Christmas in July (then and now) My Day

A couple of months ago, Carol from Just Let Me Quilt put out the word that she was going to host another blog Hop and who wanted to join in.

Well at the time I was in the midst of a Covid Blue Funk and really needed something to get me inspired. The funny thing about this theme is the fact that my DH is the biggest Grinch who ever existed. We do not decorate or celebrate the holidays. The good news is all of my children and grandchildren do so I can start early with more gifts! I love Christmas decorations and had given all of the family treasures to my kids and grandkids, so this project of making more that can evoke old memories and start new ones, is making me very happy. I can only guess how many projects will get added to my Must Do List during this hop😉

To follow with my interpretation of the then and now portion of the theme I decided to make mug rugs for each of the households. I started with rectangles of fabric, sandwiched them and played with the decorative stitches on my machine to do some crosshatching.

Then I used a glass to cut rounded corners on my mug rugs.

I appliquéd the pretty circles of contrasting fabric on them and added my binding. Yes I hand sew my binding instead of doing it on my machine. This is my now portion of the theme. These little rugs make having snacks easy for my grand and great grandkids; much easier than the mountain of dishes I washed when my kids were young! 😄

Here is the first 4 completed. I had to quit making these because my machine decided to stop stitching any decorative stitches, but have more cut and sandwiched ready to go when I get my machines fixed again.

Since my Janome decided to not play nice I got out my Pfaff to use. I had admired the cute little snowman and penguin table toppers that Roseanne at Home Sewn By Us had made by adapting a pattern from Vicki’s Crafts and Quilting. I had a slightly different idea so read over their patterns and posts and then started to play by cutting my wedges from a cute fabric panel.

I really loved these sweet whimsical reindeer on this fabric so I adjusted the pattern to make a tree skirt like my grandmother had made for me when my kids were tiny. This is my part of the then theme!

I had enough fabric left to make a hexie table topper that matches. This set will go to my grandson’s household for Christmas.

About that time I realized I needed to make another hexie topper for my granddaughter’s household.

I had the center portion of the topper made more or less following Vickie’s pattern and went looking in my stash for the perfect fabric for the outer border. I realized that I no longer had the “perfect fabric” since I had used it in another pandemic project. I was a bit frustrated at thinking of having to drive an hour each way to and from town to get 1/4 meter of fabric but was going to have to. Then I checked my mail and found some really happy mail.

I received a prize from Emily at The Darling Dogwood.

The perfect blue fabric has to be in here!

So thank you to Emily, this one is finished as well! I had fun hand sewing a blanket stitch on the snowman, adding some stitches to their carrot noses and sewing on the button eyes.

I loved the background fabric and was hoping it wouldn’t get lost with my snowmen in the foreground.

Now that I was all warmed up to play with Christmas fabrics I turned to a bit of a DrEAMI project. My grandson and his sweet partner are expecting another baby, originally in January but the date has been changed to December 24. Well what’s a great gramma to do but keep on playing? 😉

I have long followed Sandra Walker from Musings of a Menopausal Melon and really like her patterns. I had wanted to do her Centered Quilt. It just so happened that I did have these fabrics that were going to be used for something else but I just had to do it!

This pattern was easy to follow and the directions were very clear. In no time the pile of fabric became this sweet little flimsy since it uses strips and can be strip pieced.

The pattern is available in Sandra’s Etsy Shop HERE. I highly recommend it if you would like a pattern for a quick little quilt.

I added another border to make it a little bigger since my grandson’s partner likes bigger quilts for the littles. I had it sandwiched ready for quilting and my machine broke down. Can you believe it? 2 machines needing to go to the spa. 😢. Well I really wanted to finish my quilt so I had to change my idea of doing some ruler work and free motion quilting. I had read on a blog last week that the blogger had done a beautiful spiral on her quilt and thought this would work on this one. I put my walking foot on my machine and loaded up some bobbins with a white Aurifil thread which is my favourite thread to quilt with and away I went. It was a fun quilting method and one I’m sure to use again. A few hours and I was ready to square up the quilt and put my binding on.

I had pieced a backing using the leftover fabrics and inserted my label in the back of it

The back really shows the spiral quilting!

And here it is complete even with my binding hand sewn on.

I’d just like to thank all of the quilting friends who contributed to my inspiration (or addiction) for these projects either by having the perfect patterns or by having the perfect fabrics. I’d also like to thank Carol for hosting another fun hop.

Did you get around to seeing the other bloggers posts for today?

Quiltscapes

Mary Mack Made Mine

Desert Sky Quilts

For The Love of Geese

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Becky’s Adventures in Quilting and Travel

Becky’s Adventures in Quilting

Quilting Gail

Since this hop began I have added several new projects to my Must Make List. How many have you decided you just have to do? Did you leave comments on their posts? We all enjoy hearing from you.

Thank you for stopping by to read my post. I’ve enjoyed sharing my fun with you! 😉 Carol

Linking with: Wendy’s Quilts and More Peacock Party