BOUND to be finished.......right?

"Crossing my T's"

Well, almost ! 

 It's in the washer right now, and will receive a label in the next few days.

 For binding fabric, I took the easy way out, going with the scraps from trimming the back away.  

  I finished in good time, sitting on the front porch enjoying the sunshine !

Ahhhhhhhh.......here he is.....fresh and crinkly !

What quilt are you currently hanging?

I just took down my big Christmas quilt, and put up my "Wear Warm Clothes". It'll hang for the winter months, until Springtime gives me a yearning for flowers and sunshine again.

Some of you may remember this pattern, as it was put out by Red Wagon quite a few years ago.

Members of my little quilting group and I all started our own version one year, doing it together for moral support.

I changed mine a little bit to more closely reflect my life at the time. I put in the spatterware coffee pot and cup because hubby was collecting campware at the time; the black boots are ones that I was wearing, and the socks and house shoes are very similar to ones I had.

Remember those ragg socks? Of course, we all had the skinny, magic gloves that looked like they were supposed to fit a 3 year old child.

I was really into Roberta Horton plaids at the time, so most of the pieces of fabric are from her collections.

The wood stove and coal oil lamp were added as homage to my 'growing up' years.
And, at the bottom, I embroidered a paraphrased version of a line from a favorite Merle Haggard tune, "If We Make It Through December".........I added, "there's always January !"

I had a lot of fun quilting this one by hand, just adding whatever suited my fancy at the time.

Playing with Christmas fabrics

For weeks now, I've had an underlying desire to make something Christmassy. Each year when I get out my decorations, my quilted things greet me like old friends. Even the ones that I've looked at for so many years that you'd think I'd be sick of them, warm my heart with the memories of Christmases past, friends, and days spent quilting together. Surprisingly to me, they even bring oohs and ahhs from visitors who are seeing them for the first time.

So, today, since the weather was warm, and I could enter my closed-off sewing room without fear of frostbite, I started pulling some fabrics, and seeing what I had. Sadly, I sold off my tub full of Christmas fabrics and blocks when I moved, but the truth is that those fabrics were pretty dated, (yet not dated enough to be 'collectible'). This afternoon, I put together a wall banner of sorts, and the funny thing is that it features two fabrics that I won in a dirty santa game at one of our Outlaw quilters' Christmas parties in the past. I had stuck them away and forgotten them.

I finished the edges with some scraps from one of JoAnn's backs, and even threw in a little Robin Pandolph fabric that she must have given me along the way. Scrounging for a backing fabric, I ran across a much overlooked Hoffman fabric that I had a one-yard piece of, and it had a slight gold sheen to it, just as do the featured fabrics on front.

I raw-edge appliqued the fussy-cut squares and center rectangle, straight-stitching around them about 1/8th of an inch in from the edge. Rather than have to bind the odd shape, I sewed most of the way around the entire thing, inside out, and "birthed the quilt" the way that Eleanor Burns used to do.

Tomorrow, I think I'll get out my White sewing machine, and zig-zag around each applique, as they are starting to fray quite a bit more than I like. I'll try to get a good photo of the finished banner, then.

I don't think this project has totally satisfied my desire for Christmas piecing, though, but I find that I REALLY need to fabric shop before I try again. Still, this has been a fun way to spend a quiet Monday before Christmas.

How did you spend yours?