More Handmade Gifts

Here is something else I made for gifts this Christmas. I sewed each of my young nieces a skirt and knitted a (somewhat) matching scarf (which isn't real practical for the one in Florida, but oh well). I only took this one picture above as I sent out the other one before taking a picture. The other one had a really cute snowman fabric.

On Christmas Eve, I sewed together two pieces of leopard fabrics (one a Minke, the other was something else), did a few "quilting" lines and made a blanket for Anna. The fabric was pretty slippery and I did a very poor job on it, but I wanted her to have her own warm blanket. Here is she under it in the aftermath of unwrapping gifts.


I also knitted a scarf for my friend in Ireland, my step-nephew who likes the Steelers, my yoga teacher and my Nia teacher. This was more hand making than I have ever done at Christmas and probably will ever do. It makes me a little stressed trying to finish in time to mail stuff.

There was a discussion about handmade gifts on the Quiltart list. Someone had found a blog written by a lady in which she pointed out mostly the bad aspects of receiving a handmade gift, such as a crocheted toilet paper cover from Auntie Gertrude, for example. She did have some good points. Sorry I don't have a link to the original post for you.

When I make something for somebody, I hope they see that it was because I wanted to take the time to make something special for them. I don't mind if they don't like it, if they pass it on. In my opinion, once you give something to someone, they can do whatever they like with it. I do hope that they appreciate my effort, though.

Most of the things I made this year were pretty functional.

Lights, Camera . . .

We finally took action to go see the lights at the Idaho Botanical Gardens the night before last. It was beautiful as usual. We only stayed around an hour as the temperature was about 20 degrees.

The best way to take pictures is to turn the flash off and have a tripod. I just had my pocket camera and tried to find rocks, fences, etc. to rest it on while taking the pictures. Here are a few of mine. Frank took some with his camera and the gorilla pod (which can bend and attach to things) but I haven't looked at his yet.

Gifts

Hope you all had a relaxing holiday yesterday. We did. While Frank and Anna were engrossed in the new electronics, I was reading a book and eating chocolate by the fire. Only thing that would have made it perfect would have been a little more white stuff outside (but then I would have been out playing in it and not reading).

Now it is safe for me to show you some of the gifts I made this year. The biggest was a quilt for my nephew, Ben (9 years old), who is big into baseball and any sport. My sister-in-law sent me some of his old baseball shirts from various teams and some Marlins fabric. I found some nice baseball fabric and some coordinating solids at Jo-Ann's. Below is how it turned out.

I didn't put batting in between but, instead, used a flannel sheet. The quilting lines are stitched in the ditch. I also outlined the letters, numbers and motifs on the shirts with free motion quilting. Not that you can really tell, but to give it some more stabilization.

Apparently, it was a big hit with him. I guess when the neighbors asked what he got for Christmas, he ran in the house and got the quilt to show them (not the new bike he received). Awesome!

Puzzling Days (or Daze)

We have already been in relax mode here for several days. Anna has been ill and we have been taking it easy. The cold weather keeps us indoors and it is the perfect time for building a fire and doing puzzles.

Many puzzle boxes have been pulled out, completed and put away again. We work through them quickly. Except for the puzzle below. It is one that I found at the thrift store and thought Anna would like it because of all the big cats. You did know she likes cats, didn't you?

The edges do have that funky shape and those are holes, too. The pieces were all cut in the craziest shapes and some of the middle pieces had straight edges. So we were never exactly sure if we had an edge piece or something else. We declared this the hardest puzzle we have ever done (even harder than the double sided puzzle that claimed to be the world's most difficult). The colors in several of the cats were very similar so we weren't exactly sure which they would go to. But we finished it, and all the pieces were there. That's always a worry with a thrift store puzzle.

Years ago I took a class with Melody Crust, who wrote the book shown below. It's all about the quilting line. In class we received a clear sheet with which to audition quilting lines on, using a dry erase marker.



Sometimes I don't have the quilting lines exactly figured out ahead of time. For the piece I'm working on now, that was the case. I pulled out the sheet and started drawing some ideas. I pinned the sheet directly over the piece. You have to be careful to draw only on the sheet. Also, you have to be careful when erasing so as not to go over the edge and have the black dust rub onto the fabric.

(I have no idea what the sheet is made of - vinyl? I also do not know where you can get one.)

Here are some of the results below. I have made a decision and hopefully will start the quilting today.

The Jolly Man

Some people know that I have a Santa collection. Every year the man in red comes in many different versions at our house. Sometimes he gets tired of his red suit, or it needs to be washed, and he wears a different color.

I like to try to find a santa when we go on foreign vacations. But since we usually go in the summer, I have not been very successful. I have a Delft santa in blue from Holland. The one below came from Russia, via my in-laws.

We also have a paper mache one from Germany (also via the in-laws. Aren't they great?) Of course we had to have Santa in a rocket for Frank. Just for Anna, there is a santa holding cats.

The jolly fellow is very active and likes to go canoeing, skiing, ice skating and drive a car. I own quite of few by David Frykman, who created the one below.

But one of my favorites, and the very first one of my collection (at the time, I didn't even know I would have a collection), is this guy below. My sister made him for me in middle school. He took an extended vacation for several years and we couldn't locate him. But I was so happy when he resurfaced and was able to bring him to my own home.

Back to the Drawing Board . . .

or I should say design wall. Yea! A couple of days ago I was able to start pulling out fabrics to start on a new piece.

It doesn't look like much here, but this was just to get an idea for colors. I have it almost completely pieced and then I have to figure out how to do the quilting. It's nice to get back to work on some art.

Pink

It's hard to tell but there really was a lot of pink in this sunset.

The Twelve by Twelve group has just finished their latest challenge of making quilts using pink. I have not been very good about playing along with them for some time. But I think pink would have been a real challenge for me as well. You can see how they handled it by clicking on their name.

There is nothing wrong with pink (except for some of the associations that go with it). It is just not a color I gravitate toward. If I do use it, I prefer the dusty rose colors as opposed to the bright bubblegum pinks.

I'm Still Here

This time is really busy for me finishing up presents, wrapping, packing and shipping. I've mailed five boxes already and one more to finish up today. Then, I can finish putting up our decorations that have been laying around the house for a week (and maybe get back to working on some art?).

The single digit weather here has been making it a little less encouraging for me to go to my exercise classes at the Y. But I have gone, with just the slightest worry that my car might freeze while I'm there and won't start when I come out. So far, so good, though.

Tonight I am hoping we can stay home, relax, build a fire and decorate the tree.

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like . . .

. . winter! And Christmas, too. Yesterday we went out and got our fresh tree. Oh, it smells so, so lovely in our house. We managed to wrestle with some lights and weed out two strands that would not work, even after we replaced all the bulbs and the fuses. I think we will start transitioning to LED lights.

I've pulled out all the Christmas items but most of it is just in disarray right now. No ornaments on the tree yet and presents to finish making, wrapping, packing and shipping. Who knows when order will come?

This morning we awoke to the beautiful scene above. Usually I can stay inside and enjoy the view and not worry about driving in it. As Anna was getting ready for school (yes, they still had school even though Anna wanted me to check on the internet to make sure), I was checking my calendar for my weekly activities and realized that I had signed up to start a basic pilates class at the Y this morning, at 8 a.m.

It's days like this that make me love my car even more. The Suzuki Sidekick has 4 wheel drive and handles very well in the snow, which is great for our slanty driveway and steep neighborhood hills. If it does happen to slip and slide, it never goes very far because it is so light weight (comparatively, for a small SUV).

I had no problem getting to class, but one lady came in the middle of it because it took her an hour and twenty minutes to get there, due to slow traffic.

The picture below is obviously one of our artificial trees with the candy cane project the kids did at Anna's party. I'll have to buy some lights for this tree.

Holiday Craft Party

Anna's holiday craft party was today. Four of her friends were able to come over to make some crafts and eat some brownies. I added chopped up candy cane Kisses to the brownies and the icing. They are very good.

I'm not sure a lot of crafting got completed, but the girls had fun and that was really the whole point.

More?

I know, I know. Less is more and I really do believe that. But sometimes I just can't help myself! When I should have been home finishing up the gift quilt, I was out shopping today. I had to go out to get something for tonight and while I'm out, I like to do as much as I can. That included some shopping.

I had to stop (really I did) by the quilt store while I was out and about because I was looking for a fabric. Of course, they didn't really have what I was looking for. But they had a lot of what I was not looking for.

I couldn't resist. I purchased the two fabrics above. The one on the right is by Basicgrey called "figgy pudding" made for Moda. I really like the combination of colors. Normally, I don't care for pastels but the light blue in this really makes it lovely with the olive greens and just a few dots of taupe-y brown (I know you can't really see that in the photo).

The other fabric is from a different line but I thought it went nicely with the "figgy pudding". I think the lady that cut the fabric for me was surprised by how nicely they went together. Now, I do have a plan for this, albeit one that is probably far in the future. I thought it would make a lovely table runner(s) for our dining room for the winter (oh, I don't necessarily mean this winter). And some place mats, too, if there is enough fabric. I bought the last of it.

No, I really do not need more on my to-do list. But I think there is a primal urge in me to make things. That's why the list is never-ending.

Winding Up and Down

The year is starting to wind down. How did it come to be Dec. 2nd already? The holiday season is just starting to wind up. I haven't hauled out the decorations yet, but we are planning a holiday craft party for Anna and her friends this Saturday. I'm sure some of the holiday cheer will start coming out of storage this weekend.

I'm also trying to wind down the homemade gifts. I already have two boxes mailed but have a functional quilt to finish and mail. Although the season is usually filled with creativity around here, not much artwork gets made during this time.

If you are curious about the picture above, it is a birch tree photo that I was playing around with in Photoshop (many moons ago).