Keck Christmas

We had our annual family Christmas yesterday, and it was great fun!  We planned dinner for 1 pm so people could get home before dark.  Everyone brought a dish or two and we ate till we burst, opened our gifts, and then pigged out on dessert.  I learned a new way to fill deviled eggs - put the filling into a baggie with a little hole cut in the bottom!  It took 30 seconds to fill a couple dozen eggs!

 We took family pictures - these are the cousins, and it took a bit of Marilla's mommy voice to get some of them to cooperate!

Here are my children and me. 
It was such a pleasure to see and talk with our extended family.  There were 28 of us!




I gave out the table toppers I had made and everyone seemed to like them!  It was such a pleasure to make and give them!  Then everyone helped clean up and put everything away, and I went to sleep at 8:30!

Christmas is coming

In the last 2 weeks, the only time I've spent in the sewing room has been sewing table toppers for family - a really fun thing for me!.  I choose a pair of fabrics, cut them out, and layer that set in a box, then layer another set.  That way I have the box of fabric sets so that when I sit down to the sewing machine, it's sew, press, trim, repeat to complete the top in about 25 minutes.  I have 10 table toppers completed now, all different fabric pairs, 1 more than I needed for the women in my family.  I don't know how I miscounted unless I counted myself!  And why shouldn't I have one too? 

I'm already thinking about what I'll make next year - maybe a few plank quilts or set of mug rugs.   It feels so good to be able to give something that I have made myself. 

I've made no inroads into my 'stack' of UFOs, and no thought about them until after the holidays.  I'm getting the house ready for my extended family's Christmas get-together this weekend.

I'm enjoying reading the blogs of other quilters who seem to be busier than I am at this time of year!  My favorite is Wanda Hansen's ExuberantColor who inspires me with her color selections,  I'd like to try some of Wanda's ideas - the plank quilt and the crooked cobblestones.  I'm trying to figure out how to make that one - it looks easy but doesn't look like I can strip piece it.  I believe they're in the public domain, but I may need to email her to ask permission.

I also follow Leah Day's FreeMotionQuilting.  I am trying to machine quilt and am improving a bit.  Leah is a natural teacher and such a pleasure to follow.  Her UFO Sunday has encouraged me to take another look at and list my UFOs and determine an order to finish them, and to weed out those that are not worth finishing and those that I can let go to others. 

I'm ready for Christmas too.  One present to pick up today and one coming in the mail.

Christmas gifts

I can't believe it's almost Christmas!  And in less than 3 weeks we're having our annual Keck Christmas get-together, at my house this time.  I've been making Christmas table toppers for the women in our family.  They're easy ones - picking out the fabric pairs takes up the most time.

Here's the first one I finished - I even free-motioned the poinsettias!

  This one is batiks, and I finished the tops of 5 more, most of the others are more traditional.  These others still need to be quilted and I need to figure out just how to do it.

Here is Bugsy watching TV, while Abby tolerates him sitting so close to her.

Well, back to quilting!

Houses quilt

This has not been a time for quilting; it's been a time for thanksgiving!  I am so thankful for my family and I did see most of them on Thanksgiving Day, we ate and talked and enjoyed each other's company on that day, and promised we'd get together like this more often - not just on holidays.  Christmas is coming and we will meet and talk and eat and visit again.

The only quilting I've done is to finish layering and binding the "houses quilt."  I still would like to do something special in the 'vacant lots' and can't quite decide what.  I tried a sashiko roof outline and had LOTS of trouble getting the sashiko needle through the layers.  I might try a smaller sharper needle with embroidery floss.  Or machine-quilt the outline with contrasting thread.  Indecision!

I am more concerned at this time of year to finish recent projects, and to decide about Christmas gifts, quilting and otherwise.  After Christmas I will be able to look at my UFOs and more recently begun projects and make decisions and actually SEW.

Progress

I'm making slow progress this week.  Doing more thinking/planning than actually doing.  I guess that's necessary too.

The table topper is done, ready to set on one of the tables at the Crazy Quilters' holiday luncheon.  The topper is very simple - I'm into simple lately.

I've assembled my 'Houses quilt.'  On the pattern the houses were outlined and doors and pathways were shown.  I determined how to free-motion quilt these details with no thread breaks and a minimum of  stitching over lines already made, and started in...  My machine-stitching is so bad that I had to take it out!  So I will use my walking foot instead and quilt less detail.  My friend Joan suggested hand-quilting the outline of a house in those spaces.  This is 'Neighborhood Charm Quilt' on Moda Bake Shop.

I'm previewing some novelty prints and other fabric to make a needle case or two that I saw here at CuttoPieces




NOW I need to decide what to give family for Christmas.  I saw at  exuberantcolor so many, many ideas - simple technique - great, wild color combinations.  I will look at my fabric today and see what I like.

It's baaack!

<singing> hey la di la my Bernina's back
I REALLY missed it!

So I quilted this little Christmas table topper - a simple stitch-in-the-ditch - and made the binding.  I will machine-bind it today and save the hand-binding for chatting for friends.

During my downtime, I layed out the squares for my houses quilt, balancing the colors.  Hopefully will assemble this one today.

and I rearranged my fabrics.  I had boxed those older ones that I didn't use much, but I found that I wanted to be able to see and touch all my fabrics at once.


I plan on a little FMQ practice today too!

Still downtime

Well, this has been a disappointing week for me - my Bernina is in the shop and I am at loose ends.  It is so sad to walk into my sewing room and not to see it there.

The members of my class were requested to make Christmas table toppers for a Holiday 'do' in December, and I DID put one together, and layered it.

I also finished binding my Squares quilt (UFO #1) and it is the first quilt I have made that I have been able to actually cuddle under!  I am sooo enjoying it!  The few finished quilts I've done in the past have been baby quilts and table toppers and hanging quilts.  I am so proud of this quilt!

In the absence of my machine, I layered 2 of my UFO tops and gave away 2 more of my boxed UFOs.  I am soon going to be down to the really difficult, long-lasting ones.  But that's a good thing I think!  I will be doing the quilts that are really worth doing and that I will really be proud of when they are done!

My number of UFOs is down to 8 tops and 11 boxed.  I will spend this downtime planning the quilting stitches for the recently layered ones.