Showing posts with label Christmas fabric. Show all posts

Thursday, December 26, 2024

Christmas Updates and Finishes on Free Motion Mavericks

Allô and welcome🎄 I hope that you had a lovely Christmas. We had a terrific time with all of the kids and Poppy, great food, and gifts! It's now Boxing Day and very quiet. Time to get this post done and then do some more embroidery. 😊

Snow Happens wall hanging

The last time I shared this embroidery was last January in my 2024 planning post and then again in a slow stitching post a few days later. I'm afraid not much happened after that. I picked it up in December again and it's slowly coming along. Instead of giving myself another year to finish it (we know how that worked out!😁), I'm aiming for the end of January. At least it's a winter piece, so it won't have to be put away with the Christmas stuff.

The first two snow people, almost finished!

Here are the other snow people.

Some progress on the snow people

The last one hasn't been started
except for the bird house

Metal Christmas Ornament

Do you remember the trees embroidered on metal? They have great potential but we'll call this version a sample. I did learn a lot making and putting it together. I'm not sure if I'll make more but if I do, I'll have good notes below!

Christmas tree ornament - lots of potential

Not great but learned lots!

Kawandi style Christmas mat

For November's Table Scraps Challenge, I put together a little Kawandi style mat made of old fashion Christmas fabric. I finished it in December. I just love it and I think that my DL likes it too! As I mentioned in a previous post, I sewed the fabrics down by machine. This was so much easier than wrestling with pins and bits of fabric as I stitched it by hand. I will probably keep making them this way. My favourite part about making them is the slow running stitch.

Finished Kawandi style Christmas mat

Doesn't it go great with the Grinch card? The fabrics
are probably from the same era.

It's quiet here today. Poppy is spending a few days. I'm so happy.😍

Poppy checking out the yard!

Poppy coming in from the snow

What I learned

The Snow Happens embroidery is coming along. It's weird to be following a commercial pattern.
The piece is supposed to be in blue but I just can't do that - so the embroidery thread is all kinds of values of blue. It makes things more interesting to stitch!
The metal Christmas tree ornament was a disappointment. I now know not to use fuzzy thread.
The most frustrating part was stitching them together. I just don't like how I finished the edges. It only occurred to me a few days later that I could have backed them with felt. I think that this would be better and much easier. At least if I make these again, I'll have notes to follow!

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 512 of Free Motion Mavericks! I think many quilters were busy getting ready for the holidays. Thanks for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting.

Deb from a Scrappy Quilter quilted six Irish Chain quilts. Two have been donated while the others will hang around for the special occasion.

Kat quilted this one with a diamond grid

Six lovely quilts finished by Kat

Quilting Gail finished her Floral Fusion, based on Denise's sew along. What a beauty.

Gail's finished Floral Fusion

Gail outlined the flowers and FMQ swirls in the background

Brenda from Songbird Designs made this beauty for the Island Batik's It's All Up to You Challenge. You'll want to check out her post to read how she made it. She quilted it using some lovely sparkling thread.

Check out Brenda's lovely Christmas tree!

It's now your turn.

Thursday, December 09, 2021

Holiday Gifts at Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to Week 360 of Free Motion Mavericks. I feel like I've been avoiding it long enough - like a groundhog who pops out of his den and finds that snow is on the ground and Christmas and the holidays are almost here! Yikes...unlike the groundhog, there's no going back to sleep now! 😃

Christmas Mug Rugs

Here they are!

Cheerful Mug Rugs

I made these in a wonky improv log cabin style. It's my go-to when I'm not sure what to do.

Peek-a-boo penguin mug rugs

Candy person and cardinal mug rug

What I learned

My favourite improv piecing is a wonky log cabin. Anything goes as long as it's sort of a log cabin.
I only used the pieces in my scrap box of holiday fabrics.
I used my walking foot to stitch-in-the-ditch. I'm getting better and from far they look fine 😊
My next quick project is to make two placemats. I need to look into my Christmas fabric stash (only 2 smallish boxes) to find the right fabrics, and then a really simple pattern. I think that the recipient would rather have something more traditional than my crazy improv piecing.
If I have time, I can always improv piece the back to make them reversible....we'll see how much time I have.

Free Motion Mavericks

I hope that you're dropping by to link up something quilty, FMQ or just some great holiday stitching.

Denise made this gorgeous Hexie project as part of the Island Batik EPP Challenge. Of course it's Loki who gets all of the attention, but there is a pretty table runner there...really! 😊

Loki gorgeousness under some wonderful hexies!

It's now your turn!

Wednesday, December 04, 2019

Christmas at Throwback Thursday

Welcome to the last Throwback Thursday of 2019! We've had some wonderful linkups and walks down memory lane. 😊 I'm also hosting Free Motion Mavericks (week 258), so please link up here.

Throwback Thursday

I made both of these Christmas placemats during a quilting retreat a very long time ago - before FMQ (free motion quilting).

This first one - the mittens placemat, is as simple as it gets. Four pieces of fabric sewn together and a pair of mittens appliquéd to one of them. I used a zigzag stitch for the mittens and then hand quilted some of the obvious lines, such as the tartan, the trees and around the blocks and mittens.

Mittens placemat

Last year, I noticed that both placemats were in need of some loving care. I sewed inside the mittens to stabilize them and then FMQ some snowflakes within the large white block. You can see the details below.

Adding some extra stitches and FMQ snowflakes

I made this doggy placemat for my daughter. I believe that it started with the block on the bottom left. From there I made an easy strip block and a half triangle block. I appliquéd the dog onto the large white block.

Doggy placemat with a pieced block.

I hadn't even hand quilted this placemat because my friend had used decorative stitching around each block. However, that really wasn't enough to keep this piece stable after many years of washing and use. So last year I quilted in the ditch of the block and then added a lot of FMQ in all of the other areas of the placemat.

FMQ more snowflakes in the background

These are very obviously some of my first quilted projects. I love that they have served us well. They come out every Christmas to be used by my daughter and I. The boys said that they didn't need a Christmas placemat - as if it was about need!

I've really enjoyed partnering with Sandra at mmm! quilts on hosting Throwback Thursday. Unfortunately, this is all of the pre-blogging quilts that I have, so I will leave Throwback Thursday's linky party back in Sandra's very capable hands. Thanks Sandra for sharing this fun linkup with me!

Linking parties
I'll be linking up this post to several great link-ups. Why not see what's going on? Monday Making, Colour and Inspiration Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Put your foot down, Needle & Thread Thursday, Off the Wall Friday, Finished or Not Finished Friday, Friday Foto Fun, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Peacock Party,

Throwback Thursday (TBT) Link-up for December

Hi! I'm hosting Throwback Thursday (TBT) for Sandra at mmm! quilts this month. Link up your pre-blogging projects below.

Monday, December 24, 2018

Christmas Cheer

T'was the night before Christmas and mom is still cleaning, shopping, wrapping and blogging!

I helped decorate my colleague's and my office before leaving for Venice. At least that was done when I came back to Canada! I had one week to get ready for the holidays, and I spent most of it in bed or helping my daughter who was even sicker than I. Oh well, I'm sort of rested and at least we weren't sick during our trip 😊.

Office decorations & hexies

If I'm writing a post, it's probably because there are textiles or fibre involved :-)

My office decorations

My colleague's
decorated office

I created these two hangings years ago. They are both made of wool roving on hand-woven backgrounds.

Snowman hanging

I used to use the hangings to display the Christmas cards....do you remember those days when we sent and received lots of Christmas cards? That was essentially before the internet and social media. Things have changed.

I've kept the prettiest or most sentimental of the Christmas cards. They are great for decorating or making other things.

The office plant is decorated with a double-woven decoration.

Decorating the office plant

This is the second Christmas hanging with brand new Christmas hexies - made last night!

Christmas hexies

This year I've only taken out a couple of bags of Christmas fabric scraps. I don't have that much Christmas fabric but I knew that I wouldn't be making anything significant this year, so the scraps were fine.

I found enough red fabric to make one hexie and then fussy cut other fabrics for two more hexies. I'll be adding these to the piece I'm making with the #100hexies100days2018.

Light Christmas themed hexies

Dark Christmas themed hexies

Christmas Runner

A couple of years ago I made this Christmas runner for a friend but, of course, forgot to take pictures. Her kids like snowmen, so I added a couple of snowman blocks at each end, with star block in between. I'll look into my Christmas quilting magazine stash to see where it comes from and add it later.

Snowman Christmas runner

The back of the Snowman Christmas runner

Season Wishes

I wish you a wonderful holiday season. It's not always an easy time of the year but I hope that you get some time to enjoy your family &/or friends, great food, and some quilting and resting time.

What I learned

I don't think that I could have expected to be sick when I got back but this year my family decided to keep everything really simple for Christmas. I hope that we do that each year. BTW, I cleaned (sort of) and decorated the house yesterday with my daughter. The guys had put up the Christmas tree before we got back, so that was a wonderful surprise! I am almost ready.😊
I still have a few posts to write before the end of the year, including some exciting news, so look for them soon.

Sunday, December 03, 2017

Slow Sunday Stitching and a sore finger

It's time for an update on my hexie runner. Have I told you how much I love hexies? Only a few dozen times? :-)

Since I was tired of just making hexie flowers just for fun, I thought that I would start putting them together. Here's the last post from November 14th.

Hexie flowers slowly becoming a runner

Here's my latest work. It is moving along quite nicely. I finished putting the six hexie flowers together, along with their separators.

Progress on the hexie runner

I'm finding the orange separator a little distracting. I may have to balance that out with the next separator. The colours of the two remaining flowers may change as I work to balance the piece out. The orange-brown one will stay, to go with the separator but the purple may get voted off.

I also just made the purple flower. I had meant to make one originally but somehow hadn't gotten around to it. If it doesn't get used in this piece, there will be other opportunities for it to shine :-)

The next (and last?) flowers

I will be finishing one more row of the white and then auditioning a mixed coloured border.

I also just took out a bag of Christmas scraps. As this post title suggests, between hand sewing the label and sleeve on a wall hanging and working on the hexie runner, my middle finger is full of holes and very sore. Yes, I should be wearing a thimble but I've tried many times and just end up using another finger.

Christmas scraps - potential hexies?

So I'll probably just cut up some fabric for a few Christmas hexies. I also have some bigger hexie templates that I've been wanting to try. Maybe it's finally the time to try to do a little bit of fussy cutting. I think I need to stop because I'm sounding too ambitious again :-) However it turns out, I'm going to put this on my To-Do Tuesday list for the upcoming week. Nothing like having some plans to keep me going :-)

What I learned

I've said it before but somehow keep forgetting! I really need to take a picture of the potential placement of these hexies and their separators BEFORE putting them together. That would probably have helped me with the orange separator.
On the other hand, now I have a design challenge to work through. And I do like a challenge, mostly :-)
I need another project like I need.... (add what ever you want here), but I do want to work with some Christmas fabric without getting too ambitious, so a few hexie flowers to put me in the festive mood just might do the trick. It also allowed me to take out the Christmas fabric scraps and not the two full bins of fabric that I have!

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