Last Friday Finish of 2012!

Sew Many Santas is done! Another very old UFO... and my first attempt at hand quilting. I'm glad I opted for the hand quilting as I think it adds a really nice touch to this project. I just finished sewing on the eyes this morning (wanted natural light) and I am in LOVE with this little quilt. These Santas might have to join my snowmen collection for the winter as I'm not going to want to put them away any time soon.

I machine quilted the sashing using my 1/4 foot edge to stabilize the quilt before I started the hand quilting. After I was about halfway done with the hand work I attached the binding and hand sewed it down because the extra "stuff" was starting to get in my way. I should have done that right away as it made handling the top much easier for me.

I had a lot of fun doing the beards. Each Santa has a different pattern on his beard and I just went with it... no pre-planning or drawing them out.

I used jingle bells on 5 Santas and some old shank buttons from my collection on the other 4.

The eyes are teeny 1/8" buttons I found at fabric.com. The finishing touches of the buttons and the bells are just so cute. Love them.

The straight lines were tedious to quilt at first because I was trying to be way too perfect! Once I "loosened" up and reminded myself that no one is going to study them closely but me it got a lot more enjoyable.

The pattern for this project is Sew Many Santas from the book "Quick Country Christmas Quilts" by Debbie Mumm. I started this project in 2002... it's an oldie but a goodie.

This quilted tree ornament also comes from this book, I made a bunch of them one year for a family gift exchange.

I'm linking up to Can I Get a Whoop Whoop@Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Link a Finish Friday@Richard and Tanya Quilts and TGIFF@Sparrow In Flight.

Christmas Is Coming...

I keep telling myself that the important handmade gifts are done... the rest of my projects are no pressure. Well, that isn't really working because I want them ALL to be done! Before Christmas. My quilting room turns into a guest room on Friday night so I need to not only be done machine sewing but have the room cleaned up too. We are celebrating Christmas on Saturday because my daughter has to work next week.

With that in mind here is my Quilting To-Do list by priority:

1.  Thimbleberries Tree Skirt - I need to finish sewing down the binding, this WILL be ready for my Friday Finish post!

2.  Set of 4 Christmas Stockings - I'm making the first one as a pattern tester, the other 3 will have pieced blocks. Hand sewing the binding down will take the most time. Here are the fabrics I'm using for the tester: Christmas scene fabric for the stocking, red for the cuff and green for the binding. The stockings have flannel batting & muslin lining front & back.

3.  Metallic Florals Table Runner - Still on my design wall. After I get the stockings assembled I'll start sewing the blocks together. Quilting will be quick and then I'll add it to my pile of hand binding!

4.  Santa Wall Hanging - I started the hand quilting last night. For my 1st attempt I think it's pretty good. I loved doing the beard! The straight (mostly) lines, not so much. Since I have 9 Santas to quilt I'm aiming for 2 a day, this took about an hour last night but I know I'll get faster at it. I laid the embellishments on for the photo. Too cute!

5.  Mug Rugs - I finished this cute mug rug for an online swap using a tutorial I found at The Crafty Quilter. If time permits I'll make more.

My Quilting To-Do List is MUCH shorter than my I'd Rather Quilt Than Do THIS! List, but definitely more time-intensive. At least I can look forward to watching some holiday movies and of course football while sewing down binding!

I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday@Freshly Pieced and Linky Party Tuesday@Freemotion by the River.  Gotta go... my stockings are calling!

Seriously Cute Santas

I finished 4 of 5 items on my To Do list from yesterday's post and will be posting about the 3 finished quilts later this week. Here's how my Santa project is looking. Next comes a checkerboard 1" strip of black tone on tone with the background fabric followed by another 1.5" strip of the green holly print. I am so loving this!

This is likely my oldest UFO. I can tell because the blocks were sewn on my old (circa 1984) Elna. I took my 1st quilting class in January of 2002 and bought my Pfaff in March or April that year. I'm also quite certain why this became a UFO - some of my Santa blocks were way short of 6.5"!  I ended up trimming them all to 6.25" yesterday. Granted... I DID upgrade my machine to fix that problem but it's beyond silly to put off deciding what to do next for 10+ years. But, that is so me with that inner perfectionist crazy talk~!

The background fabric is a batik that has teeny gold metallic stars. Not sure why I decided to mix that in with the more traditional fabrics but I really like the result.

The pattern for this project is called Sew Many Santas from a Debbie Mumm book called "Quick Country Christmas Quilts".  Here is their picture.

I need to look for some 1/8" black buttons for the eyes and through my button collection for the hat tassels. I like how they use some jingle bells randomly too. But, the big thing that I am thinking is how much I LOVE the hand quilting! I've never done any... but this might be a good time to give it a try. Suggestions and advice please?

I am linking up to Freemotion by the River.