My Blog Hop Winnings Arrived

A Stocking for my Tree & Beads for Beading

5 fat quarters of fabric to add to my Stash



MY BLOG HOP WINNINGS FROM "DOLORES QUILTS"

A woolen needle holder

  A needle and pin case for my appliques

  A Santa to hang on my Tree

 floss for my embroideries

I just retrieved my mail this morning and in it was a box containing my blog hop winnings from Dolores Quilts. Wow so cool. It is rare that I win anything and this was so fun. I opened the box as soon as I got home and poured over it's contents. I love the beige fabrics and the green fabric is so colorful. I loved Santa and the Stocking was fun. The beads and sequins were great. I loved the... needle holder too and the book mark is great. They already found new places to be. The Beads and sequins went in my jewelry making box, the Santa and Stocking are now hung on my tree as my New Ornaments for this year. The bookmark was placed in a book by my bed, (replacing the piece of Paper I was using as a bookmark. The Fabrics were washed, ironed and placed in my Quilting Stash for future use. the needle holder now resides with my applique notions. and the floss is with my embroidery drawer ready to use on my next project. Thank You ever-so-much Dolores. As I use my little gifts I will think of your Blog "Dolores Quilts". I do hope you have a Blessed New Year and visit my blogs often too - My Quilting and Sewing Arts Studio and In my Studio.  I also love to blog about my creative thoughts at Creative Lady's Enthusiastic Thoughts. 

My inspiration for the New Year.

Winter Fun

 

 

Log Cabin mini quilt pins,  I'm off to my studio to make more of these little cuties - my aim is to fill a basket of these little log cabin blocks from my scraps. 

Tutorials for making 8 flying geese at a time.

Making 8 Flying Geese at a time.  I want to try making these.  This morning before I got out of bed I was checking my e-mail and favorite blogs and I came across this blog: Sew'n Wild Oaks Quilting Blog and checked out Lynn's virtual classroom.  She has a tutorial on making 8 wild geese units at a time.  It looked easy so I do want to try this.  She uses them as a border in making a Christmas Pillow that I also would love to try.  Only I want to make the center block sold and do some applique on it.  It would look great as a mini quilt also.  So check out her blog for some great Ideas and tutorials.  I am going to try this today. 

From Quilting Ideas Magazines

I also came across a picture on flickr of a basket of  paper pieced mini log cabin blocks posted by mission homestead. I just started making a few following a pattern I found in one of my older magazines, (You know the ones I love to look thru while laying in bed before falling asleep.)   Quilting Ideas - Log Cabin Pins by Designer Pam Ehrhardt of Lasting Piece.  Now for me to make a basket full of these little Log Cabin Blocks would look awesome sitting next to my sewing machine all ready to make up into wonderful things.  Join me in my Studio as I show the steps I took making this project.



Pins I have made using Pam's Pattern.

Finish Up Friday

Last evening I finished hand-basting my Christmas Runner top to bottom.  I choose to do it by hand because I wanted the detail on the backing fabric to fall in the middle without shifting.  Today I will quilt it and add the binding by machine.  I just watched a video on YouTube; How To Bind a Quilt With a Sewing Machine -- Jenny Doan shows how to bind with a sewing machine. To get the materials needed to do this project.    She was very thorough and made it seem easy to do.  I will add pictures later today. 


 

This shows the pieced block I prepared to place in the middle of my backing fabric.

 

Well my Christmas Runner is done. I am not really happy about how The pictures turned out but I did want to show them to you anyway. 

My progress on my Christmas Table Runner

Here's the latest progress on my Table Runner. 

                                                                                                      These are the 8 segments I sewed & trimmed into blocks.

I took the scraps and made several 2" triangles

 

 I am finding that I enjoy hand quilting as much as my machine quilting and have applied the backing on with hand stitching.  Remember the Blocks I made - all 8 of them that I squared up for this runner.  I took the leftover triangles and made them into 2" squares.  Since the backing I choose for the runner needed piecing to fit I decded to cut it in half and make a block for the middle.  I took the squares and applied a short piece between each using my 2nd choice for the backing Then I used a 1 1/2" strip for the border on each.  This gave the appearance that they were floating - I like the effect.  Then I sewed the backing fabric to each side.  This made the backing wide enough to cover the top.  In order to keep the middle strip centered I decided to hand baste my backing to the top after sandwiching it between a low loft batting.  I will finish up the hand basting today and then continue to quilt and bind it.  above are pictures of my progress.  Hope you enjoy the creative process.

A Christmas Runner

 For this Pattern you could use fabrics from your stash cut into 2 1/2" strips.  You could also change the fabric choices to go along with any season.

A Jelly Roll Friendly Pattern by Legacy also includes a pattern to make a stocking.

Yesterday I started on a Christmas Runner, from Legacy Patterns, "Very Braidy Christmas "a very jelly roll friendly pattern.  Or you could use scrappy 2 1/2" strips from your stash.  It had some difficulty at 1st understanding how to piece my segments but after making one segment and clipping it above my machine to use as a reference I was able to piece the 8 segments together.  I then trimmed them and will finish sewing the segments together.  Here are some pictures of my progress.

 

I cut my strips into 2 1/2" x 4"pieces then pieced them together for my 1st segment.  Note the 1st pieced together block is hanging up by my sewing machine for reference.  Once I did this the other 7 blocks went together easier. 

 

I have finished sewing the 8 blocks together to form a chevron pattern.

my top is ready to be sandwiched and quilted.

 

 Opp's need to select a backing 1st.