHRR Week 6 and Free Motion Mavericks, February 27, 2025

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties, including the December OMG and the November Table Scraps Challenge. Why not check some of these out, after linking up below? Monday Musings, Design Wall Monday, Sew & Tell, Put your foot down, Off The Wall Friday, Finished (Or Not) Friday, Beauties Pageant, Patchwork & Quilts, 15 Minutes to Stitch 2025, Oh Scrap!

FM Mavericks

Welcome to week 560 of Free Motion Mavericks! It was a very productive week! Thanks for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting.

Kat of Scrapbox Quilts FMQ this fun Go Blue banner. She used a new attachment that was a bit of a disappointment. Kat quilted around all of the elements of the fabric.

Go Blue banner FMQ by Kat

Donnalee made another lovely placemat for Zoey, her dog. This one is a Christmas mat. As well, she made this storage bag that will be sold at the guild's show.