Pocket Gift Basket

I came home and talked my husband into picking up dinner so I could sew.  I was excited about making this little gift basket that I had seen on Lillian's blog (see my previous post) as I needed another gift for my sewing Christmas party this weekend....We ate dinner, I knitted for awhile and watched Scrooged with Bill Murray on TV.  Once it was over, I headed upstairs and thought I would just work on this basket for a little while and do the finish work tomorrow.  I had Lillian's directions in my hands and I picked my fabric and started cutting.  I sewed it up and put the binding on and finished it up tonight.  It went together very easily with her directions and my gift is finished completely.  All in all, it took me about two hours to do this little project.  That includes hand sewing down the binding too.  I wanted to try the pattern out first before I did more of these. Now that I have, I'll definitely be doing more of these cute little baskets.  I used Christmas fabric and I think it turned out really cute.

I'm really pleased and I hope my friend will like it too.  I plan on putting a few sewing notions in it and some fat quarters. I think this will be a nice little gift and I didn't spend any money making it as it was all leftover fabric from other projects. 

A quick gift...check out the tutorial from Lillian's Cupboard!

I am going to go home tonight and make one of these....Lillian over at Lillian's Cupboard has written a wonderful tutorial for some quick little Pocket Gift Baskets.  I need a gift for a friend and I need it quick so I'm going to make it tonight.  I'll post the pictures tomorrow or who knows, maybe later tonight!  Anyway, here's a link to her great tutorial.  She always shares good tips and great recipes.  If you haven't found her yet, please check her out and go over and say hello....

My Christmas Quilts

I wanted to show you my Christmas quilts. I try to make a quilt or ornaments every year.  SewCalGal is having a Christmas quilt show and these are mine for the show.  These have all been done in the past few years.  I haven't done a Christmas quilt this year but I am working on the snowman quilt...I did do a small banner and Christmas card holder but no full size quilt. I want to make a big Christmas quilt but just haven't taken the time.  These are all wallhangings or tabletoppers....I hope you enjoy seeing them.

                        My Christmas Stars-all the stars are different and the quilt is all hand quilted.

This is called Texas Christmas.  My brother in law loves this quilt. I guess I'll have to either give it to him or make him one like it.

I made this several years ago. This is an Eleanor Burns pattern.  It was alot of fun.  I made 3 of these and gave two as gifts and kept one for myself.

I made this one along with a friend of mine.  This is from Country Woman magazine many years ago.  I was teaching my friend how to sew and make this little wallhanging at the same time.  We had alot of fun together doing it.

I made this one last year.  My sewing group all made items using the red work embroidery. I made this little wallhanging.  Others made bags,ornaments or little purses.  It was fun to see what non-quilters did with their sewing.

I did this one several years ago at the quilt shop I used to work at.  We had a lock in at the quilt shop and we brought food and all worked on this little quilt.  We all had a quilt by the next morning. 

These are little candle mats.   I put red or green candles in the middle of these on my coffee table.  I'll be decorating with these this week....

You just saw these a few weeks ago but I wanted to put them here too along with all my other Christmas quilts.  I finished these the last few months ago...

My little Joy banner.

This one is a Christmas card holder.

Ok, now you can go to  SewCalGal's site and look at everybody else's....have fun and enjoy the show.

  Click here to go to see everyone else's Christmas quilts.  Merry Christmas!

Don't forget about my giveaway. Tomorrow is the last day to enter.

Tomorrow is the last day to enter the giveaway for the Jennifer Chiaverini book, the Wedding Quilt.  Click on the button on my sidebar and it will take to sign up for the giveaway....Don't forget, you don't want to miss out on this fabulous book!  Good luck and Happy Holidays!

3 Knitted wash cloths and Lazy Girl Perfect Pouches pattern

Here are the 3 little wash cloths I knitted...This pattern is called Grandmother's Favorite and is very easy and quick to knit.

One skein of Sugar 'n Cream, a cotton yarn....it will make two wash cloths
Number 10 knitting needles

Cast on 4 stitches.
Row 2: K 2 sts, yo, k to end of row.
Repeat Row 2until ther are 43 stitches.
Next Row: K 1, k 2 tog, yo, k 2 tog, k to end of row.  Continue the last row until 4 stitches remain. K 4 stitches and bind off. Hide your threads.
This pattern is from the Workbasket magazine October 1987 issue.


Here's the medium size cosmetic bag I told you about in my earlier post.  It is a Lazy Girl pattern called the Perfect Pouches.  The pattern gives you dimensions for small, medium and large but she tells you in the pattern how to increase or decrease to any size you want.  This is a simple and quick pattern to make.  I love doing the zippers the way this pattern says.  So easy. All of Lazy Girl's patterns are excellent. They are all well written and easy to follow along for even beginner sewers.  If you get a chance, go check out her patterns.  Her website is http://www.lazygirldesigns.com/.

Here's the Perfect Pouch I made for a Christmas present.  It took me less than 30 minutes to cut it out and sew it up, zipper and all...it's lined too.  I put my rotary cutter beside it so you could see the size.  I think it's about 7 X 10 inches finished size.  I plan on making more of these but will probably make smaller and bigger....I have some decorator fabric that I've used to make bags to give away and it's the perfect weight for these.

Ok, my bed is calling me.  Til next time, happy sewing!

SewCalGal is hosting a Christmas Quilt Show and Free Motion Quilting Challenge for next year.

Darlene over at SewCalGal is hosting her annual Christmas Quilt Show.  There's a button on my side bar and you can get there quickly by clicking on it.  I will be posting my Christmas quilts tomorrow but I wanted you to know about her quilt show ahead of time so you can go look at everybody else's Christmas quilts too.  She is also hosting a Free motion quilting challenge for next year.  She will be having guest teachers giving hints about free motion quilting each month.  I don't want to start any big projects because I want to quilt the tops I have laying around first.  I do want to start some new projects soon but these have been on my mind for awhile and I really want to quilt these myself as much as I can.  I enjoy the whole process and I love seeing the finished products.  I haven't finished enough this year so I am picking up the challenge and honing my machine quilting skills to finish my quilts...If you want to join in the fun, there is a badge on the sidebar you can click on and sign up on her blog too.

Thanksgiving, Family time and a little sewing and knitting.

Well, I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  We had a great one except my DIL and grandson didn't make it over, my oldest grandson woke up sick and the DIL stayed home with him so he wouldn't spread the illness throughout the family....I fixed the traditional turkey with dressing, giblet gravy, mashed potatoes, broccoli casserole, green bean casserole, pea salad, pumpkin pie, chocolate pie, Cranberry Jello salad, and of course, sweet tea.  Yep, very traditional and lots and lots of calories.  I did really good though...I don't eat chocolate pie or pumpkin pie, I just fix it for others. I had the real food with very little desserts...Everybody had other family things to go to after they ate and all the kids, grandkids and in-laws were gone by 3:00, so I passed out in the recliner.  I didn't even make it to the bed to take a nap.  I snored through the Cowboy game while my DH attempted to watch it....All in all, it was a good Thanksgiving with lots of leftovers.  I made turkey sandwiches the next day and froze the rest so we wouldn't get tired of it. We went to my sisters on Friday and walked around the square in McKinney for the Dickens Christmas.  I took a few pics but not too many.  This used to be fun to see people dressed up in clothing from the 1800's but not too much of that now.  It's become very commercialized now. I was kind of disappointed.  The stores were open and the shopkeepers were dressed up (not all of them) but this was really more like Trades Days instead of a Christmas celebration....I don't plan on going back next year.  I had a wonderful visit with my sister and we did make a trip to the quilt shop on Friday but it was a quick one.  The guys were outside waiting on us!  You know how that is, right?  Friday night we were back to the regular Mexican food!  No more turkey for us for a while. 

I had planned on a Harry Potter marathon and sewing on some bindings.  I have two quilts ready for binding but I didn't get the binding ready.  Carmen, my sweet granddaughter is now crawling and pulling up.  She's going everywhere and I don't have enough hands to watch her and sew or watch TV or do anything else...We are watching Olivia ( girl pig), Ruby and Max ( boy and girl rabbits) and Wonderpets....even my TV watching has changed!   I do enjoy these little shows almost as much as Carmen!    While Carmen watches these, I have been able to knit some wash cloths and I'm giving those away as gifts. These are 30 minute programs and I get a little bit done while they are on.  I've knitted three wash cloths so far. I'm going to a Christmas party this next Saturday and they'll be gone.  I want to knit one more.  These are quick to knit and the pattern is so simple....it's a favorite of mine.  I think the name of it is Grandmother's favorite.   I'll give you the pattern this week. 

Sunday afternoon, I was able to machine quilt a community service quilt.  It's now ready for binding too.  so, that's three quilts ready for binding.  I hope to get the binding ready and have those done this week.  I'll show you pics of those this week.  I also made a medium sized bag.  The pattern was from Lazy Girl and it was so easy to make.  I'll show you that too.  This is also a Christmas gift for the party this coming Saturday.  I decided to make this bag and put a gift certificate to Joann's in the bag.  We always exchange gifts and I don't have time or energy to hunt around this week for a gift so this will have to do....Lazy Girl patterns are so quick and easy to do. I haven't made anything from her that I haven't liked. I was a lazy girl and didn't want to walk down the stairs for my camera to take a picture but I will post one later today along with the knitted wash cloth pattern and pics.     I haven't gotten any more sewing done other than this.  It's not for lack of wanting to sew, it's just not enough time.  How do you handle having time to sew?  I am not a morning person and I cannot get up early to sew. I used to sew in the evenings but my little family has taken up more of my time lately.  Hopefully, after the holidays, life will settle down and I'll get on a schedule to sew more.  Gotta go for now, I'll post pics tonight, til next time, happy sewing!

A few things in progress...

Here's the last two rows of my Row by Row quilt I was telling you about in my last post.  This was a mystery for my group but it is on the internet and here's the link to this little BOM quilt....This has been alot of fun and I think this little quilt will be really cute when it's finished.  I had just enough background fabric to do this. If we's had one more row, I would have had to use another background fabric. Wow, I was sweating it for awhile. You will see the finished product soon. This Thursday, I go to my small group and we'll get the finishing instructions....

I've also been telling you that I'm working on a little tatted bag but I haven't shown it to you. I'm still not finished with it. I've got 5 more rows to put on it before it's finished but I wanted to show you what it's looking like so far.  Yes, I'm still tatting but not as much.  There's just not enough time to do everything....anyway, here's what the little bag looks like. I didn't realize the picture was so dark until I posted it.  I'll take better pictures when it's finished. 

Ok, come back tomorrow and I'll tell you about the surprise giveaway I'll be having soon.  I'm so excited and I hope you will be too. til next time.....

Busy, busy, busy...Quilt sales and a surprise!

Ok, I haven't posted in awhile and it's not because I haven't done anything.  I have been hard at it...I just haven't done anything pretty...I've been getting quilt backings together and batting gathered up for my projects.

  I have finished  the last two rows on my Row By Row quilt but I didn't take a picture. I finished those yesterday.  I'll take a pic tonight and show you...This has turned out to be really cute and I have enjoyed doing this little quilt.  We will get the final border instructions at our quilt meeting this Thursday.

I have put together 10 backings for quilts.  The quilt tops, batting and backing are all ready to be quilted.  I didn't even have to go shopping for this. I got all of this together out of my stash!  I will be starting to quilt these this week. I still have several ready and am still pulling fabric out of my stash for the backs.  I will have to buy batting as I don't have that much batting on hand.  I hope to show you some finished quilts soon. 

In the past two weeks, I have been very fortunate to go to two different quilting sales.  One was sponsored by my Quilt guild and the other was with a friend.  The one sponsored by the guild was for a man that his wife died earlier this year.  He contacted our guild and asked if we could help him with the disposal of her quilting supplies.
 I think she won!  She had a very extensive stash.  She had all different kinds of fabric not just quilting fabric and she was a knitter too. She even had double knit fabric.  One of our members took this and will be using this for backings to small quilts for nursing homes.  Our guild had a sale and sold most of her stash.  It was open to the guild first for two days and then open to the public.  All  of the proceeds were given to the husband and the leftover fabric was kept by the guild to make community service projects.  The husband was very grateful that we could help him out this way.
I got a pretty good amount of fabric. I bought this fabric and intend to do community service quilts with it too.  Nice fabric at reasonable prices. 
I also went over to my friend's house. Her sister (Louise) was also my friend.  Louise died earlier this year.  She lived with Sandy and her husband for the last seven years. She had a stroke and was bed-ridden.

  She was a prolific sewer.  She mostly did community service projects. She was our Community service person for years in our sewing group.  We made quilts for kids, hats for premies, all kinds of things for hospitals and shelters.  Louise was a knitter, crocheter and crafter.  I met her and her sister  about 25 years ago in a sewing class...She and I had the same taste.  Sandy is a sewer but not a quilter.  She had a crafter's garage sale and I bought a car load (my back seat was full and so was my trunk) of books.  Quilt, embroidery, sewing, crochet, knitting...all kinds of books. I have been going through and looking and enjoying these books.  Now, you know as well as I do, the more you have the more organized you have to be, (that is if you want to be able to find anything), so I have been moving my sewing room around again and making room for all the new to me stuff I bought.  I have several friends and a niece that are taking up quilting so I am getting some stuff together to give to them. I'll be donating some stuff to the guild too.  It has been alot of trouble but has been alot of fun too. Sandy gave me a few unfinished projects too.  More to add to my list of things to do but I'll be thinking of my friend while I'm doing these. I know she would like to know that her work is being finished.. I might have a few giveaways too from some of this too.   That brings me to another subject. 
 A giveaway....I love to have giveaways.  I'll be having a very special giveaway soon.
A new book is coming out by one of my favorite authors....Come back and see my post tomorrow....you will get a preview too of the giveaway!!!  Until then, stay tuned for the surprise!!!!

American Sewing Guild Meeting and the Snap Happy Bag

I went to the monthly ASG meeting tonight and we learned how to make the little Snap Happy Bag.  This was so much fun to make and so easy too....

I plan on making alot more of these.  I'm hooked on this one.  Here's the one I made tonight.