Getting ahead of thing- Christmas Table Runner

Today I fooled around with my Creative Grids Trapezoid Ruler again. This time I tried a braid that I had spotted on Pinterest. You add a little square as you're piecing it. Worked really well and now I have something for my winter Fiesta colors.

After I made the braid I found this snowman fabric in my stash. It had the perfect colors so I bordered it with it.

Well, that was fun but now it's time to get back to some serious work... lots of UFOs that need finishing up.

Fall Braid Table Runner using one of my favorite rulers

 Shop Hop is coming up at Hearts to Holly (starting Saturday) and one of the demos will be using the trapezoid ruler. I wanted to make a quick sample to show how the braid can be cut and used so I stitched up this table runner in an evening... THAT'S HOW QUICK IT IS!

I had a jelly roll with these beautiful black and brown and tan batiks. It uses about 7 lights and 7 dark strips. You get 8 trapezoid pieces out of a WOF strip so 56 light, 56 dark... 112 pieces works about perfectly for this runner.

They go together super fast... I work on all 3 braids at once so that I can chain stitch.

 I cut a bunch of extra pieces that I'll end up putting into pillow fronts. This ruler also cuts a nice 45 degree angle for the ends of my binding plus it cuts 2-1/2" strips... a really useful ruler.

UPDATE: I had a few people comment that they loved this ruler but had a hard time starting... what goes to what.
Here's what you do... take one dark and one light... Put the shortest side of one to the longest side of the other and stitch (doesn't matter which is dark and which is light).
Then start adding darks to the dark side and lights to the light side. Keep the angle of the trapezoid pointing downward as you go. The piece you are adding is always on top of your last stitched seam.... longest side to the seam. Refer to the pic above as you go and you should do fine.

Halloween Pillow

Finished up one little project... This will be mailed to mom tomorrow. For a teeny tiny pillow, there sure was a lot of work on this... BUT I'm happy with it and I know mom will enjoy it. This pattern is from Bareroots Little Stitchies.

Meet Harrison...

 Meet my new Granddoggie, Harrison.... Harry for short... he's a Cavapoo (part cavalier spaniel and part poodle). Daughter Jenn just picked him up from the breeder today. She had to drive 5 hours to get him. He's home at her house now. Al and I are heading over to visit tomorrow. He needed a quilt, of course. Stitched up a little today with the only doggie fabric I had. Can't wait to hold him.

Here's the update... just got back from our visit with the new pup. Harrison loves his quilt :)

Getting lots of sewing done

I've been working on getting caught up with all my LITTLE projects. The block below is for the BLOCK FRENZY at Hearts to Holly Quilt Shop. I won the last ones... the Halloween group... and so I got to pick the next fabric group for the frenzy. I picked the ones below... nice warm colors... called "Pin Money".

 And this is just part of a row robin I'm doing for someone. I named this block "Nettie's Crocuses". I'm pretty sure she doesn't read my blog so I think it's safe to post a pic... and it's only a peek.. not the whole row.

And this is the Halloween quilt top so far. I'm adding the final border right now... a gray one with spiders. Then I'll quilt it and bind it with black.

And finally, the quilt that I'm doing as I do the stuff above (I get bored and have to switch projects). It's half quilted... center about done and then I'll work on the borders.
It feels good to have so many projects finishing up... BIG SMILES :)

My WINNINGS: A Halloween Quilt :)

Hearts to Holly Quilt Shop just had their drawing for Block Frenzy (make a 12" block and your name goes in the pot) and I WON! I've entered quite a few times and have never had my name pulled before. This time the theme was Halloween. I won 11 blocks.

I laid them out on my sewing room floor and decided I needed one more. I stitched up the ghost in row two, fairly quickly. I had the ghost in my stash from a shop hop (a giveaway) and hadn't found a place for him till now.

 

So now my plan is to either alternate white and yellow borders on the blocks OR use white on all of them and some other color as sashing for the whole quilt. Then one or two borders to get it up to a lap size.

I'm bordering all the blocks because, if you've ever won something like this, you know all 12" blocks are not created equal. Some are just a hair large, some a hair small and some just a bit wonky. By adding a 2-1/2" border and then trimming the blocks down to 15-1/2", I'll get them all on an even playing field.

This is one of the prettiest block swaps I've won... I'm loving the looks of these!