WIP Wednesday 11-20-2013

I have a few things to share with everyone today. 

First off are my Christmas tablerunners off of my 4th quarter finish-a-long list (#8 on the list).  I buckled down and spent a few days pebble quilting both of these, and of love the way they turned out (which I knew I would). 

And even though it wasn't on my Finish-A-Long list, after seeing photos of Better Off Thread's finished Advent calendar on Instagram I knew I had to make one.  Mine has only 12 pockets since I intend to use it during the 12 days of Christmas, but the pockets are larger so the finished product ends up being the same size as the 24 pocket version. 

As you can see I used the same fabrics from my tablerunners (and consequently the tree skirt I made last year) so everything matches, and I pebble quilted the calendar as well.  Once I have my decorations up for Christmas I'll have to take a photo to share of everything "in action".

My last thing to share is what's currently up on my design wall.  This is #3 on my Finish-A-Long list.  These are the 9 blocks for the quilt I'm making my niece (who was born yesterday-- 2 weeks early but doing great).  I have the first layer of the monster applique on but I still have to add in all the details on the faces.  I hope to get this quilt completed by Thanksgiving so my mom can hand deliver it to my sister and the baby when she goes out to meet them.  They live in Hawaii and sadly it will be many months until my husband and I will be able to meet their little girl.

You'll have to forgive the quality of the photos.  It's overcast and grey here and since that doesn't happen very often in Southern California I'm not very good at setting up lighting.  I also had to snap these photos quickly so I could write this post and hopefully get some sewing done while the baby's still napping.

Oh! And if you didn't see it my Men's Wallet Tutorial was featured on the Sew Mama Sew blog as a part of their Handmade Holidays roundup in the "Gifts for Men" post.  To check out the Sew Mama Sew post click here, to go straight to my wallet tutorial click here.

The Long Weekend

I'm doing it.  I just bought the pattern and I'm going to make one.  My first one will be a scrappy one for my sister for Christmas.  I hope it turns out well, and I hope she likes it.

Finished Tree Skirt

I thought I'd take a quick break from feverishly finishing up stuff for Sewing Summit to show you a finish from a few weeks ago.

Some regular followers of mine might remember the Christmas tree skirt and tablerunners that I had on my WIP list a few weeks ago.  Well, I haven't made much progress on the tablerunners but I quilted and bound the skirt!

Laid out and ready to be basted

Why you never turn your back on a quilt when you're basting on the floor

I free motion quilted the skirt in a pebble design and bound it with a Santa's Workshop by Riley Blake Designs print in red and white.  I love it so much, I can't wait until after Thanksgiving when I can pull out the Christmas tree (we use a fake tree, not a real one) and see how the skirt looks on the tree.  For now though I just have to admire the way it looks by itself.

Pebble quilted and bound!

I'll try to get some better pictures of the skirt once I get the tablerunners finished, but for now I have to get back to sewing for Sewing Summit!  Only two days left!

WIP Wednesday: 9/12/12

I don't normally post about my WIPs, but I thought I'd make an exception for the project I have going on right now.

I've had this tree skirt and tablerunners on my "to do" list for the last year and a half so I'm excited to show them off.  The pattern for the tree skirt is from the 2010 Holiday Edition of Fat Quarterly, and it relies on A LOT of applique.  The tablerunners match the tree skirt, with the starry background thinning out around the middle of the runners.

Right now I've appliqued all of the houses down using the blanket stitch on my machine.  Coincidentally this is the first time I've used my blanket stitch for applique and I'm loving the results.  I haven't decided yet whether to applique the stars or not.  I'm planning to quilt an "allover" pattern over the area with the stars, so I'm thinking that I might not need to applique them down because they'll be secured when I do the quilting.

SO here's a question: should I do a white backing or a printed one?  I have enough of this fabric to do the back, but I'm kind of afraid that you might see the pattern through the white.  Should I just do white?  Or mix it up a bit and use the print?  And what about binding?  Something red? Something red and white?

Also, I thought it might be inspiration for me to get stuff done if I made my horrendously long WIP and "to-do" list public.  So here it is:

12 Days of Christmas Sampler Quilt, blocks 5-12

As I've said before I was a little ambitious at Christmastime.  A little over-ambitious.  With my "to-do" list getting larger I ended up abandoning my 12 Days of Christmas quilt blocks after block 8, but I'm happy to say that I picked the project up again this week and finished the last 4 blocks!  I had so much fun making these blocks that I've actually joined two more quilt-alongs.  I have all the fabric picked out and purchased for the Sew.Happy.Quilt mixed sampler quilt along hosted by Sew.Happy.Geek, but have yet to make decisions about fabric for the Solstice Stars quilt along-- I'm thinking solids.

But anyways, back to the 12 Days of Christmas Sampler! Looking at my previous blog posts though I realize that I never posted blocks 5-8, so I'll just go ahead and show you the last 8 all in one post.

For blocks 1-4 please refer back to this post.

Block 5: It's All About the Presents Block (designed by Elizabeth @ Don't Call Me Betsy)

Block 6: Modern Selvage Snowflake (designed by Riel @ The Q and the U)

 

Block 7: Christmas Tree (designed by Jennifer @ Ellison Lane Quilts)

Block 8: Paper Pieced Noel (designed by Lindsay @ Lindsay Sews)

Block 9: Hanging Ornaments (designed by Jessica @ SewCraftyJess)
 I actually ended up not doing this block.  Since I improvised a little on the Noel block and added hanging ornaments, I decided not to do this block because it would look too similar.  (Sorry Jessica! If I had known you were planning hanging ornaments I wouldn't have done it, I promise!)

Block 10: Christmas Stockings (designed by Sarah @ Fairy Face Designs)

Block 11: Wreath (designed by Heather & Megan @ Quilt Story)

Block 12: Peppermint Candy (designed by Kim @ My Go Go Life)

*Block 13: Home For Christmas (designed by me!)*

This was the block I came up with to replace block 9 that I didn't do.  I wanted something that kept with the feel of the other blocks, but I wanted to paper piece it, and it needed to be on a white background (I had already decided on block placement and knew that a white background would be best).  After designing the house and preparing all the pattern pieces (which took a few hours) I did the piecing in 20 minutes.  I absolutely love this block!

So far I haven't been able to take ANY photos where the colors end up right.  What you see above is my best effort to tweak balances to get the right colors, but they're still far from right.  I'm hoping once it's all together I'll be able to get some beautiful photos of it.