Snowflakes

One of the gals on our Quilting Post yahoo group posted a link to these great fabric snowflakes.  I definitely will be needing to make some.  They are just so pretty.  I’ve seen them made out of paper before but never though of fabric – and they look more substantial out of the fabrics.

Check out the Shabby Fabrics video to see how easy they are to make.

That  lone plant hook in my living room ceiling left from the last tenant (or maybe it was for hanging light) which I’ve never hung anything on – heck it may need a snowflake to hang on it.  It would make a great winter decoration for the outside of my parents condo door since it’s in an inner hallway so not exposed to outside weather.   And my sister has a sunporch where they would look great hanging in the windows.

I’m planning on going to my parents after Christmas so I may just have to  get the fabric pieces all fused and the cuts made (since my Mom and my sister are not quilters so I wouldn’t be trusting them with doing the rotary cutter part) 🙂  but if I got them ready that far,  the three of us could then do the gluing and put them all together while visiting.

I have also been wanting to make some of this style of snowflakes as tree ornaments.   This video shows how to make them with two sided printed paper but I’d do the same thing except with double sided fused fabrics as well.

I found a great deal on Amazon for the type of Heat N Bond needed – much cheaper in bulk  and since the large flakes are double fused they will of course take twice as much of the norm —  so have a bolt of that ordered and since I won an Amazon gift card at our office party this past week, it’s a “free” deal at that.  And there are of course all kinds of fabrics in the stash that would be perfect for these – bunches with gold metallic or silver metallic accents to sparkle, batiks would be lovely – lots to choose from.   Yes, I’m very excited about trying some of these out.

But – on a different note – I have been busy.  About 8 pm I finally finished all the quilting on the deer quilt.

It’s tossed over the couch for the time being.  Tomorrow it will get trimmed up and the binding added.  A long day of quilting but I’m glad it’s done.

I have one other Christmas gift to make – a set of pillowcases for someone else and hopefully tomorrow I’ll get those whipped out too.

 

Coffee break / shoulder break

Yep time for a break.   Large meandering free motion quilting is much more tiring on the shoulders than closer quilting – at least for  me.  I’m covering more space and must shift the quilt differently.  But quilting progress has  been made.

Found some wide backing left over from another project -just a brown/cream print.  Layered (note to self – you opened the last package of batting so put it on the shopping list!)

The quilt has been signed – my first name and year quilted into the lower plain border.

 

 

 

I just love all these fabrics together.  I’m close to about 1/2 done with the center of the quilt.  The outer border will get some other quilting design in it I think.

 

On the Needles – 12/12/15

I’ve been knitting right along on my Charlie’s Cardigan and am making great progress.

The right front is now just past the armhole bind offs.  I was about 3″ farther but then realized I had  goofed up one of the lace repeats and left two rows out of it — it was a very skinny chevron.  So ripped that back since the chevrons wouldn’t have lined up across the front of the sweater.

 

I would the bulky project I had bought to make Olethea but since I wanted to make it a bit larger and longer, I realized I didn’t have enough yarn.  So have relegated that yarn to a different Laura Aylor pattern since she recently released several bulky knit patterns and I want to make them all.

This was the yarn I original got for Olethea — I was going to use it for the  bulky knit Just for You Two MKAL that she’s also doing which starts next week.  I like the way it’s set up – broken down into seven clues with about an hour’s worth of knitting each clue — that sounds very doable to sneak in some selfish knitting the week before Christmas.  I was going to use the Malabrigo Mecha for that but it’s a bit more variegated than may be good for the project so I think I will try either Shoji  or Oppose out of this yarn.

 So I had to find some other bulky yarns to use for the other projects I wanted to make and for the MKAL. Since I wanted to make several bulky projects and had absolutely no bulky yarn, I’ve got these coming … yes I absolutely HAD to buy yarn. 🙂

This is Tiara Tweed in the color Rose.  I love the specks of colors in it.  It’s a wool, llama and silk blend – and was even half price so I couldn’t pass it up.

I will use this for one of the Olethea.

 

 

This is Berroco Ultra Alpaca in blueberry mix – love the different shades in this one.

And another Ultra Alpaca in berry pie mix  (maybe I was just hungry when I was ordering and the “pie” names got me.)

I think the Berry will be used for the MKAL which hopefully it will arrive in time for — it starts the end of next week.

Now as for today’s happenings …. I need to stop dilly dallying.   There’s a lap quilt to be layered and quilted – after I clear away the stuff on the sewing table (which may mean just dump it all in the laundry basket to get it out of the way quickly and deal with putting it all away later).   It’s another dreary day (it’s been sunless all week I think) and the fog is jus starting to lift outside – maybe before it rains I’ll get some outside lights up but I need to get in that sewing room first.

It’s amazing – here is what it looks like outside my door on December 12 — no snow (not complaining) – you can see the fog of in the trees which is finally starting to lighten up.  The hillside still looks green (weeds in Wisconsin are very hearty) and I think in the last two months I may have turned my heat on once or twice.

I was looking back to see what the weather was last year at around this time — we had had some cold weather but  also with some similar weather to today – for instance last year on this weekend here’s how my blog post started out.   Pretty much what’s going on this weekend.  LOL