Monday Miscellaneous

Christmas Gifts:

I was the ever so fortunate recipient of this lovely piece of quilt-work from P. at The Way I Sew It:


The colors, the funky designs in the fabric, coupled with the black border..., well, it just makes me happy.  Every time. 


I left it on the floor, where I could admire it no matter where I sat, until this fuzz butt quilt inspector decided she needed to test her claws on it.

To quickly remove this already cherished piece from danger, I grabbed it and put it on the back of the couch.

It looked so good, that there is remains.

I also received a lovely purse and tissue holder (although I keep my driver's license and credit cards in it) from my mom at Suzi's Stitchin'.  She is one talented lady. 

She used all my very most favorite colors in the creation  Talk about "custom made!"

A Tale of Two Table Toppers...er Wall-hangings:


For Christmas I got on a handmade kick.  I showed off some of my work here and here.  But there were two items I didn't show because the recipients read my blog.

The first was made for P. at The Way I Sew It:

The second was made for my cousin:

Same pattern ~ one I've decided I like a lot.  I enjoyed seeing it made up in two different fabric groupings.  While my cousin's uses the traditional Christmas colors, I used one of the later Christmas fabric collections for P.'s.  (Actually, I won that bunch of fabric in a giveaway a year and half ago, so it was nice to finally use it.)

I put the border around P.'s, but as I knew my cousin would likely use hers as a table-topper on a very specific table, I left the border off.  The border would have made it too large for the table. 

I am quite pleased with them both.

If you look carefully, you'll see that besides the color and the border the two are not exactly alike.  

When I was making P.'s, I accidentally inverted the pieces attached to the center square.  I decided it looked pretty cool and left it that way.  I think I may actually like it better, design-wise.  A happy accident.

And I must add that I really enjoyed quilting these. The free motion holly ~ well, it's organic, and proved to be a lot of fun to do. I remember when I started free motion quilting, I was terrified.  Now an unquilted project is my playground! (Cue the maniacal laughter.)

Maple Leaf Table Topper

The quilting Gods decided to play a dirty trick on me.  I was making stupendous progress on the Pansy Sampler Quilt, finished all of the quilting except those on the borders, could see a finish near at hand, when muscle spasms in my left shoulder and neck made pushing and pulling that heavy quilt through the Juki an exercise in pain.

I finally made myself set the quilt aside.

I'd been toying with the idea of making a fall table topper or table runner for some time (as soon as I finished the Pansy Sampler quilt).  There was no time like the present.  I knew the small project would cause me no harm.

Voila! My cousin chose the color of the maple leaves.  It measures approximately 16" square and now resides on a table in the living room.  Lori has the house beautifully decorated with a combination of a Halloween ~ Autumn theme.  (She has our grandmother's talent for such things.) The table topper is my small contribution to the effort.  It went together really quickly, and I'm yearning to make others.

The thing that took me the longest was deciding how to quilt it. The center space between the maple leaves is pebbled.  I was puzzled about quilting the leaves themselves and hoped the design I chose would be somewhat reminiscent of wind.

Please forgive the rather poor pictures.  I do not have Eric's talent for photography.  Normally, I would have had him take them, but he has been working 16 hour days.  Ack!