Some Quick Christmas Quilting

Just for fun, and to relax a little after a stressful night, I made a little Christmas quilt ornament. I used this super easy tutorial by from A Quilting Life. I especially like the picture with all the cut fabric plus dimensions. That makes it so much easier to see what's going on than just a list in print of the cutting instructions. Anyway, that one micro quilt was so much fun, I just made another 3 today. i plan to use them as gift tags.

Three classic colour schemes, one frosty tree.

Pile of Christmassy goodness.

I still have to close the opening, and quilt my ornaments, but they are already pretty!

I had to take photos on the kitchen counter, it's the only place with proper light ... winter time...

I love doing a little quilty project like this on my sewing machine. It's so homely and heals the soul...

Some stuff I've been making over the last few months:

We had lovely warm weather well into autumn so my dahlia and annuals kept blooming for longer than usual. It was my first year growing zinnias and I loved them. They are bright and cheerful, and they keep for over a week in a vase.

A last bouquet from the garden.

The zinnias were still going strong at the beginning of November.

I love the combination with Verbena bonariensis and dahlias.

Rich burgundy, lovely late summer colour.

 I've been doing some more sewing with my daughter Marieke. She designed this quilt a whole while back. Maybe it's a bit too much work for a first big project, but the end result will be beautiful. The log cabins are a bit wonky, but I managed to square up the blocks and assemble the quilt top. This morning we discussed option for the borders. Maybe we'll finish it this Christmas break?

Log cabin heart.

The designer and co-creator, Marieke.

 Then I made these pillow cases. A long time ago, I made four winter pillow cases, with a nice photo print fabric and a crochet border. Some time after that I bought some autumn photo print fabric and put it in my stash... for ages! It was an impulse buy and I don't really like the fabric, so I didn't feel like sewing anything from it. Then in 2017 I bought some iron-on woodland creature, which are just so lovely and pretty, and put them in my sewing cupboard ... for ages! And this autumn I finally decided I WOULD use the ugly fabric! So I bought some solid and some really pretty fabric and made some lovely pillow cases. I actually like them, despite the ugly fabric, and the kids love their little woodland friends. I only took pictures of two pillow cases, maybe I'll get round to photographing the other two and adding them in here some day, but probably not :-).

I made some autumn pillow cases.

I made four in total, one for each of my children.

Everyone got a different woodland creature.

 I made this pencil case for my daughter Marieke. She had an Hello Kitty pencil case with a broken zip. Her request was to fox the zip, but it was simpler to just dismantle the case and recuperate the fabric in a new case. I used this pattern by Caroline from Sew Can She. It is not the easiest to sew (a bit fidgety), but very easy to understand the construction (no turning or sewing inside out lining, or stuff like that). I found perfect pink for the zipper tape and a cute bow tie fabric for the lining in my stash. I used a decorative stitch to attach the zipper to the case. She loves it, so I am a happy mom. I made another for a friend of hers, but forgot to take pictures.

And finally, this is a project I finished just yesterday: a pretty Christmas pillow. It matches the advent calendar I made last year. I actually pieced it in January this year, because we needed a small pieced project to practice machine quilting on a course I took in March. It was quilted in March, and then lay waiting to be finished until last week. I had even cut the backing fabric and the binding, so it was an easy project to pick up and finish last Friday morning, when I had a free morning, happily spent machine quilting Lucas' sheep quilt and finishing the machine sewing on this pillow case. I finished hand sewing the binding yesterday morning. I' m very pleased with how it turned out.

Pretty pillow.

I'm quite proud of my FMQ feathers.

Christmas ambience in the sofa.

 And this is the fabric I picked for my next project. My mum has asked me to make throws for her scruffy sofa's, and I think these colours will look nice. I'm not sure I have enough fabric, however. I'm thinking I'll just start making flying geese blocks and see how big a quilt I can make. I like this colour combination, too, so if it's too small, it can be a throw, and I have to buy more fabric for my mum's quilts.

Anticipation ...