Crow's Foot

Crow's Foot - 21 inches square

On Ringo Lake is coming along, but I never can work on just one quilt project at a time.  Just need to mix it up a little, you know? 

Kathleen Tracy makes such adorable small quilts, and every month she puts out a challenge to sew along on one of her designs.  January 2018 is Crow's Foot from her book Small and Scrappy. 

Looking at her quilt, I decided that the border piece would actually determine the rest of the quilt fabrics.  There was a 14 inch striped piece in my scrap bin that was from some fabric samples gifted to me at least 20 years ago.  Perfect!  Then, time to do some math so that it could ALL be used up.  The main blocks were made a bit larger than Kathleen's pattern to make it all work out. The colors are deep dark blue and a rosy mauve.  Kathleen's small quilt finished at 15.5 inches and mine is 21 inches.

The weather cooperated, so I snapped a quick photo outdoors.  Then, off to sandwich and quilt.  The hand stitching on the binding is all that's left now.  Hopefully it will be my first finish of 2018!

 

Frosty Babies

Frosty Babies wall hanging

Last Christmas (2016) I made four seasons wall hangings for our son & DIL at Christmas.  The Winter design was a Christmas candle.  Lovely, but it went out of season pretty quickly, because January, February and March are clearly still WINTER here in Minnesota!

So, my plan for this Christmas was to make another winter wall hanging for their kitchen that would last through the winter months.  I found the perfect pattern at our annual Police Dept. book sale last June.  Frosty Babies, by Brandywine Design, with adorable applique snowmen!

I picked out three of my favorites and turned them into a great winter wall hanging.  Wish I could have put one more solid border around the whole thing so that the 9-patches didn't disappear into the binding, but it would have made the wall hanging too wide. 

There was enough Let it Snow fabric (which I used as backing) to make four matching placemats too!

Ordinary Green

table topper about 18x22

The second small quilt for our DIL this Christmas was green.  Green is the liturgical color for "Ordinary time" which is mostly the weeks during the summer and fall, but also a couple weeks between the end of the Christmas season and Ash Wednesday.

One set of four blocks remained from the fabric I used to make our DD a table runner/wall hanging this past spring.   There's more about it here.  

The border design is from Fall Splendor by Julie Weaver that I found in a book called "Quilts With Unique Borders" from Annie's Quilting. 

White Christmas

This is the first in a series of small quilts for our  dear DIL.   She had specially requested a couple of small quilts in 'liturgical colors' to use on a little table that she wants to use for family prayer time.  I was so glad to get it finished in time for Christmas.

about 24 inches square 

White is the color of celebration used during the Christmas and Easter seasons.  My first stop was Hobby Lobby for some inspiration.  They had a very pretty soft gray fabric with calligraphy: "Faith, Hope, Love, Friendship...." Perfect!

Using the fabric as the center focus, the next step was designing a pieced border.  In my book of quilt blocks I found one called "Grandmother's Cross."  I used that as the basis for the border, but ended up piecing it in strips like Seminole quilting in order to eliminate lots of triangles around the edges of each block. 

It worked out quite well, except that the four corners had to be mitered.  I don't think I've ever attempted anything quite so complicated to piece, but I took a deep breath, said a prayer, and forged ahead.  Miraculously, all four corners matched and laid flat!  I only had to make one small adjustment.

The border is quilted stitch-in-the-ditch, and the center is a simple meander.

It was challenging, but this design finally came together and it turned out much better than I expected!  It was so exciting to see her open this gift up on Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas

Just a holiday note to thank you for stopping by to Quilt Awhile with me.  I so appreciate your comments and encouragement on our quilting journey together.  Wishing you a Blessed Christmas and wonderful New Year!

Vintage postcard from my Dad's collection

Countryside Wreath

This was an unexpected Christmas surprise!  The pattern showed up when I was searching for something else, and it was just perfect to help use up some of the stash. It became a leader-ender type of project while I was working on Christmas gifts.  It was fast and easy because the pieces were 3-inches and larger.  The pattern is Countryside Wreaths (single block option) by Thimbleberries. 

Countryside Wreath 37.5 inches square

On Smith Lake parts 2-4

"Christmas time is coming and the (flying) geese are getting fat!"

Part 2 of Bonnie Hunter's winter Mystery "On Ringo Lake" is pieced.  All those flying geese!  But they're done.  Part 3 is cut out and bundled, as is Part 4, but that's as far as I get. 

Several quilted Christmas gifts are finished (or just have binding left to hand stitch.)  Posts about those will have to wait until after Christmas.  Addressing cards and gift wrapping have their priorities too.  Plus, with family arriving for the Holiday (with dog in tow) there's some pup-proofing of the house that needs to happen. 

The Christmas tree is up, but no ornaments on it yet.  Way behind in that category.  And no cookie baking has happened yet either.  DH has come down with a horrible cold, which I'm trying NOT to catch, so he's excused from helping with Christmas prep for now.

Hope your Holiday preparations are coming along. Wishing you the Joys of the Season!