More Holiday Projects

 Here they are.....pictures of the last of the holiday projects. I was hoping to post this earlier but a nasty head/chest cold got in the way. Hopefully I'm seeing the tail-end of that. Anyway, here they are!!

The first picture is of the "Stircle" quilt that I made for my oldest. She had asked for a quilt with circles. So out came all the books, patterns, and magazines in search of the "perfect pattern", but didn't find one that spoke to me. Next option was to simply make my own. The "Stircle" quilt was born. It's nothing fancy. Simply a small circle within a star within a larger circle. Straight set with sashing and cornerstones. I did get to use my new circle cutter.....which worked amazingly well. The quilting on it was a simply cross-hatch grid using a matching varigated thread and serpentine stitch. The quilt is bed-sized with a matching pillow. The best part of it all was when I got to hear my oldest tell me how much she loved the quilt.  :>)

The second picture is of the quilt I made for my youngest. She was a bit more challenging than the oldest.....simply because she had taken a picture of a small wall hanging and said "I would like a quilt like this for Christmas....only bigger for my bed." Not a problem, right? Wrong!! Turns out the fabrics used for this miniature quilt was purchased for the sole purpose of making kits. So there was none to be had....not even a fat quarter. So the search for the fabrics had begun. A couple pieces were found here.....another one there.....and one from my stash. None were an exact match, but they were close enough that I didn't think anything of it. The pattern was easy....a simple rail fence. Then I thought "why not put a little applique in it"......hence the "weenie dog" applique block. It was super easy to digitize and stitched out like a dream. I did three running weenie dog blocks for the front of the quilt.....and a sitting weenie dog block for the label on the back of the quilt. I got lucky and just happen to have the perfect hand-dyed fabric in my stash for the weenie dog appliques. The only fabric that was difficult to find was the border fabric. The border fabric on the quilt that started it all was a print on a black background. The best I could do was dark blue. I like it though. Thought it really pulled the whole quilt together. Of course one of the first things I heard when she opened up the quilt was "couldn't you find any black?" Oh well. Apparently the quilt isn't all that bad since it's now on her bed in her apartment. (I had also made four matching pillowcases.)

While I was photographing the last quilt an unexpected photo opportunity presented itself. My six month old Daschund, Harley, decided to sit prettily on the quilt right by one of the weenie applique blocks. It was a "kodak moment" that I was lucky enough to catch on "film".  :>)