Christmas in January

So it turns out that I forgot to share these pillow covers I made for Christmas.  

The first pillow is an orphan block (made from this tutorial) turned beautiful pillow.  I think this was the second block I had ever paper pieced.  It is a great block for those new to paper piecing.

I love, love, love this one.  To make it I simply drew a triangle on the fabric and sewed on a bunch of buttons.  I was able to sew on the buttons with my sewing machine by turning the stitch length to 0 and adjusting the width until it was the width between the holes in the button.  Then I just put the pedal to the medal and stitched back and forth about 20 times.

 It's hard to see, but I tried out quilting swirls for the first time.  I spiraled in and then paused and spiraled back out again.  I have wanted to try this design for awhile, but was scared it wouldn't turn out.  Yet again, my fears were unfounded.  Isn't that usually the case.  It seems the more I worry about something the less of an issue it turns out to be.  Some of the spirals weren't total perfect but overall it was a success.

 Leah Day has a great tutorial on quilting swirls here on YouTube.  In fact, she has a ton of quilting tutorials there.  I think I am going to have to work my way through them.  Do you think my husband would watch them with me instead of Almost Human in the evenings?  ;)

Sewing Day!

Sewing Day! was just as wonderful as I thought it would be.  This was my first all day sewing event and I have to admit I wondered if I was up for 14 hours of sewing, but it was totally awesome!  Of course I forgot my camera along with my extension cord, pins and baby toys but Penny, Melanie and the church's nursery came to the rescue!  But I don't have any pictures to share.

I cannot even begin to describe all of the wonderful projects people were working on.  There were:  low-volume quilts, pinwheels, foundation pieced sewing machines, weekender bags, feather totes, pot holders, squares in squares, floating shapes, Liberty patchwork, amazing applique, lots of cutting of beautiful fabric and so much more.  It was so fun and inspiring.

One thing I realized is that I have picked a very time intensive hobby.  I had always blamed kids and starting and stopping for how long projects took me, but having a large block of time all to myself with only Becca Babe made me realize how long sewing takes.  I worked on finishing up the borders for the Skill Builder Sampler quilts from 9 am to 4 pm.  Hello!  Yeah, I stopped to talk, feed the baby, eat and all, but really 7 hours to put on borders?!?  But I also saw that I was not alone.  Hours were spent quilting totes, making pinwheels and cutting out fabric.  Good thing we love it!  ;)

But by the time 4 o'clock came around I wanted to work on something that I could take home finished, so I took out the fabric I had just bought for new pillows.  When I showed my 12 year old the fabric and asked if she liked it she said, "I don't know, it is kind of light.  It might stain."  Very mature response I thought.  My husband said, "I didn't know we needed new cushion covers."  We might not have "needed" them, but after 8 years I sure did "want" to update them.  They crack me up.

So I made up two floral slip covers for the couch and a rectangular pillow for the chair in the living room.  Much faster and so nice to see every time I walk by!   I know some of you might be thinking, "Interesting color choice there, Leila" because I think that too!  I am not totally sold on the combo, but I wanted to bring in the colors from this stained glass panel into the room.

I think it totally pulls in the colors from the stained glass panel above the window and we will just have to trust the artistic judgement of the person who made the stained glass windows...or make a new cover later...

I hope you had a great weekend too!  I can't wait to go to Sewing Day again!

Christmas Traditions

On Sunday my 12 year old moaned, "Why don't we have any Christmas traditions?"

Me (defensive) : We totally have Christmas traditions.
Her:  What traditions?
Me:  We have ham and potatoes for Christmas dinner.
Her:  (Raised eyes, apparently food does not make a tradition.  It is just what you eat on Christmas.)
Me:  (Looking at the tree)  We wrap our presents in fabric every year.
Her:  That is just because you don't want to buy wrapping paper.
Me:  Noooo.  Reduce, reuse, recycle.
Her:  O. K.  (if you say so, mom, tone of voice)

 Me:  We make a Christmas ornament every year.  (Here is this year's made out of sequins stuck with pins into a styrofoam ball.)
Her:  Oh, yeah...we do.
Me:  And we make treats to bring to people.

 (From left to right, princess angel, shepherd, tambourine angel, Joseph, Mary and Baby Jesus and wise man.) 

 Me:  And we read Luke 2 and act out the Nativity each Christmas Eve.  And Santa leaves you stuff in your stockings and we open presents!  (getting kind of desperate for traditions).
Her:  Ok.
She wasn't convinced, but traditions don't have to be big deals.  Just spending time with family can be the best tradition.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it!  :)

 On a quilting note, I have lucked out two years in a row at the Des Moines Modern Quilt Guild holiday swap.  Last year I received the beautiful rectangular pillow in the back from Jill and this year I was lucky enough to get the square pillow from Amy.  (Amy, it has been loved, snuggled, thrown up on, washed and snuggled some more this month.  Thanks!)  Making and getting pillows is one tradition that I would like to keep going.  ;)

This is the pillow that I made for the holiday swap.  Remember those selvages that I sewed up during the summer?  I made this pillow out of them.  I love it and am going to make myself one next year.  (The trees are just raw edge appliqued on with the ticker-tape technique so they will have fuzzy edges.)

I hope you all had a great Christmas!  Stay safe and warm this holiday season!