Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Christmas gifts - part 1

Did Christmas go by in the blink of an eye for anyone else?! Weeks of preparing, anticipation...and then, in a whirlwind, it's over. I have to say, for the most part we had a really wonderful Christmas. Lots of quality time with family and friends, cookie baking, Christmas movie watching. I loved it!

This year I wound up making more gifts than I ever have, which had me working over time the month of December to get it all done. Yes, that's why I've been absent here. But now I'm excited to share all I've been working on!

I still need to photograph a few things so let me share the handmades that have found new homes. Please forgive the poor lighting in these photos! We had an unusually warm, dreary Christmas here in Wisconsin.

This past fall my mom requested a mug rug to take to her new office. She wanted soothing teal and blue tones, which happily I have a lot of these days :-). I recently discovered the quilting section of my local library and checked out Quilt Improv by Lucie Summers. Great book! I've been interested in improv, in a hesitant, look-from-a-distance sort of way. This book was a great intro, it helped me get my feet wet without being scary or overwhelming. So I tried her string diamond block (not sure if that's what she called it). What a fun block to make! My scraps seem to mostly come in the form of strings, so this is a great way to use them up. I love that it ends up looking a little complex even though it's a very simple and easy block to make.


Around the same time my dad requested coasters for their new home. He didn't really give me any input which made this project really challenging for me. I usually like some sort of design guardrail, a spring board to jump from. Since fall colors tend to be their go-to I went that direction but a little funkier. A little brighter. My husband understood my color vision right away (and I didn't even coach him!) so I guess I got it right.



But as I finished these up I started to see an 80s geometric aesthetic. Gah! NOT what I was going for. After contemplating MANY other coaster designs, none of which seemed quite right and in any way exciting, I ended up gifting these. And now I think I like them after all. In all their 80s glory!


Of course about a week before Christmas I added two quilted stockings to my 'make' list. Because I needed more to do ;-). These stockings are for my brother-in-law and his fiance. When they asked for stockings for Christmas I just couldn't NOT make them. As fate would have it, I had bought some adorable camping themed fabrics at a local quilt shop just a few weeks prior. I thought maybe I'd make something for my husband's side of the family because camping is in their blood. Here was my chance!



They are not traditional stockings I guess, no Christmas fabric or even Christmas colors. But I like tailoring stockings to each person's tastes. I think it's a little more special that way. I kept a couple of the camping fabrics consistent in each stocking and then added fabrics from my stash to customize them.

I really wasn't sure how I'd like all these fabrics together, I had several scary 'do these fabrics look hideous together????' moments, but I think they ended up looking nice. I just love those little retro campers! And the guitars and fish are perfect for my BIL.



The backs are not pieced. I was crunched for time...and you don't see the back anyway! I finished them just in time (December 23rd!) and I think they were well received.


Now to track down my daughter's handmade gifts and photograph them...

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