A Crafty Week

 We are in the "between the holidays" period right now...I love this time of year...quiet after the busy-ness of Christmas and before a new round of activities start up in January.  I have been spending my time reading and crafting and watching movies with my husband and daughter.  

I have one more gift of Christmas to share with you...  I made this vinyl fronted zipper pouch for my daughter for her crafting projects.  As you already know, she is an avid crocheter and embroiderer/cross stitcher so this pouch will be put to good use.  I picked some library themed fabric from my stash.  She noticed the book card for Anne of Green Gables right away...one of her favourite books. I added one of my "Yo Mama made it" labels to the back of the pouch. 

I only added a few stitches to my cross stitch funky chicken this week.  I spent several hours working on our family Christmas album instead of stitching.  I started the album early in our marriage and do a two page spread of pictures from the holiday season for each year since then.  At one time, I did a lot of scrapbooking so I have all the tools, papers, stickers, etc.  Somehow, I got behind and the album was only completed up until 2014.  I had pictures for 2015 to 2023 printed last year and finally got around to working on it this past week.  I have completed 2021, 2022 and 2023 so far...I'm working backwards in time. I hope to get the rest of the pages done soon and have promised myself that I won't get behind again.   This is why I did not do much cross stitching this week. 

Someone decorated an evergreen tree along the trail where I walk each day.  It had rained overnight and the water droplets added sparkle to this tree ornament. 

Santa brought Finn lots of treats and a new Christmas bandana.  

We had an ice storm on Boxing Day so we stayed warm and cozy inside. After having a mostly white December, a thaw and rain before Christmas resulted in a green Christmas. 

We are all avid readers in our family and books are a very popular gift.  Here is our Christmas book stack.  These should keep us all busy for the next while!  

I will link up with Kathy and Frederique as soon as I hit the publish button.   I hope to do a quilts of 2025 post soon. 

Two Gifted Pillows and some Cross Stitch

Some gifts have been given and opened already so I can show them to you.  This first pillow is for a friend who just retired.  I made her a wall hanging a few years ago out of these Christmas FQ's that I have in my stash and decided to maker her a co-ordinating pillow this year. The backing fabric was not quite wide enough so a strip of brown was added.   Also, you will notice that the trees are green on one side and brown on the other.  It all co-ordinates!  There is a zipper under the flap on the back. 

The wreath pillow was finished this week too.  The fabric that I ordered was not an exact match for the fabric on the front of the pillow but it looks fine.  The store said this was Essex linen but it doesn't look like what I have purchased before.  Does anyone know if they have changed the way they make Essex linen???  Anyway, I now have 2. 7 yards of this new fabric.  I will use it for something. The young couple I gave this pillow to were very happy with it. 

This cross stitch is going to be a Satsuma Street Funky Chicken.  I will do all the stitching first and then make it into a 3D chicken.  I'm running out of the darker orange colour and will need to buy another skein of it.  

A few years ago, I made some cross stitch ornaments with old wooden spools.  I made three more this week to be given as gifts. 

Finn says he had to wear his booties again this week.   Sigh. 

Here are the little sleighs before they got put onto the spool. 

 Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, Everyone!  I hope you get some quiet moments during the holidays to stitch, or knit or crochet or read or just relax. 

I will link up with Kathy in the morning and Frederique now. 

A Couple of Finishes!

I worked on several different projects this week and two were brought to the finish line.  I quilted and bound the winter wall hanging that I showed last week.  This will be donated to a silent auction fundraiser.  It is walking foot quilted with white thread in the white sections and blue thread in the coloured sections. 

I added a hanging sleeve. You can see the quilting pattern better on the back. 

Of course, I had leftover HST's so started another project with those.  It is not quite done and will likely be a Christmas gift for someone so this is all I am showing. 

I only have one more tree to do on the Fall Forest cross stitch project.  I will have this framed when it is done. 

The program committee at the Oxford Quilters Guild has offered a colour challenge for this guild year.  Each person who wants to participate picks a block pattern they like and each month, they are told the colour of the month.  They make the same block each month in the colour of the month.  This month, the colours are turquoise and aqua.  Participants can made one block with both colours in it or two blocks --one aqua and one turquoise.  I chose to make two blocks. This will eventually become a baby quilt. 

Last winter, I worked on a winter themed cross stitch project (the pattern is from Satsuma Street).   I took it in to be framed a couple of weeks ago and picked it up this week.  It is hanging on the wall already.  As you can see from the picture below, we had some snow for a few days this past week.  It has all melted now, thankfully.  We didn't even have our winter tires on the car before it snowed!

My daughter is working on her crochet along blanket and adding lace now.  She is learning lots of new stitches as she makes this blanket. 

I spent a few hours on my hand quilting this week.  This is the project I work on at our weekly guild sewing days. 

Finn enjoys a good snuggle with our daughter.  He always likes to be touching her, hence, the paw on her arm. 

 I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers as well as Frederique and her gang.   Have a great week!

The Gifts of Christmas, 2024 Version

We have had a very laid back, relaxing Boxing Day.  The last few days were very busy and we all needed some time to chill.  My husband is giving Finn a belly rub and my daughter is making dinner so I thought I would do a blogpost!  

A few years ago, my husband found an old quilt that originally came from his family farm.  It was very dirty and unfinished--the edges were not straight and it smelled funky. There were very rusty pins holding the edges together--I think the maker intended to finish it but never got around to it.  No one knew who made it. It lived in a plastic bag in our garage for a few years while I thought about what I would do with it.  This fall, I decided I would finish it and took a closer look at how it was made.  It is machine pieced and hand quilted. A couple of friends who know more about antique quilts than I do took a look at it and thought it was likely made in the late 30's or early 40's. My husband took at look at his family tree and found out that his great grandmother died of paralysis three weeks after having a stroke in 1941.  We think she is the one who made the quilt and had it pinned, ready to finish the outer edge but died before she could do this.  Her only daughter, my husband's grandmother was given the unfinished quilt.  As far as we know, she was not a quilter so it was never finished. I decided I needed to add binding before washing it so I trimmed the edges straight, cutting off parts of some blocks in the process.  

I added a gray and white striped binding--I thought it looked like ticking that would have been available at the time the quilt was made.   This picture shows how dirty the quilt was before washing. 

I used Retro Clean and soaked the quilt in cold water to try to remove the stains. Even though I used colour catchers, some of the orange and pink fabrics bled.   The water was not a pretty colour after soaking the quilt.   

It was rinsed in cold water several times and then machine washed on the gentle cycle in my front load washing machine.  I partially dried it in the dryer on gentle again and then laid it flat to finish drying overnight.

It looks much better now but not all of the stains came out. I typed out the story of the quilt, and included a copy of the death certificate that my husband found online.  We gave the quilt to his sister for Christmas. 

The dogs wanted to be in the picture but were not interested in posing.  

This picture was taken before it was washed but shows the quilting. 

I'm glad that I was able to finish my husband's great grandmother's quilt.  It has been waiting to be completed for over 80 years.  Now that is an old UFO!

My SIL asked me to make some covers for two pillows for the bed in her guest room.  They are made from blue Essex linen and have a covered zipper closure on the back. The tutorial for the covered zipper closure is at Sotak Homemade. 

I made a couple of gifts for my daughter.  First, a sew together bag for her crochet and stitching supplies:

The squirrel fabric was a gift from a friend and is from Japan. I fussy cut it so the squirrels danced across the side of the bag.  Unlike the three other Sew Together bags I have made, I quilted the outside panel before making the bag. I used one of my "YO MAMA made it" tags inside the bag on the wool needle landing. 

The fabrics were all in my stash.  I had to get a bit creative as I did not have enough of the pink print for inside the bag. The dotted fabric went with the other fabrics.  The zippered pocket lining are a pale pink Kona solid. 

I added a measuring tape inside the bag as she did not have one of those already.  It gets a bit easier to make the bag each time I have used this pattern.  

My daughter's second handmade gift was a pillow case.  She is a curler and I thought of her when I saw this fabric this past summer. 

There has been some crafting time today--I did some cross stitching and my daughter has been crocheting.  Since there can't be a blogpost without a picture of Finn...here he is helping my daughter with her crochet. 

I hope you are all finding some time to relax and enjoy your time with family and friends this holiday season. 

Last Post of 2023

 I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and some time to relax this past week once the festivities were over.  I have managed to do a bit of knitting this week as well as some un-sewing (more on that later in this post!).  During the month of December, I worked on knitting a new hat for my husband whenever he was out or otherwise occupied.  Despite my best efforts, I did not get it done in time and he ended up unwrapping an unfinished gift.  He was surprised and pleased with my gift to him, which makes it all worthwhile.   The hat features three colours of wool and 6 moose figures--I had to learn how to do colour work with the help of YouTube and my friend, Pat.  The pictures below show the hat in progress...

The hat pattern is from a book I purchased in Newfoundland when we were there in June.  "Saltwater Classics" by Christine Legrow and Shirley A. Scott.   We saw several moose while we were in Newfoundland.  I started doing the decreases for the crown of the hat earlier today but have to change to DPN's for the last few rows...I need to borrow these from Pat in order to finish the hat.  I should have it done in no time once I have the needles. 

I like to make gifts for family and friends.  This year, many of them received rope bowls.  These bowls are about 7" across and fairly shallow...perfect for some jewelry, a watch, etc.  I tried to make them in each person's favourite colours. The bowls shown below are a sampling of the ones I made. 

A few years ago, I started some cross stitch ornaments in a month by month stitch along with the intention of making all 12--well, I ended up cross stitching three of the designs and only one was ever finished and gifted to my friend Pat. This year, I finished off the last two and gave them to a couple of friends.  

I made pillowcases for my husband and my daughter.  The whale and blueberry fabrics were purchased in St. John's, Newfoundland.  I have fabric to make myself a Newfoundland pillowcase as well, but ran out of time.  This will be a January project. 

I unstitched the worn out binding from my daughter's quilt and will make and machine stitch the new binding to the quilt tomorrow.  I will get the hand sewing done before she goes home.  This will be my Slow Sunday Stitching!  You can see that the old binding has done its time!

Finn gave me a cute Sewing Store puzzle for Christmas!  He's a great shopper!

He also likes to be comfortable on a soft pillow for his naps...

We had butter tarts and fruit skewers for Christmas dinner dessert.  I purchased the butter tarts from our local farmer's market...they disappeared quickly!  Santa was keeping his eye on them!

I made my SIL a Christmas wall hanging at one of the retreats I attended in November.  I could not show it until now as she often reads my blog!

My daughter received a couple of counted cross stitch kits for Christmas and has started one of them.  

That's all the news from here for this week.  Happy New Year!  I will link up with Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching crew in the morning.