Shades of Green

This is the only good photo I have of my Grandmothers gift.  Green is her favorite color and I wanted to do something to surprise her.

This one is only 3 fabrics and 3 different shades of green. I wanted to call it the Kermit quilt but my husband wouldn't let me.

Nana likes it and that's all that matters.

Frugal Christmas Ideas

Yep, can you believe it? We're at the halfway point in 2012! I can't believe it, and I've been crafting and quilting all year long for the family. It's almost that time of year again! Only 6 more months to go. Lets get creative! :)

I wanted to share some of my ideas with you all. Maybe you can save some money too.

Packages, Boxes, Mailing:
I mail to my family all over the world, and I mail early. I hate standing in line at the post office (a necessary evil, but still).

By nature, I love to recycle and re-purpose. By reusing I'm giving Mother Earth a Christmas gift too. I reuse mailing containers and supplies. I cover up labels with construction paper and a typed address packing taped onto the construction paper. Use kids scissors or scrapbooking scissors to cut the construction paper into zig-zags, waves or other designs. type out all your addresses on the computer, print them off and center them on the construction paper. Then just use clear packing tape to tape your label to the box (over the old label is fine!)

I've been known to wrap gifts in cereal boxes. If you've got something small or flexible, it can most likely fit into a cereal box. Why go out and buy boxes when you've probably got tons in your house already?

If you're looking for a creative way to wrap a gift, try unusual containers. A few years ago I made a quilt for one of my friends, invited her over for pizza and a movie, and had the quilt in a (never used) pizza box from our local pizzeria. I purchased the box from the pizzeria for $1 and it fit a twin size quilt.

I just wanted to share some of my ideas with you - hope they can help! :)

Progress on Mom's Christmas Gift

Making some progress on my mom's Christmas gift.  I figured that if I started it early enough it might actually be done by Christmas.

So, while Netflix was on and I had Magnum PI on, I pressed all the seams open on the back of these blocks.

Moms favorite colors are blues and browns.  Found the pattern in one of the "Easy Quilt" magazines - will look for the specific edition later.

A Donating I Will Go

Made these gorgeous quilts for a raffle. All proceeds go to a scholarship for needy students.Hope they get well received.
 
It's about 50"x50".  I had such fun quilting it and making it.

 

And a close up of the quilting.  In the center points there's a ships wheel, and the stars each have an anchor. I quilted a couple other motifs in the cream squares.

 

This other quilt was so quick and easy to make. Plus, I think it shows off the fabrics pretty well.  I didn't do any fancy stitching in it, just some stippling.

**Edited - one of my students won this one!! :) ** She loves it!

A huge thank you to Mary Quilts for the free pattern for the strippie quilt. Very fun, very easy.

Baby Shower Gift - Complete and Ready to Gift

So one of my friends is having her very first baby in a month and the shower's coming up soon.  I let her pick the pattern and colors and I made her a quilt.

Since the little girl is not yet named because the parents are still deciding on names, on the label I just put a generic Baby XXXXX.

All completed on my tiny Brother sewing machine. This was the machine that I got when my Singer went on the fritz and I needed a backup for my backup.  So it's not the best quilting job in the world, but when you're attempting to quilt something this large in such a small throat space, I think it turned out all right.

Measures 52"x52".  So not only is it a good size for a newborn, but also for a toddler to drag around.

Having a "Crumby" time..

Well, not really. I'm not in a bad mood or anything! While blog hopping again, I found Bonnie Hunter's awesome tutorial on crumb blocks again.  Naturally, I just *had* to try them again.

I think at one point I started making crumb blocks, but they got put to the side, and the scraps just went into a Rubbermaid bin. And I kept making bigger things, and the scraps kept adding up. So I went digging into the pile and started randomly sewing pieces together.

Instead of trimming the blocks at 4" (because that's way too small for me!) I made mine 6.5" unfinished - the size of one of my most used rulers.

Because I'm super geeky, I'm putting a little sticky tab on the back of each block with the row it should go in, and the total number of pieces used. I'm hoping to embroider the number on the label when I finally get the quilt done. It'll be my big work in progress, but I'll get there eventually.

Week 4, Jan 22-28, 2012

Phew. Last week was so busy. I'm *almost* done with the quilt top that I started with princesses. I'll have to post it later.

Anyway, this weeks theme is "Little Bits." Yep, just Little Bits. Interpret it as you wish.