Two finishes

We've been watching Breaking Bad, which means hand sewing and binding time . . . which means both the Orange Consequences Quilt, and the Red Christmas Scrappy Trip are FINISHED!!!!

First I attached a double band of hexies to the Orange Consequences Quilt

Then I bound it

And then I finished the binding on Lisa's Christmas quilt

The UFO list is getting smaller and the "done" pile is getting bigger!

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Rolling in Red

I seem to be on a bit of a red kick at the moment:

I've pieced and quilted Lisa's mostly red Christmas quilt

Some of the sashing is plain red, and some is printed with gold or silver Christmassy symbols.  The sashing placement is deliberate, and even required some un-sewing.  Can you see why I chose that placement? (see below for the answer)
    
And I made myself two red handy items in felt:  A wrist pin cushion and a needle case

 

And I've almost finished Niki's mostly red birthday quilt

 

  

No doubt which birthday she's getting it for (I cant believe I'm old enough to have a youngest child turning 21!!!)

(the number twenty one wasn't on the fabric so I've joined twenty and one together!)

And the printed sashing amongst the plain?  If you look for it, it spells Lisa's name :-)

 

Christmas Crafting (again)

As I'm hosting the Ho Ho Ho and on we Sew link up this month I thought I really ought to actually do some Christmas making beyond my tutorial.

I started a Scrappy Trip Around the World late in 2013.  The plan was that it would be for Lisa for Christmas 2014.  At the time she was living in a converted factory in London and I thought it would be nice to have something warm and Christmassy to wrap herself up in

I got this far, and then realised my fabric placement was a bit naff:

Scrappy trips look better if they aren't alternating light and dark blocks - because they just might as well be alternating dark and light blocks!

 

So I considered a couple of sashing/no sashing possibilities

And there it stalled: partly because I couldn't decide, and partly because Lisa announced she would be going to Australia *just* after Christmas - so I didn't think there would be much point having a Christmas quilt which she'd get on Christmas day and leave behind on boxing day.

Anyway, fast forward a year and a bit: I seem to be in the mood for reducing UFOs at the moment, and the Ho Ho Ho linky got me thinking abut this one.  So I have now sashed the blocks mostly with plain Kona red solid.  There is some sashing with gold shapes on, and there is a reason, but I cant yet photograph it well enough to show you.  At the moment there are 5 separate strips of blocks, but in a few days I'm hoping to have it backed and machine bordered, and then I can show you.

 Have you finished anything Christmassy this month?  The linky is open until the end of the month if you want to link up - just click here to go to the linky post

Not Quite a Plan

Having cut strips for my STAW (Scrappy Trip Around the World) I was up enthusiastically this morning - sewing, pressing, cutting, and ...

Well, the idea of the STAW is that you can see the stripes, Bonnie Hunter explains it really well here,  and this is why it uses six different fabrics per block, and is a good general stash buster.

*HOWEVER* my plan was to use Christmassy fabrics - they are (in my stash at least) generally red or white/cream, so I had the really good idea (?) of alternating them

Yes, if you look hard, you can see the stripes, but what you actually see first is the red / white checker board effect

So I'm adapting the plan, and making my blocks slightly smaller (5x5 instead of 6x6) and adding sashing

 

 Four down, 16 to go!

Slightly higher in the counting stakes is the yellow hexi top: about 650 down, and who knows how many to go!

 Still it has grown over the holidays :-)

Sewing for Siblings

I had a fun day today - I finished piecing and quilting (with chevrons, or zig zags) a square quilt from extra blocks from block lotto, and made a dozen scrappy log cabin blocks, all destined for the Siblings Together charity