Monday Moments

Christmas is almost here! And in the true spirit of things, my son could care less about the presents, what he is most excited about is seeing his sister again. The biggest Daddy's boy has taken to being disappointed when his daddy walks through the door because, "I thought you were sister."

Not that he wouldn't like, "A couple toys and some candy"...

Still one to go

This is the backing for one of my log cabin stars throw quilts. The star is almost exactly centered and the strips continue in one piece all the way to the binding. Normally when I show my husband something he takes a quick look and tells me it's nice. With this he actually did a double take and said to me, "That's a nice back. I think it's nicer than the front." Apparently I did all of the piecing for nothing. Ha!



I bound it in the same yellow print that I used in a couple of the corner blocks. I like it. The lighting in here was too bad to take a picture of the full thing today, but if you need a refresher on what the complete top looks like you can find it here.

I'll be spending the next few days working on turning the second top from that post into a full fledged quilt.

Cardstock boxes

I bought some jewelry for Christmas, just little necklaces for a couple people. I was planning on spending a few dollars on jewelry boxes to put them in, but then I saw a sidebar in Scrapbook Etc. magazine with templates to make cute little boxes out of scrapbook paper. Something I have a TON of since I used to have that hobby before I discovered sewing, when I had time for hobbies other than sewing. They're pretty cute, but very tiny. I wouldn't put much more than a necklace in them as is, but the site says they enlarge beautifully. Maybe I'll try that next year.

Double oven mitt

My sister asked me to make her oven mitts for Christmas awhile ago. I was going to just buy them because of my extensive sewing list, but then she told me why. She was finally ready to throw out the pair our grandmother had got her for Christmas in the last few years before she died. Store bought oven mitts just cannot replace something so near and dear to her, so I started keeping my eye out for any cute ideas.



When this tutorial from Smashed Peas and Carrots showed up in my daily Craft Gossip e-mail I bookmarked it and started plotting. Such a cool and unique oven mitt! I have seen these in silicone before, but never in fabrics. I absolutely love it!

I'm still going to make one single mitt, for those pans that you don't need two hands to take out of the oven. I'm not sure how that one is going to look yet, since I have pretty small scraps of the zebra and gingham prints left, and only about six inches of purple bias tape, but I would like to try to figure out a way for them to match without driving across town to Jo-Ann again.

Monday Moments

Searching through the Sunday paper sale ads, way back in the beginning of December my husband and I saw these gingerbread train kits and decided we had to have one. With two kids who love cookies, icing and are always begging to make something whenever I am, and one kid who especially loves trains, it was an easy choice.



You probably can't read the box in the background but it says, "Create a Treat". Don't let that box fool you. It is not a treat. So gross! I thought it was going to be amazing because my whole kitchen smelled like I had just baked gingerbread...but to get that smell out of a pre-packaged cookie they had to really overload it with cinnamon and cloves. My husband nearly gagged over his bit. I laughed at him and said, "You haven't even got to the aftertaste yet!"



The kids had fun though, putting their own spin on things, and filling the train up with extra candy cargo. Of course in this Sunday's paper there was an add for a five house mini gingerbread village at Target for $2 cheaper. I think that would have been the way to go, everyone getting their own house to decorate instead of trying to crowd four people around one little train. Maybe I'll still pick one up, even though we've already decorated gingerbread this holiday season.

Why?

I decided awhile ago to order a kit for a craft I have never tried before. A kit to make a Christmas gift for someone else. Why? I mean, I know why I did it, but I am always doing this sort of thing to myself. Now I have to finish this and two quilts and hopefully some baby bibs and maybe a pair of baby shoes, and maybe a pair of oven mitts, all before Christmas Eve, which is two weeks away.

I have been staring at this project so much that when I closed my eyes this morning, I saw my whole room in little stitches. I think I'm going to put it away for a little bit and hopefully finish up one of those quilts I mentioned. It won't be a long break, but it will be a much needed one.

I'm late

I said last week that I was hoping to have this bound by Wednesday and I briefly thought on Wednesday, "I should really start binding that blanket." Thursday I finally sat down and sewed the binding on. Then I threw the quilt into the wash to get out the washable marker I had used to draw the motifs on it...and the marker didn't wash out. I don't know if it's because I switched both stain remover and laundry detergent since the last quilt I made, but I was in panic mode. I threw it in the wash again, this time on a more aggressive cycle. It worked for getting the marker out, but it also ripped out some of my stitching.

I finally sat down today and repaired it by hand so that I had something to show here. It doesn't help that I got all of the stuff for a new project in the mail on Thursday and have been kind of obsessed with it. I think I'll post a little peek at that one tomorrow.



Until then, here is a closer photo of the quilting. The fabric and matching thread kind of washes out the design in the top picture. Don't get too close though! Or if you do, please remember that this was the first time I have ever quilted a curve in anything. Yikes!