Pleated Christmas Trees

     I made some pleated Christmas trees with a different background fabric.  The pattern is here:  Pleated Christmas Tree.  The original model in the pattern was made with white background fabric, and I have made two of these with white background fabric.  I wanted to do something different with the background and I found this gray fabric with white dots.   I think this looks like snow falling at night.  I still want to enlarge this pattern and make this tree bigger, so I can make it into a pillow cover or something, but I haven't tried that yet.

     Here are the two I made last night with the darker background fabric.  The first tree is a little lopsided because I was sloppy with my trimming.  The second tree came out much nicer.  I love that green plaid fabric.  I'm giving the second one to my daughter.  I put it in a dark wood 8" x 10" frame.

         

New Tote Bag Finished, A Simple Christmas Decoration

I finally ironed and cut up the fabric for a tote bag from the souvenir fabric from Hawaii.  I love this beautiful purple and pink flower print.  I bought the coordinating solid canvas after I came home knowing I wanted to use it as the bottom of the tote.  I have more of the print fabric left and there will be another bag or two made with this.

I bought some Christmas cards last year to put in frames for decorations this year.  I pulled this card out and found this 5" x 7" frame at Target this morning.  Now I have another Christmas decoration.  I have some others cards that I will be framing.

Another Christmas Decoration DIY

   A few weeks ago I was checking out the gift bag selection in all the stores and I saw some cute gift bags, like the scenes with the red truck and cute trees.  I don't need any Christmas gift bags because I don't give gifts at Christmas anymore, so I didn't buy any. 

    By the time I had the idea to buy a bag and put it in a frame for a decoration in the house, I had missed out on the red truck gift bags but I did find this sweet bag at WalMart to cut up and frame.  I would call this a medium sized bag and I cut it in half, removed the handles (carefully) and put it in an 8" x 10" frame that I also found at WalMart.  I think this cost me $7.00 to make.

    I love this.  I will definitely be doing this again next year. 

Pleated Christmas Tree - Framed

   I'm loving the Christmas sales the last few weeks.  I'm finding a lot of items for my crafting on sale.  I found this sweet 8 x 10 frame at Joann's Fabrics yesterday and it was 50% off, so I paid $4.99.   It's got an easel in the back so I don't have to hang it up I just put it up on my kitchen counter to decorate.  I'm going to experiment making these trees a little bigger.  This would make a great pillow cover.  I'm having fun with my Christmas crafting.

The Next Quilt Project

   I found this faux redwork panel on etsy a few weeks ago.  Each block is about 7.25" square.

This,

   plus this,

plus 30 - 5" white charm squares, equal this,

   I love, love, love the red mini polka dot fabric.  I pre-washed all the fabric so I shouldn't have a lot of problem with the dye bleeding.  This quilt top should be a lot of fun to make.  

   

Birthday Gifts

    I finally get to share the birthday gifts I gave my daughter.  She turned 39 years old yesterday and we got to spend some time together yesterday so she could open her gifts.  I bought her a shop vacuum in July that was part of her birthday gift, but I wanted to make her a few things for her new house.  So here are the homemade birthday gifts I gave her yesterday.

    I made her a rag quilt with a sale priced flannel that I found at Hancock Fabrics.  I posted about it  here.  This project took me about 4 days to finish.  She loves the cats on the fabric and the gray matches her new couch.  I bought 9 yards of this flannel fabric.  I cut it up into 108 - 10" squares.  I layered 3 squares together and sewed an X in each 3 layer block.    I sewed 6 blocks in a row and made 6 rows sewing them together so the seam is exposed on one side.   And this crazy fabric was directional so I had to be careful to get the cats all going in the same direction.  Fun.  After I sewed the entire quilt together, I snipped all the exposed seam allowances about 1/2" apart being careful not to snip the actual seams, then I threw the quilt in the washer and dryer to get the seams to ravel and become "raggy".

    The next project I made for her was an embroidery done on the embroidery machine she bought for my birthday last year.  I spent 3 hours getting this sewing machine embroidered because it had so many thread color changes.  It was very time consuming but it turned out pretty good.  I embroidered the picture on a piece of white muslin and framed it with a wooden frame that I painted.  It was really easy to do and the whole thing cost me about $12.00 including the cost of the embroidery design.  She loved this one as well.  Something she can hang on the wall of her craft room.

   

   And the last homemade gift I made were some linen napkins.  When I was shopping for fabric, I couldn't decided which color I liked more so I bought 1 yard of each and made four napkins from each yard.  I cut the fabric into fat quarters, hemmed them and then embroidered them with her last name initial on them.  The white is a linen blend and it was easier to work with than the blue or the brown fabric which were 100% linen.  If I were to make more linen napkins, I would definitely use a linen blend.  She loves her new napkins for her new house.  The fabric for these napkins was about $35.00.

      I didn't make the next gift.  I wanted her to have a wind chime for her yard so I found a reasonably priced wind chime on etsy and it's super cute made with recycled kitchen items.  We took the time to hang this in the tree in her front yard yesterday.

    I also gave her a home made sour cream pound cake and then we spent the afternoon at the North Florida Fair looking at the farm animals, eating junk food and enjoying the warm November weather.

Floral Square QuiltTop Is Assembled

 

  After making all the little odds and ends that I finished in the last couple of weeks, I finally got this top together.  It's about 56" x 56", there are 100  5" floral squares framed by 1.5" green floral tone on tone fabric.  

 

I found that as random as I tried to be putting my squares together, I still had a problem putting the rows together.  I found these three pink blocks hanging out together.  I won't be taking any of this apart to separate them since this quilt is just for me.

   I've ordered the batting for this quilt and I'm going to start working on piecing my backing together in the next few days.  

Old and New Tools

      Beaded Stilettos

      I love seeing the pretty beaded stilettos that are being swapped on the Quilting Board.  I got one in a swap a couple of years ago.  I usually use a bamboo double pointed knitting needle as a stiletto because I have a ton of these.  I also have these porcupine quill that I bought because they are so pretty.  I don't always use a stiletto when I'm sewing, but I should.  I moving my stiletto collection to my handy tool box that I keep by the machine.

     Here's my stiletto collection.  

 

      And guess what?  I found a tutorial on how to make beaded stilettos at this link. and I'll be adding that idea to my projects list.

   
    Wooden Ruler Holder

     I just got this cool wooden ruler holder from a seller on etsy.  I've been wanting one for a couple of years, but I needed so many things, it always got pushed to the end of the list.

   

   Mini Quilt Frame

    I had to have this mini quilt frame.  I bought it from Connecting Threads.  I like the scrolly feet and the wavy pattern all the way around the frame.  So cute.  The piece that is draped on the frame is my attempt at a mini quilt that I make last week but I don't love it.  Yesterday while I was reading quilt blogs I found a tutorial to make a small 5" snail trail block, (link here) and I'll be pulling fabrics for that soon. My mini quilt frame deserves something pretty on it.

Artwork For My Room

      I found this cute, cute, cute Eifel Tower fabric on etsy.  I have this fabric in black and white, but the pink color is just a super lovely print.  I bought this fat quarter on etsy to cut a piece to frame for my pink and green bedroom makeover.  I love it.  I cut the piece to fit the frame and I starched the snot out of it (that's a quilter technique).  It fits this frame really well and the frame has those lovely flowers decorations on each corner.  This frame was made to place on a table with an easel installed on it but I removed the easel and nailed on a hanger to put it on the wall.  I don't really have enough table space to keep another picture with an easel.

The pink fabric on my plain beige walls is really pretty.  

Got My New Embroidery Fanny Frame

I bought this at Needle In A Haystack on line and it's called the Hardwicke Manor Fanny Frame.  You sit on the paddle so your hands are free to work.  I've been waiting for this for 3 weeks because they were out of stock and I had to wait for them to get more.   I think I'm going to get a lot of use out of this gadget.