Holiday this ‘n that

It’s hard to be exciting when you’re kind of stuck in the house not bearing weight on one foot! I have gotten into my sewing room a bit so I do have a bit to share.

A few weeks ago I made a fun pillow sham for my Aunt who is in assisted living. I hope it makes her days a little brighter! My cousin’s wife is a primary caretaker for her and thought of the idea of having a cheerful set of pillow shams. She sent off to Etsy for a quilt that I could cut up. I was a little leery of that, hoping that it would not be made from shoddy fabric. I was delighted with what I got; this was my starting point:

Pretty nice, no? I think the abundance of florals was to her liking also. I tried to make a deeply scalloped edge, but that was not going to work with the bulk of this quilt. Here’s what I ended up with, a soft, undulating edge:

I’m pretty happy with that! I made 2 so that one can be in the washer.

My Grands came to visit for Thanksgiving and my 18 mo old Granddaughter forgot her purse at home. Well that set Gramma into motion! I took some remnants of the pillow sham quilt and made her a toddler-sized tote:

 

Oh I am having fun having a GIRL to make things for! I used cork for the name tag and parts of the name faded on the metallic bits of the cork. I did not use couture finishing techniques for the inside, opting for “done is better than perfect”! Of course her brother needs something too; I’m sending him a vintage Mustang postcard with a vintage car stamp. He won’t feel left out!

I admit to spending a bit of time feeling sorry for myself and I was not motivated. To kick start my mojo,, I visited the brand new location of a local quilt shop, Caliquilts. A “new” quilt shop will get the juices flowing! Their new location is fabulous and much closer to me than the old location. So this caught my eye while cruising the new shop:

I never do kits and I rarely do a pattern. But this caught my eye and I needed something that was a no-brainer, so I bought it. Caliquilts carries a bunch of these packets in a wide variety of fabrics. When you get to the register, you can choose from maybe 10 different patterns to complete your quilt. I chose “Window Pane” because it was the easiest and I just wanted an easy romp.

It went together in a snap until…..I found myself with 2 sections that were to be sewn together, one 43″ and one 44 1/2″. Uh oh. I checked. No, I did not do anything wrong. Only after I wrote them did I understand that was intentional and you were to just lop off one of the squares on each side. That seems odd to me. The directions said to sew the two together and cut off any excess. That was not clear to me. I don’t do patterns so maybe this is a common thing. It was not obvious to me.

The kit makes excellent use of almost every square inch of fabric! Any miscuts and you’ll be in a pickle. Not that I miscut or anything and had to patch pieces together….

Final top, ready to be quilted (I’m going to fix that top rectangle in the border):

Cute, huh? I have no intended purpose for it, so it may be a charity quilt. It’s soft and lovely. I will do an all-over design of some sort; remember – “done is better than perfect”.

It’s not like I don’t have any UFO’s waiting in the wings or anything. I have 3 major UFO’s, 2 all planned out, just need to execute, and 1 still needs some design attention.

And to further distract me, I got this in the mail, my pre-ordered, much anticipated copy:

MJ is an absolute master of color and piecing. Her gem quilts are stunning in person. I have come to know her over the years and she is an excellent teacher and communicator. I can’t wait to dive in and see what she has to say. Color is not my strongest suit.

I’ll be linking up:
Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday