Christmas Cardinals

I had so much fun putting this Christmas Cardinals wall hanging together. After going through my Christmas/winter panels this is the one I chose to work on first. Isn't it pretty!

I thought I had taken an in progress shot but can't find it. But I started by auditioning several different fabrics hanging them and the panel on my little design wall. Sometimes I go through several different ones until the right combination comes forward.  In going through my panels I discovered a part of one left from a whole different line of fabric, even a different fabric company. That would be all of those little blocks in the borders. They fit in perfectly with the cardinals. I added the red and white stripe that I just picked up at Hobby Lobby last week. It gave it a little spark I thought. 

 I played with the border design a bit before this one.  Adding the red and green to make it a stripe of sorts was the perfect addition to the little blocks. I am very satisfied with how it came out.  Photos happened and it got listed yesterday. 

And one more for fun;) The finished size is 30"x50".

That's not all I got done this week... I needed another tree runner. This one has the red and white diagonal stripe where the other had a red/green stripe.

And I needed another turkey.

Well why not add in three more runners that worked their way into the queue. These are the start of Easter Bunny table runners and their backing fabric.  Next is the quilting and then the applique. I'll squeeze them in when I can.

Next in line to work on will be another maple leaf runner and a Christmas one. Whew I am tired! Hope you all have had a great productive week as well.

Linking with these Friday parties:

TGIFF

Finished or Not

FreeMotion Mavericks

Beauties Pageant

Off The Wall

 

Christmas Trees

This is a new project, never before made until the past few days! 

Five Christmas tree blocks made using two dies from the 8" cube from Accuquilt. This makes flying geese so easy!  I added a polka dot sashing to the sides of the tree before surrounding the block with red, green, white stripe.  The outside border consists of holly and chickadees, because chickadees sit in trees.

The backing needed just a bit more than the 44" WOF so I added a green polka dot strip in the middle of it. 

 Linking with Design Wall Monday, Monday Musings, Patchwork and Quilts, Sew and Tell Monday

Clicking off the UFO's

When you finish one project you might have a tendency to look around your sewing room and see what UFO or WIP needs attention next.  In my case I had parts of green trees still sitting out on my sewing counter.  These were leftovers from tree runners I had made last fall.














So I cleaned up the mess and the result were three tree table runners.  The timing couldn't have been more appropriate.  The pattern for this runner is from a Quilt A long that Heather Mulder Peterson from Anka's Treasures had a few years ago.  The pattern for the runner was just for participants but you can find a tree quilt in one of her books.  Back to the timing...I met Heather on Thursday at the MN quilt show.  She is the MN quilter of the year!  She is such a sweet person.  I have loved her work for a long time so it was fun to actually get to chat with her a bit.  If you have been reading my blog a while you might remember that I thought I saw her and her boys on a bike trail near where she lives a couple years ago.  After the fact I emailed her and yep it was indeed her, she remembered because they had asked about our Terra Trikes.

I am glad to have that little space of my counter cleared off.  Will it stay that way, I doubt it.  I seem to work just fine in chaos.  Sure I would love to have one of those rooms where everything has a place and it is in it's place all the time.  Preferable behind closed cabinet doors.  I think I used to have that but I have long since outgrown my sewing room.  You would think I would have learned a lesson by now...stop buying more!!!  Perhaps I need to just sew faster!   What project should I work on next?

Linking with Tish for UFO Busting and Cynthia for Oh Scrap

New Christmas Tree

A Christmas tree table runner that is.  Friday, Wendy and I went to a quilt shop meeting in the Cities where I got to meet blog buddy Nancy.  It's always fun to meet a fellow blogger in person!  The shop Nancy works at had a meeting called the Quarter Inch Club.  We got to see new stuff from Market and show and tell, it was so fun.  The shop has gobs and gobs of samples hanging around, so much inspiration.  That is where I found the pattern for this Crazy Christmas Tree runner.

The pattern is from Karla Alexander at Saginaw Street Quilts published by Cut Loose Press.  Anyway the pattern was adorable and I had to get one made right away.  But in the process of wanting to use only red and green for the trees I messed up and didn't cut quit right and if I cut another set of them I could end up with 2 runners almost identical. So that is what I did, pieced two of them on Monday and quilted them this morning.  I put the binding on one of them right away, got photos and listed in my Etsy shop.  Within 15 minutes it sold!!!!  So I hurried and bound the other and got it listed. 

I chose to keep the quilting simple and get a great texture with my standby hook swirl. It was so refreshing to be making something so different and new to me!!   

I'll leave you with food for thought-pun intended!!  But seriously don't you think these guys should be hiding out and not right in front of my house!!  Ok I admit this was a couple weeks ago before we had snow on the ground.   HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all of you.  I am so very thankful for all my blog readers and commenters!! 

Lining with: Mid Week Makers, Let's Bee Social and Wednesday Wait Loss