Large Gingham Hexagon Snowman

I just needed to make one more hexagon snowman table topper.  In looking through my grays for the outer border I came across this large gingham and thought it looked pretty good.  I am in love with it!

A little close up.  You can kind of see where I quilted it using the gingham as my guidelines to stitch on. 

And with that my friends I am signing off blogging until mid January.  From time to time we all need that break.  I appreciate all of you for taking time to read my blog and leave comments.  I wish you all the Merriest of Christmases and a Happy New Year!!  

Our kids and grandkids were here this past weekend for our Christmas celebration.  It was so good to have everyone for the first time since before Covid hit. One evening we went for a drive to see Christmas lights, these trees were magnificent in person, I hope they give you some holiday cheer too!  These people had the trees on three sides of their property peppered with lights. 

HO HO HO Merry Christmas!

Log Cabin Holly Leaves

Last Friday I showed the red batiks I was working with and here they are all finished.  It's always fun to try a new design.  This one was inspired by a tutorial from Connie at Free motion by the river blog.  I have wanted to try this design ever since she came out with it, but never got around to it.  I did change it up a bit.  First I decided to use all red and white for the log cabin where as Connie used a mix of red and green along with the white.  

The other thing I changed was the number of holly leaves in each corner from three to two and only one berry for each set of leaves. That makes for a lot less applique;)  Did you notice all of these fabrics are batik? 

As you can see in the photo above I kept the quilting simple in the white with a meander using white Glide thread.  The fun came in the red using a freehand holly leave and loops to represent the berries. This was done with a dark red Glide thread. 

I found a fun fabric in the stash for the backing. 

I hope you enjoyed seeing something new;)  I sure enjoyed making it.  

Linking with:

Finished or Not Friday

Peacock Parade

TGIFF

Friday Foto Fun

 

Maple leaves

 A while ago I was asked if I could make a maple leaf table runner by a repeat customer.  She had a specific one in mind.  A Shabby Fabrics one. I checked with them to see if it was okay for me to make it and sell it.  Some say yes and some say no.  They were kind and said I could.  This last week I had some time to work on it finally.  The customer was in no hurry and knew I couldn't get right at it. 

It is a wonderfully written pattern, but personally I didn't like appliqueing around all the points. I am glad to be done and glad my customer loves it.  The leaves use up some scraps in orange, green, gold and red. 

No sewing today as I have end of year book work to do.  This week I plan to be cutting out, kiting up table runners to work on this winter.  What will you be doing? Do you cut things out ahead of time and kit them up?

Linking to Oh Scrap!

Something different

I needed a little break from quilting.  Yes I can do other things besides quilt 😁once in a while.  Tuesday afternoon I decided I wanted to play with my beads.  Ahhh it felt so good to finally get a chance to make a new bracelet again.  Plus I decided on which beads to order so I can make a few more using different designs.  This bracelet pattern is a free one from Deb Roberti at Around The Beading Table.  

These are from the same pattern, but the bottom two use a different bead so it gives a little different look.

Have you seen the cute snowman stitchery patterns at Pinker n Punkin Quilting and Stitching and guess what...they are free!!  Melisa is so generous with her stitching patterns whether it is primitive stitching like these snowmen or cross stitch. 

I have two done and she just came out with #5.  I will make mine into a wall hanging eventually. The lighting was terrible when I took these photos last night, but I stitched mine on bright white cotton fabric with red DMC floss. 

And back to quilting, using red batiks.  I should have this one done early next week.  In the meantime I have to set it aside to work on a custom runner for a customer.  

Linking with:

Finished or Not Friday

Peacock Parade

TGIFF

Snowflakes and Snowmen

Snowmen and snowflakes go hand in hand, you can't have one without the other.  While I am not ready for the real ones, I continue to make quilted ones.  

I always have leftover black and white polka dot fabric after cutting my buffalo plaid snowman runners. So I have been scheming to use some of them up.  The opportunity presented itself on Saturday for a bit of snowman fun!  The red and white checkerboards were already made from when I did a ton of THESE so why not use some up. The only thing that wasn't a scrap left over was the outside gingham border. 

So you might say I squirreled these together;) and it was fun. You might also say that I am really enjoying designing, OMG what happened to the old Vicki that never designed anything!  

I bought two new snowflake stencils, this is one of them.  This wall hanging measures at 17" tall and 24" wide and resides in my Etsy shop right now.  As for what I will do with the rest of my day, I have two hexie snowman toppers to make.  Have a wonderful Sunday.  

If you are new here please leave your email addy in the comments as blogger is no longer providing them for me. And I would love to respond to all comments. 

Linking with Oh Scrap!, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, Favorite Monthly Finish and Beauty Pageant.

Gingham Tree Topper

You might have seen one of these on my blog before.  This is the second one, the first one can be seen HERE.  This time I decided to cut the strips for the gingham smaller and finish out the gingham square with the darker pieces all around the outside.  The rest is the same.  

The original pattern is from Primrose Cottages on Etsy.  I changed it up by making my flying geese into trees and no stars in the corners. 

Next up was another of my Welcome Frosty wall hanging. If you are interested you can find the pattern in my Etsy pattern shop.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving day!  I am so thankful for all of you that read my blog! And now are you Black Friday or Cyber Monday shopping?  If I do anything it will be going to Jo Anns on Sunday;)

Linking with Off The Wall Friday and Table Scraps

Another panel jumped off the shelf and said 'Make Me'!  So I couldn't resist the sweet request, LOL.  I had made up the same panel a few years ago, so why not use the same concept for this one. 

After squaring and trimming the panel itself, the green border was the first to be added. Once the pinwheels, which finish at 4", were made I figured out what size the red spacers in between them needed to be.

Things just go smoother if you have already done them

 before, this was a pretty quick make.  

For the quilting, I did continuous curve in the red pinwheels along with straight lines in the red spaces. Ribbon candy in the green sashing and piano key in the outer holly berry border. 

The hook swirl on the panel itself, I know you aren't shocked by that!  In fact I bet you could predict that;)  If it isn't broke don't fix it!

Lest you think I never do anything besides quilting...

Hubby and I had picked and froze apples from our tree in September.  And last week we made apple butter.  It is usually a lengthy process, like all day.  This time, once the apples were mostly thawed I put them in the blender.  That way they did their cooking faster and the process was shortened by 4 hours. We don't use this very fast so we mostly put it in half pint jars which will all go in the freezer.  I probably will have enough for two years here.

Linking with Design Wall Monday and Monday Making.

My Day on the Mug Rug Blog Hop

It's time for another fun blog hop, No Ring November, hosted by Carla at Createinthesticks.  Since I am deep into making Christmas and Winter themed projects for the shop, I thought it only fitting I keep with that theme. I mean you all know I LOVE snowmen, right!  If you are new to my blog welcome and now you know I totally love snowmen too⛄. 

It took me a while to decide on exactly what I wanted within the snowman mug rug category though.  And then one day it dawned on my that I needed a snowman mug rug for myself, can you believe I don't have one already!  The itch to play with cotton rope has now been scratched;)

The process starts with making a spiral with your cotton clothesline rope then stitching a + through the center with regular stitching to hold it together.  

Keep on spiraling the rope while you zig zag, around and around you go until it is as big as you want. Mine came out at 6.5".  I ended it by tucking in the end and zig zagging over it. 

If you don't want a mug rug use it as part of your snowman display.  OMG I just thought about making them smaller and using as ornaments on your tree!!!!  Or how about gluing a magnet to the back for a refrigerator magnet.

After it's all stitched I painted on the eyes with the end of a dowel rod dipped in black paint.  A smaller rod was used for the mouth.  The nose was painted with a terra cotta color.  If it is used as a decoration you could glue on buttons for the eyes and mouth and a felt nose.  I hope you enjoyed my little project. 

Please check out the other bloggers today for more fun mug rugs! 

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Days Filled With Joy

Hill Valley Quilter

Just Sew Quilter

Den syende himmel

Vicki’s Crafts and Quilting (you are here)

I am linking up with Wednesday Wait Loss, Midweek Makers, Put Your Foot Down and NTT

Could you resist this cutie

Watch out I am on another panel journey!  This panel has 4 of these cuties on it, this is the second one I have made.  You can see the first HERE

The panel part is only the snowman with this little green border around him

And then I added the snowflake border, black and white checkerboards, pinwheels, the black/gray marble border and finished it off with the snowflake outer border.  I didn't have the perfect green(for the pinwheel) to match their green border, but I got close. 

Linking with Monday Making and Design Wall Mondays

 

Mug Rug Blog Hop starts today!

Today is the first day of the No Ring November Mug Rug blog hop.  There is sure to be some fun inspiring projects in this hop.  Perhaps you will find something you need to make for a Christmas gift.  I'll pop in on Wednesday to show you my project. 

                                       

Monday, November 15th

Just Let Me Quilt
SameliasMum

QuiltFabrication

Inflorescence

Karrin's Crazy World

Ms P Designs USA

Tuesday, November 16th

MooseStashQuilting
Words & Stitches

Quilting Gail

Patchouli Moon Studio

Quilt Schmilt

Selina Quilts

Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life

Wednesday, November 17th

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Days Filled With Joy

Hill Valley Quilter

Just Sew Quilter

Den syende himmel

Vicki’s Crafts and Quilting

Thursday, November 18th

Creatin' in the Sticks
Sew Many Yarns

Beaquilter

Songbird Designs

Beckys Adventures in Quilting and Travel 

Scrapdash.com

Creative Latitude

Red Truck in a Wreath

It's always a fun day when you get to start something new isn't it.  Wednesday I declared a day of fun working on one of the new panels I just purchased a couple weeks ago. I am a big fan of red truck decor so I couldn't resist this panel.  

After trimming and squaring it up I added the black/gray marbled border, throw in some gingham and it's all coming together.  But wait it needs some more color.  Okay, so whip up some green and red flying geese units and top it off with an outer border of the black/gray marble.  

 And then to transform it with some quilting, always another fun step for me.  

 I Couldn't resist pulling it all together with the striped binding. 

 Luckily I had pieced two of these table runners a while back.  A gal bought one and wanted another.  All I had to do was quilt and bind the second one.  These are made using the creative grids pineapple ruler.  Inspiration from a Cottage Rose pattern.

I was out of my Snow Dudes table runners so I pieced and quilted another one of them this week also.  Never a dull moment, LOL

Linking With:

Can I Get a Whoop Whoop 

Finished or Not Friday

Peacock Party

TGIFF

Crazy busy week

I found the perfect backing for my snowmen table runners.  It is 108" wide, at Jo Anns and I had a 50% off coupon, I bought 90 inches of it.  For these runners I cut the wide backing down to 45"x108" and pinned the 45" sides to the long arm.  Earlier in the week I cut and pieced 6 table runners in three different styles.  And then I became a quilting machine. All 6 were quilted in a day, that was a full day and I was tired at the end.  

Next came the applique, better to applique a bunch with the same thread color and then change to the next color. But I was getting sick of applique and couldn't quite finish them all. So, I decided to just stop doing that and finish up  three of them as I needed to replenish ones that sold in the shop.  I know I keep talking about items selling, I am just thrilled to bits that people love my quilted items and keep coming back for more!  Never, ever did I dream it could be like this.  I mean I hoped I could sell some here and there but it's more than that.  And I thank each and every one of you that has cheered me on!

These are the three I totally finished and now I have their mates to finish when I need them.  In the meantime onto the next;)

It's getting close to Thanksgiving!  We have anywhere from 21 to just a couple at a time. This is part of the 21 trying to get a drink from our pond in the backyard 15 feet from the house!

Linking with Mondays parties, Monday Making and Design Wall Mondays.

Fabric Acqusitions

 Friday I took a trip up north a couple hours, I took a friend long for some much needed chatting/ear bending time while shopping.  Yes shopping, fabric stores and quilt shops.  I felt the need to replenish a few quilt panels for fall for next year. You will have to tilt your head for the one on the left:0  But won't they make great little wall hangings?  It will be hard not to dig right in but I need to concentrate on Christmas/winter items right now. 

One more beauty, the fall wreath grabbed me too.  But then onto Christmas with a red truck in a wreath, on no I wasn't going to pass that up even though I have plenty of Christmas/winter panels to use. There might have been some yardage in red and greens bought too, but I already folded them and put them away. They were just staples to replenish the stash.

And then I finished up this cardinal panel wall hanging.

Everything from the gold out I added.  

Just look at that cardinal eyeing you!

Blogger is messing with me and hardly any of your comments come into my inbox anymore.  Trying to figure out what to do, if you know please let me know.  A suggestion was to reset my notifications but I don't even see where to do that!  Any help is appreciated:)

Linking with

Monday Making

Design Wall Mondays

I thought I was clever

 I felt so clever, but more on that in a minute.  

A few years ago I was making tons of these snowman table runners that had the red and white pieced checkerboard.  And then I switched to using red and white striped fabric to make them quicker.  Recently I had been thinking about the shoeboxes that held the leftovers. Upon digging them out I discovered a lot of checkerboards left and lots that were even strip pieced already.  So now I am on a quest to use some up!  Sorry no glamour shot of this one, it was late last night and I wanted to snatch the photo before the light faded

Here is the clever part...the backing.  Remember a couple winters ago I was make these red/gray string blocks on phone book pages?  The strings were all from trimming up gobs of snowman table runners.  My intention was that I would make a quilt of them some day.  But...an idea popped into my head last week of using them for backings on these snowman table runners. It would be decorative, a way to use scraps up and save me $ in the end. I will be using up several more of the string blocks in future backings. 

Linking with Oh Scrap!

Happy Halloween!!!!!!!!