The Gifts of Christmas

I would like to introduce you to my "Peeps"...that's me (a quilter), my husband (a model railroader) and my daughter, who just finished her university degree in business. I have a friend who makes these little wooden figures and ordered "Peeps" for all my peeps for Christmas.  I sent her pictures of everyone in the family and she custom painted each figure.

Here are all 10 Peeps--my dad plays the violin, me, my daughter, my husband, my MIL who likes to garden, my SIL who likes to take pictures, Skye the dog, my BIL who likes to play baseball, my niece who likes to read and her sister who likes to sing. 

Everyone was very pleased with their "Peeps".  Thanks, Toni, for a job well done!

You may remember that I made quilts from my FIL's shirts last Christmas, our first Christmas without him. The quilts were for my husband and his sister, the three grandchildren and my MIL. This year, I made my BIL a pillow from the shirts.

I used organic quilting.

 

 

I found some perfect shirt fabric for the back of the pillow.

Here it is, all done.  My BIL was pleased with his pillow. It will have a place of honour in his office or in their family room.

As you know, my husband is a model railroader.  We were in a model railroad store before Christmas picking up a train engine that he had ordered and I happened to find this:

 

Doesn't every model railroad need a house with a quilt on the front porch????  They even had it in "N" scale, the gauge my husband models.

I made a feather pillow for my daughter for Christmas. The pattern, by Anna Maria Horner, is for a queen sized quilt, but I decided to just make a pillow to try out the pattern before committing to a big quilt. I used a Kaffe Fasset charm pack that was in my stash for the feathers.

 

I paper pieced the feathers so each one would be different.

 

 

Lots of straight line quilting...



 

The finished pillow!

 

If I was making a pillow from this pattern again, I think I would have less background material between the feathers...

I am happy that my homemade gifts were well received this year! 

Starting a New Project

Since all my Christmas gifts are made, and as of last night, wrapped, I gave myself permission to start a new project when Christine came over to sew tonight.  I had pulled these fabrics out of my stash a couple of weeks ago for a baby quilt. Once again, I am not using a pattern for this project...I am just making it up as I go along.

The baby will live on a farm so this fabric will be perfect for a baby farm-girl or a baby farm-boy.

My husband bought me a fat quarter bundle last year for Christmas and this is the perfect project for it.  I added the solids from my stash.

I do not intend for this quilt to be for the baby's bed...I hope that it will be used as a playtime quilt.

 It could even be used for a  game of "I Spy..." with all of the different fabrics.

I have an idea for the next border, and the border after that... 

Stay tuned...

Snowmen Runner DONE!

I finally got around to finishing off my snowmen runner this week!  We had some company all weekend so there was no sewing happening around here until everyone went home.  I finished the big stitch quilting using pearl cotton threads and added 6 different snowflake buttons--I had those in my stash...

I then added a stripey homespun binding  and hand stitched it down.

These happy faces make me smile!

I shared my runner at show and tell at our guild meeting tonight. Many of the guild members read my blog and several came up to me at the end of the meeting to say that they did not realize this runner was so small.  It measures 9" by 27".  The original pattern/kit did not include a border but I thought it needed a border and I just happened to have some appropriate homespun border fabric in my stash... ;-)

I have the perfect spot to put this runner. I just have to do some cleaning up first...

Abby Has Her Quilt

A few months ago, a friend asked me to make a t-shirt quilt for his daughter, Abby.  Abby has Rett Syndrome. You can read more about Rett Syndrome here.  Each year, Abby's family participated in the Run for Rett, a fundraiser for research about Rett Syndrome.  The t-shirts were from the various  runs.

 

 

I purchased some background fabric and dove into my stash for some colourful fabrics to add to the quilt and started sewing.  It was fun to figure out what to do next as I went along.

 

On Sunday, my husband and I delivered Abby's completed quilt to her and her family.

 

 

They all loved it!!!!  We wrapped the quilt around Abby and I sat beside her for pictures.  She was tired and snuggled right into her quilt and almost fell asleep in my lap!

 

 

When Abby went to bed that night, she slept under her quilt.  It is quilted with an angel pantograph.  Three of the t-shirts say "I helped silent angels."  Girls with Rett Syndrome cannot talk. Abby has a very nifty computer that tracks her eye gaze and talks for her.  At supper, she asked about our names and birthdays and told a few groaner jokes!  She also read "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" to us.

 

 

  I just know that Abby will have pleasant dreams while sleeping under her quilt!