Merry Christmas

I love this time of year, because I feel like people are just a little kinder, a little more thoughtful, a little more giving, and a little more loving.  I thought I would share a new song from one of my favorite, current composers.  It's nice to have a reminder of the true meaning of Christmas once in a while.  I hope everyone enjoys their holiday.

Christmas Quilt Progress

Last Fall I made a bunch of blocks for a Christmas quilt.  I kind of picked and chose blocks from two different quilt alongs going on at the time.  It got put to the side when I needed to get Christmas gifts done, and then it just didn't feel right working on a Christmas quilt in January, so it quickly went in the unfinished bin, and remained there until a week ago.  I finished up two last blocks, and worked on the sashing this weekend.  I just have to finish the sashing down the sides, decide what I want to do for the border, and then I've got myself a Christmas quilt top!  Wahoo!

This is the only quasi-decent picture I could get of it before my daughter decided she wanted to be part of the action.  I'm a day late linking up to the UFO fun over at Leah's, but better late than never.  :)

Wish Circle

I can't believe it, but our quilt from the Wish Circle was the winner of Best of 2012 for do.Good Stitches.  How exciting!  You can see the whole post over at Stitched in Color.

Source

I've really enjoyed being a part of the Wish Circle.  It's fun getting to know the other girls and I love that we donate our quilts to Project Linus (for seriously ill children).

Cookie Exchange

Every year I do a mini-cookie exchange with a few friends.  We make 2 dozen cookies or bring our favorite treat.  I always do a hot chocolate station with some fun accoutrements.  I kept it a little smaller this year, because I didn't want too many kids running around while Little Man was doing therapy, but it worked out perfectly.  One of Little Man's friends went in and did therapy with him the majority of the time.  It was pretty cute.

Meanwhile, I chose to try 2 new recipes, and I ended up liking both of them:
1- Holiday Shortbread Cookies:  Made with white chocolate, cranberries, and pistachios. 
2- Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake Cookies: These have a fun surprise of cream cheese in the middle.

It was a fun morning full of laughter and eating goodies. Linkin' up to Tuesday at the Table. 

Wahoo! WIP

My husband being at a conference in Atlanta for a week meant a lot of sewing time for me at night after the kiddos went to bed.

I finished my Blogger's BOM quilt...

 Made fleece pillows for both of my children...

And got the last two blocks (#15 & 16) of my Christmas quilt done:

I may even be an overachiever and put together the Christmas quilt top BEFORE Christmas.  I know, I know, I'm pretty amazing.  (I won't tell you that I started making Christmas blocks over a year ago).  My husband equates my finally working on the Christmas blocks to a Christmas miracle.  :)

Other projects
Quiet Book - Ugh.  No progress.
Do.Good Stitches - need to do December blocks


Stats for the Week:
New projects - 2
Completed projects - 3
WIP- 3 (that's the lowest this number has been in over 2 years- thus, the WAHOO!!)

Applique Issues

Well, machine issues would be a better description of the situation.  I stitched around my Christmas tree, and then I noticed that on the first side I sewed, the machine skipped stitches all over the place.  They should be all zig zags:

You can see from the punched holes in the fabric that the needle went where it was supposed to, but the thread had other ideas.  This is the first time I've ever had this happen.  Does anyone happen to have any idea why?!  The even weirder part is that the 2nd and 3rd sides of the tree stitched perfectly.

It's seriously annoying, but at least the block still looks decent.  I hadn't appliqued anything since Skill Builder, so it was fun to put together this block. 

A Bright Finish

I'm so excited to finish my Blogger's BOM quilt.  It's my first time using all brights for a quilt, and I love it.  It just makes you happy when the colors are so vivid.

I did something a little different with the binding this time.  I cut off the extra around the back of the quilt, added a little green and used it as my binding.  The majority of the back is made with comfy flannel to keep ya warm in the Winter.

I'm giving this quilt to my Aunt Cindy.  She's one of my favorite people.  For some reason my Aunt Cindy has had roadblock after roadblock in her life and yet she is still one of the kindest and most loving people I know.  A lot of people would have become bitter or given up, but not my Aunt.  She is seriously one of the strongest and most dedicated single moms I've ever known.

I lived in her basement apartment right after graduating from BYU while I worked several jobs.  It was so much fun living under her family.  I moved when I left Utah to start Grad School at Penn State, but I have so many fond memories of my time in American Fork. 

Linking up to TGIFF, BOMs Away & 2012 Finish A-Long (original goals for quarter here).

FMQ: The Slacker Edition

The amount that I can sew has recently been greatly reduced and so the quilt buster theme for this past month has been perfect.  I have a couple of things that I really need to get done before Christmas.  One of those would be the Blogger's BOM quilt.  It's been hanging over my head for a while now and I want to be done with it. 

I had 2 designs that I still wanted to try and I knew I could finish up the quilting with them.  I started with the Matrix around the edges leftover in the center of the quilt.  I like this design a lot and plan to use it again, but I quickly found out why it's better to use this on the edge of the quilt and not the way I did it.  I have SO many threads to hide now and I didn't even close the grid.  I did one set of wiggly lines all the way around about 2" apart from each other and decided to just keep it that way.  I liked the way it looked and to be honest I was running out of time. 

Today I quilted the Spiral Ornaments.  Leah quilted hers close together, but I left space between them.  While I'm confessing things I may as well tell you I knew it would take less time if I didn't sit them on top of each other.  I know, I know - I was being lazy, but I really had such a short time to quilt.  I wanted to make sure I could get it done, and as luck would have it, I like how it looks.  It reminds me of spiral garland.

I'm hoping to get the binding on the quilt tomorrow, and finish it up quickly.