Thursday, December 30, 2010

Teacher Gifts

Kati, over at from the blue chair, made the most wonderful Christmas Tree pillow.  And then she so kindly gave all the dimensions so that others could make one, too.  


I thought it was fabulous, and had three teacher gifts to make....so it was a tree factory here for a weekend before school let out.


It was great fun chopping up a bunch of greens and red from my stash.  I just made big piles of each.  

I think only one or two would officially be called Christmas fabrics. 



 When it was time to quilt the tops, I stitched just an 1/8th inside each green shape. 


Same for the wonky, golden stars on top.  


The white was stippled.  

I wanted to try out the little, loopy swirls that Kati used - I thought it looked like swirling snow - but I haven't done it before and didn't want to take the time to practice.  Due to poor time management on my part, it was about 10pm, the night before gifting, that I sat to stipple and bind. 


Luckily, I had already made the zippered backs for all three earlier in the weekend.  I followed this tutorial again.  

I named them "A Hobson Tree" after the preschool that Becket attends.  The ciriculum is play based and fabulous.  If you're a parent of small people and haven't seen a play based preschool yet, GO-RUN look for one in your area.  One part of Hobson is the crafts, available to the children each day.  They may choose to do it or not, and it is ALWAYS open ended.  They may have construction gingerbread men out to make....the brown cookie shape is cut and a whole slew of things to glue on and decroate with are avaialable.  Then they just go at it.  The best way to encourage their creativity, in my opinion.  What fun is there in a long row of identically pasted button crafts?  So, since I had fun just making the trees however I wanted each time, they had to be called "Hobson Trees".



One final note - IKEA has the most fabulous feather pillow inserts.  Available at 20" square and only $6.99 each.  They made wonderfully fluffy pillows!

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Gifts

I've been working on a couple of gifts lately - birthday, not Christmas.  This is the first of two birthday gifts that I really wanted to keep for myself!


Made for a teacher at Becket's preschool - their mascot is an owl - I had to feature my favorite owl.  I recently finished a quilt top with this style block and a pieced edge, so I just shrank it down and added some lovely linen.  Gifted with some hot chocolate mix and a few candy cane JoJos. 



LOVE making a little 9X6 MugRug.  Instant gratification!

Saturday, December 11, 2010

{Filled} : a finished quilt

My mom has been waiting - semi patiently - for me to post these pictures.


I finished my Women's Advent Tea quilt, for their raffel, just a few days before it was needed and about 12 hours before I started the stomach flu.

I chose to name the quilt {Filled} as that is how you feel when you're with such a great group of women.


 I used my Moda Figgy Pudding that I love.


And tried to go for a design that was fun, modern, and would also appeal to the more traditional women as well.


I saw somebody's "Jelly Filled" quilt online (pattern by Camille) and thought it would be a great solution.  Especially since I had a few Figgy Pudding Jelly rolls left that had been used as table decorations last year.


My favorite, cute winter Munki prints show up as little surpises.


The chocolate brown print was the perfect binding to frame the whole thing.


I had math fun with the back - I did fibonacci stripes.  Fibonacci really does give a nicely balanced/proportioned sequence of stripes.


At 58" x 58" it turned out to be a great lap quilt.  I hope it's enjoyed all winter long by the woman who won it at the raffle.