Vintage Ornaments Update

My Vintage Ornaments blocks are now sewn into a quilt top!

Happy, happy, happy!

It is cold and damp outside, so no photos taken outdoors, but I did my best to show the top to you.

I shared where to find the pattern in this post.

I have updated my Focus list.  For myself, and for those holding me accountable, I’ve posted the list here.

Vintage Ornaments

Rather than work on UFO’s, or current projects, I have started a new project. 

I know…there are some of you who finish a project before beginning a new one, but I am not you (sometimes I wish I were)!

Back in 2017, I came across the Vintage Ornaments Quilt by Cherry Guidry.  For one reason, or another, I didn’t do the quilt along, but I had saved the information.  The desire to make this quilt never left, so I decided it is now or never.  One simply has to make the time to do whatever it is that one wants to do, or it won’t get done.

Making the blocks has been an easy and enjoyable experience.  Squaring them up will be my next task.

I machine appliqued with a small buttonhole stitch using Wonderfil’s shiny rayon and metallic threads.

I may have used Superior’s Bottom Line in the bobbin, but I am not positive.  I used a bobbin that had been wound for a long time, and it wasn’t with the spool that I had wound it with.  Whatever it was, it worked well.

A Christmas Carol – Reblogged

*I am posting a reprint from my blog published in December 2014.

*It is still relevant, and a good reminder to many of us who get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the season.

*I no longer work 11 hours a day (we were extremely short staffed then).  I do still work 6 days a week all year long (this week it was 7, and there will be more weeks like it).

 

‘There is a lot of buying and selling.’ -Ebenezer Scrooge
‘Is that all you can see?’ -Ghost of Christmas Past

A lot of buying and selling.  Yup.  To my discredit, that is all that I have been able to see.

Every Christmas season, either my husband, or myself would read aloud to our children the classic,  ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens.  We would read a portion every night, and then, on Christmas Eve, we would watch the movie, starring George C. Scott.

It is a tradition that our children now practice with their children.

I am a US Postal employee.  I work six days a week.  That’s not a holiday schedule…that is my normal schedule.  Like many offices, mine is short staffed.  That’s just the way it is. 

However, I have been, and am, working 9 to 11 hour days.  That is the buying and selling that I have been seeing.  Perhaps, because I am so tired, I am not seeing the wonderful gift giving inside the hundreds of packages and cards that I handle every day.  Homemade jam, cookies, toys and more, shipped to those far away loved ones.

This post isn’t a rant, or a ‘pity me’ post.

Tonight, the words have come back to me:

‘There is a lot of buying and selling.’ -Ebenezer Scrooge
‘Is that all you can see?’ -Ghost of Christmas Past

I want to give a shout out to all of those postal drivers and workers, to UPS employees, to the FedEx employees, the retail clerks, the waiters and waitresses, to the bakers, and many more who have neglected their blogs, their families, and  their Christmas card list.  Those who couldn’t go to the Christmas parties and plays and concerts; who didn’t have time to bake holiday cookies and fruitcakes, nor go shopping and out to lunch.

To all of those who are working so diligently to bring a merry Christmas season to many others:

May you experience the love and joy from Him, of whom Christmas is really all about.  And may you be blessed with much peace in the New Year.

Thank you!  God bless you, everyone!

Twister Table Runner

I have done so well with my monthly sewing goals (in my estimation at least) that I decided to find a quick and easy project to do.  Just for the fun of it.

I settled on the Twister Table Runner pattern by Shelley Robson of Pieced Tree Patterns.  I saw it made up with Halloween fabrics (very cute), and realized how easy it would be to create seasonal table runners with this pattern.  It would make quick and easy gifts. 

I resized the pattern, since my dining table is a large one, and I had a festive candy cane fabric that I could feature for the Christmas season.

I used blue chalk to mark a grid for quilting.

Fun to make, versatile and not terribly time consuming!

Tree Skirt 2017

When I asked my Hubby to help me draw a wedge template to make a Christmas tree skirt, he said, “So…you are in a Christmas spirit this year?”

Hmmm…guilty as charged.  The Christmas tree hasn’t been put up and decorated with all the shiny baubles in the last few years.

But the grandbabies are coming on Christmas day this year!

YESSSSSS!!!!!!

I need the Christmas magic around my house this year.  The tree, the baubles, the trimmings, the lights…it is coming out to transform my home into a place of holiday cheer.

I need a tree skirt.  A glittery tree skirt.

There are metallic fabrics that have been living in my stash for many a year.

These fabrics are creating a wonderful skirt to dress up the Christmas tree!

Shiny red and green rayon thread is machine quilted on some of the wedges of the skirt.

And gold metallic thread on the other wedges.

I had some trouble with that metallic thread, but encouragement from a few friends, and perseverance pays off!

I rarely make bias binding, so I referenced one of my favorite patchwork books to refresh my memory on the best way to make it.

This neutral fabric with metallic dots wasn’t my first choice for binding, but it was the only fabric in my stash that I had enough of.

The binding turned out to be a nice accent.

The free motion quilting gave the skirt great texture!

There will be cookies this year, too!