Tuesday, November 27, 2012

I LOVE Pinterest!!

Have you heard of Pinterest? If not, where have you been? It has to be the best time-waster resource for any, and all kinds of crafts. (Go check it out, NOW - I'll wait for you!) The absolute best part about it is that many of the pictures have tutorials connected to them. I love it for quilting and card-making ideas - and I have enough of each of them to keep me busy until I'm 135 years old! Today I'm going to share 2 of my Christmas cards, completely CASE'd* from Pinterest. The first one is fairly simple and easy to duplicate. It uses a Stampin' Up Christmas set (Snow Swirled) from a few years ago:
The second card is based on a card using a Papertrey Ink stamp set. Fortunately, Close to my Heart has a similar stamp set (Glory to God), and it's the one I purchased just a few weeks ago, specifically to make this card:
The second card is very labour-intensive, and I won't be making too many of them. Don't worry, you'll still be getting a lovely card from me! I'll be back in a few days, to share some of the things I'm making for Christmas gifts. *CASE = Copy And Share Everything.

Saturday, November 17, 2012

November FNSI

I can hardly believe that it's the 17th of November - where has this month gone so quickly? There's nothing like the monthly Friday Night Sew-In to remind me that time's a-flyin'! I missed a few FNSIs in the past few months, and that fact inspired me to be more motivated this time - and once I've signed up, I hate to spend the night doing anything but sewing. Last night was a good night to get some work done on one of my latest mysteries - this one (Mystery Quilt by e-mail) is sponsored by Heather Spence (http://www.heatherspencedesigns.com/mystery-quilt/), and is benefitting a little boy and his family as he battles cancer. You pay $15. to be part of the mystery - $5. goes for costs involved with the mystery and the balance goes to the family of the little boy. There are 2 versions of this quilt too - you can choose the level of difficulty that you're most comfortable with. The parts of this mystery have all been released now, but I'm a "wee" bit behind, and didn't have much accomplished in the piecing department. When I quit sewing last night, I finally had the quilt center done (although I'm considering making it one row longer) - other than that, all that's left to do is the 4 borders; then layer it, quilt it and bind it. Once it's done, I'll have to decide who will be getting it too - volunteers, anyone? Just kidding! Here's what I have accomplished so far:
I'm hoping to have the top done by the end of next week - check back then to see the quilt top finished.

Monday, November 12, 2012

Christmas placemats

Our quilt guild was recently asked to make placemats for an annual Christmas dinner for area seniors. One of the local service groups hosts the event, donating the food and staff. They asked if our guild would mind making / donating placemats for the seniors to use for the dinner; they would then be able to take them home to use for their own Christmas meal. When we were asked to participate, we immediately agreed to help out - it worked out that each guild member needed to make between 5-8 placemats. We were free to choose our own design; the table linens would be red or green, so we were asked to incorporate those colours as well. One of my quilting friends had recently shown some placemats on our quilt forum, and I liked the design concept - the placemat was divided into 4 sections, each one made of a different fabric. I chose to use all Christmas / winter fabrics, and quilted the placemats with traditional shapes - stars and Christmas trees. The pic is of two of the placemats - one from the front so you can see the fabrics and design, the other one is from the back, to see the quilting. I had a picture in my mind of how I wanted the quilting to look - and it ended up being pretty close! I had the backing fabric in my stash for about 7 years - it's not often that you need green cotton with a design of strings of Christmas lights, but it was the perfect finishing touch!

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Superstorm Sandy

We've all seen the horrible destruction in the wake of Superstorm Sandy - and more than one person has wondered what they could do to help. Thankfully, a number of quilters have banded together and are making quilts for as many people as they can. One website offered a fairly simple block and asked us to sign up for as many as we thought we could reasonably make. Of course, there's also a time limit, so the blocks have to be received by Nov. 25th. Any time I've sent things to the U.S., it seems to take at least a week and a half (although Canada Post doesn't seem to be doing a really wonderful job either lately...!). Well, I've pulled some bright fabrics from my stash, because if you're facing what some of those folks are facing, you need a little bright, right? All of the blocks needed to be white, with one other fabric - it didn't matter if it was solid or print. I went with some fun fabrics, and some pretty fabrics, and, well, I'll just show you a picture!
There are 12 altogether - I could get enough white blocks out of 2 strips of the white fabric to make 12 blocks, and I have LOTS of stash fabric, so that's why I made 12 (I signed up for 5). They went out this morning, so I hope to hear from the quilter in about 2 weeks that they've arrived. It's such a small gesture, but it adds up! Here's a link to the original post, in case you can help out too - even one block helps! http://www.knotted-thread.com/2012/11/helpless.html