Christmas Ornament Mug Rug

This is my newest pattern and its FREE (don't you just love that word).... A Christmas Ornament Mug Rug Instructions.

 

And here's the template you'll need..

 

Ornament Template 

These are quilt as you go... no binding and no handsewing :)

I'm going to be posting a tutorial online later today. They're super easy. They're wonderful to decorate with also. My bathroom shower curtian looks so much more festive with this that I'm going to make a few more to hang on it.

Get a ribbon and string one on a door handle, tuck a magnet into the top, topstitch around the gold top piece to keep the magnet in place and then hang on the fridge. 

They're also good to add onto a present... write a nice message on the back... AND if you have an embroidery machine, how about stitching Merry Christmas on the front piece before adding it in!

I added a metal loop to mine but if you get a little bit of gold elastic or cording, you could catch it in the top seam and have the same look :) Enjoy!!

Green projects and EASY pillow backs

While working on my civil war lone stars, I noticed I was getting quite a pile of triangular scraps. I decided to put some together in a crazy quilt block... minus the embroidery. This is the pillow below...very easy... just 6" blocks, sashed and quilted... then made into a pillow.

 

Putting zippers into pillows doesnt really bother me, but I found that using old shirts is quicker and much more GREEN.

 The shirts have been cut up (they're all cotton) and put away in my box of plaid scraps but the center of the shirt, the button area, usually ends up in the garbage.

With the civil war quilt, I picked a dark green and cream plaid, left about an 1-1/2" after the buttons and button holes, cut two pieces of coordinating solid and attached it to the shirt button area. Then I cut it into a square, the same size as my front piece. Stitched it to the front (right sides together), all the way around (used 1/2" seam) and the pillow was done... EASY!

 

For the challenge project in Hearts to Holly's spring challenge, I made this cat pillow. Usually when I'm at a resale shop I'll keep an eye out for linen or other really nice fabric. They had an xxl dress on the markdown rack (for about 1.99) that was all linen. This gave me the front AND the back for the challenge pillow.

 

 

The dress buttoned all the way up from the hem to the neck so it was a perfect back. And the back of the dress was just one HUGE piece of linen... I still have loads left over to make a few more projects.

Chain stitching Log Cabin blocks for a border

Today I had a chance to work on all three of my current projects. Did some applique until, as usual, my hands starting acting up. Well, what to do but get working on the sewing machine.

 
The quilt that I'm making for Al's Colorado friend needed 22 log cabin blocks around the center, as a border. These were easy to chain stitch and so were finished pretty quickly... yes, that's a sangria next to my sewing machine... maybe that's why the time flew... hehe, hope my stitching looks as good to me tomorrow as it does today :)

Only one more border to go... a plain beige one... and it'll be ready for me to baste and quilt.  

Cranberry centerpiece

 You ever have a party or big get-together and just before everyone is supposed to arrive you decide to throw together a fast decoration? Well, I wanted to have a candle in the middle of the island where I was serving food. Checking out PINTEREST, I found some nice ideas using dried beans, peas, nuts, cranberries, etc surrounding a candle. Figuring this is a super quick and easy project, I got my pie weight dried peas, some dried northern beans and a bag of cranberries.

Well, when I turned my back for JUST A SECOND, the bag of dried pies dumped itself ALL over the kitchen floor... this was just minutes before the first guest arrived. I'm probably going to be finding dried peas everywhere. Glad I did it though, most of my guests loved this centerpiece. This is good for Christmas since it's red, white and green.

Nothing to post this time about quilting, today was all about cooking, cleaning and baking. Yesterday, I did do a little stitching, made three quick 10-minute table runners for the party....just didn't get a picture of them. Hearts to Holly has quite a few of these kits and they really are 10 minute sewing projects.

Working with Marmalade and discussing rulers...

 Daughter Jenn and I are both working with the Marmalade line of fabrics today. She's making the baby quilt in the picture above...isn't it CUTE?! She's putting a soft green polka dot flannel on the back so that it's really cozy. This is a gift for a friend of hers (no she's not pg YET).

This is my project with Marmalade... it's a cute pattern called "Spools". It'll be a shop sample at Hearts to Holly soon.... just waiting for some solid gray/tan to arrive for the spool bottoms. I LOVE THIS LINE!

 One of the other three projects I'm working on currently is this outdoorsy lap quilt for Al's friend. He let Al stay with him in Colorado when Al went there to pick up a sewing machine for me. Al got sick in the mountains... altitude sickness and his friend took really good care of him....so he needs a nice thank you. There will be log cabin blocks on all the sides and then a beige border after that.

At chattertime.. or was it at guild?... we were talking about how many rulers/templates we own. When I got home I decided to count them and I found I have over 35! Now I didn't do this all in one or two years... I've been quilting and buying these things since the 90's. Some of them are out of date and need to be thrown away. Rulers have come a long way.. the quality is much better now... the plastic is much stronger... and now with the ones I buy in the quilt shop, there's those grippies on the bottom built right in! So how many rulers so all of you own? And do you use them? I use probably 90 percent of mine regularly.

Red and Beige Double 4-Patch is finished

Yesterday I finished up the quilting for this UFO and promised to show the back of it. This is using the leftover "opposite" blocks. The original plan was to make two quilts...opposites... but this got stuck in the UFO pile and wasn't touched to it's better to be a back than nothing.

 

I really like the design that the 4patch creates and that may be my next quilt.. just these waves. Maybe in blues and cream?

 

 

So here's the quilt as I finished the quilting and was trying to figure out which fabric to use as binding. The darkest red was perfect... finished sewing down the binding last night! Check off another UFO from the list! This is a large lap or small twin (60x80).

Make sure you get out and VOTE today!!!!

Stars and UFOs

 The fourth of 16 star is done so that means I'm a 1/4 of the way done! :) :)

To give myself a break from this very intense piecing, I started working on another UFO. This beige and red quilt top has been done for a while and hanging in my sewing room closet. It was a quilt that was started to help clear out my over abundance of reds.. many were from the late 80's and 90's!

Today while going through the room and cleaning, I found some fabric that I bought a couple of weeks ago and then decided against for my lone star quilt. I had planned on putting a border on the above quilt but then decided I wanted it more authentic... no border... just stars. Well, the fabric was a perfect color for the quilt below.. just wasn't enough. SO, digging through some more boxes I found some blocks that were the opposite of these red and beige ones. There were enough blocks to piece two rows of them. Stitching them together and placing them between two strips of the backing, made the back large enough for this top... YEAH!! Love working from my stash! I'm pinning the quilt today and hopefully will get it quilted this week.

I'll show the back when the quilting is done. Al says I need a very dark red binding.. gonna go with his opinion... sounds right.

It's not offically winter on the calendar but looking outside, that's what it looks like. This is the first snow of the season (the first one that stayed on the ground that is). That means it's time to get Christmas shopping done... it'll be here before you know it!
Time to head to work.. have a nice all... AND STAY WARM!

Working on my stars

This quilt is slowwwwly coming together.... I have 3 of the 16 blocks done. The one block on the right looks like it has pink and purple but it's not.. they look much nicer up close. These take a LOT of patience but it's going to be my quilt so it's no rush.