Baby Pillow finish and a Valentine Sneak Peek

Sweet little baby pillow

Goes with the X quilt made for my coworker

This is actually a pillow cover and I made a pillow to go inside 

 

 The "Sweet Dreams Little one" is a free embroidery design from Nana & Co. you can find here.  And her free darling pillow case tutorial is here.  Mine finishes at 15 x 11"

Sneak Peek

Here's a Valentine post and tutorial I'm working on.  So stop by soon! 

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts.

Christmas Corner January 2016

Welcome to Christmas Corner!  A place to share Christmas Projects through out the year.

For this month, I have nothing new to show, but Christmas WIP progress, which is also good!

This is from a Quilt Along from 2014.  I pieced together a backing out of this reindeer flannel fabric and loaded the quilt on the quilt frame and even quilted a row.

Here are a few other Christmas WIPs that I still love and hope to make progress on.

Big Scrappy Christmas Stars Quilt

Little Joys Quilt Blocks

I'm linking up with Celtic Thistle Stitches Ho, Ho, Ho and on We Sew, monthly Christmas Link Up.

X Quilt Complete!

A baby shower for my coworker and her husband was my entertainment last evening.  

I wanted my quilt for the baby to have a modern feel and created my own X design and used mostly scrappy blues and greens.

The baby's theme is woodland animals and specifically foxes, as is popular today.  This fox fabric was found at Quilt Crossings in Boise.

Here is the label for the back of the quilt.  The design is traced on with micron pen and some color added with fabric markers.  The "Sweet Dreams Little one" is a free design from Nana & Co. you can find here.  And her free darling pillow case tutorial is here.

Here is a pillow case in process based on the pillow case design from Nana Co.

I thought about creating a sleepy fox design for the embroidery, but in the end went ahead and bought this cute design from Nana Co. for $3.50 since I love it!

Thanks for stopping by!
Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts.

Quilt Specifications:  This quilt finishes at 44" square.  There is not a specific block, but I cut out the pieces and laid them out and then sewed them together in 4 sections before sewing them all together. Here are the cutting directions for future reference: the long part of the X is 4 1/2 x 12 1/2" and the side squares and background squares are all 4 1/2".  The setting triangles are 5" squares cut in half diagonally once and the corner square triangles and 5 1/2" cut diagonally twice.  
A few more pictures by PJ, from the shower:

 

                         Fox bucket with advice cards.             Cookies made by Liz (can you spot the foxes)!

  

                 Dave loves to dress up!     So many darling clothes, books, and all kinds of wonderful!

The sweet couple were a little overwhelmed and very appreciative. I'm so lucky to work with such a talented and generous group!

New Quilt Top and 2nd Completed UFO

It feels nice to begin a new year with a new quilt, which will be a retirement gift for a friend.

Here's the pattern image and if interested, you can find it here.

While all the piecing is complete, there are still stars to applique, button eyes to sew, and embroidered faces to apply!  What labor, but a labor of love!

Since I prefer piecing to applique, I designed a new setting triangle.

It also feels nice to finish up a second UFO, which just needed some binding!  I joined the Crafty Quilter, to work on a UFO each month, but I guess if I finish more than one, that's good too!

 This patchwork quilt started when my niece, Briana stopped by with some fabric she'd just purchased.  Together, we worked on her first quilt, but then it got put away for a few years and never completed.  I'm excited for her to stop by and pick it up!

P.S.  The new blog header was made using instructions from Blissfully Domestic, and Picasa.

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts

Patchwork Heart Wall Hanging Completed!

Are you ready for a UFO challenge?   I joined the Crafty Quilter and have my first completed project of the year!  Stop by her blog to see her darling heart quilt UFO and find out about a give away.

I was happy to find this little quilted patchwork heart.  Good time to make or finish something for Valentine's Day!

I hoped this striped fabric would look good for the binding.

At first I thought it was a piece of cake because I whipped it up quick, but then noticed how crooked it looked.  (Top and bottom right and bottom left areas).

So it took more time, but I removed the stitching and was able to straighten those edges and corners up a bit.

This project was originally made last February and also has a tutorial, in case your want to make one too!

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts,  Needle and Thread Thursday and Free Motion by the River.

Merry Christmas Corner! December 2015

Welcome to Christmas Corner, a place to share Christmas sewing through out the year! 

My last minute sewing included some reversible baskets from my own tutorial here.  Made with Christmas fabric, they are just perfect for some cookie decorating kits I got from Amazon for about $6 each.  Now to bake some last minute cookies, if I have the energy!

I found some stashed away, bright and colorful aprons (made from my apron tutorial here) and some dish towels to add to the baskets.

I also made some Cinnamon bread for some last minute gifts.  Make your favorite bread dough (I'll include my recipe at the bottom here).  Roll out the dough.  Mix 1/3 cube melted butter with 1/4 cup white and 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1 tsp flour and 1 tsp cinnamon and spread onto the dough.  Take a pizza cutter and slice it up so it will fit into the pans (which you see I have standing on end) and stack into the previously sprayed or buttered pan.

Lay the pans down and shake a bit to level out the bread dough.

UPDATE:  Place a damp towel over the pan of dough and let raise in a warm place for about half an hour.
Put in the oven at 350 and bake for 45 minutes.

Take a knife and run along the edges of the pan and the bread comes out of the pan easily.  Wrap in foil and give away soon, since it's delicious when it's warm!

I've already seen a few sew alongs I want to join in on and of course have many UFO's (including Christmas ones) I want to complete and also some patterns to share here in the coming year.

This is the 2016 sew along from Quilt Doodle Doodle

My favorite Bread Dough recipe

1 1/4 cup milk

1/4 cup sugar (you could use less)

1 egg

1/8 cup (1/4 of a cube) of butter

1 teaspoon salt

3 1/2 cups flour, (plus 1 or 2 tablespoons so the dough isn't sticky)

1 tablespoon of yeast.

I put the ingredients in this order into my bread maker on the dough setting, but if you don't have a bread machine, just mix all ingredients together, let rise, punch down and let rise again.  Roll out your dough and follow directions above to complete the cinnamon bread.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and thanks for stopping by Christmas Corner!

Sheri

Linking up with Connie at Free Motion by the River (she has a darling little runner that I definitely want to make soon)

This one is made by Carole at My Carolina Home

Christmas Corner November 2015

Welcome to Christmas Corner -- a place to share Christmas Sewing throughout the year on the 25th of each month!

This month I'm working on Snowman mug rugs using this tutorial by Rachel at Not So Plain Jane.

The blocks come out to be 9" square and are quick to sew up.

I made some labels using the freezer paper method (Create the message for your label on the computer word processor.  Format with 3 columns and make 12 (oops, only 9) labels per sheet.  Cut out a piece of freezer paper 8 1/2 x 11" and a piece of cloth the same size.  Iron the cloth to the shiny side of the freezer paper and place into the printer so the printing will be on the cloth.  Press with hot iron to set the ink.)

 

I used the backing/ self binding tutorial by Allison at Cluck, Cluck, Sew here.  It's much quicker than sewing binding on and looks quite nice.  I will use this method a lot more now that I've tried it!  

A bit of swirl quilting prior to sewing down the binding.

Found some fun packaging and accessories at the dollar store!

Packaged up in these cellophane bags with packet of hot cocoa will be a sweet treat, don't you think?

Thanks for stopping by Christmas Corner!

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced and Crazy Mom Quilts.

November Birthday Gifts

I realized one of my coworkers is having a birthday tomorrow.  I looked through my WIPs to see if there was something fun to finish up for a present.

Luckily, I found one completed place mat and one that just needed some binding.

Here is the link to the free tutorial at Bee in my Bonnet in case you want to make some too.

And I even found an apron to include for her husband because he's an excellent cook and she brings such delicious things to share!  Here's the link to my simple apron tutorial.  (Note:  To this apron, I added a pocket, contrast bottom and contrast bias tape for finishing the edges which I don't show in my tutorial)

And I even found a card that I stamped in the past that became a cute birthday card!

Thanks for stopping by!  Sheri