Year-end Projects Completed

Did you all have a wonderful Christmas??  Ours was great, and the weather was perfect. It began snowing lightly on Christmas Eve, and we woke up to white ground on Christmas Day.  It continued to snow throughout the day on Christmas, steadily but not heavily enough to disrupt family traveling. With everyone coming to our home, plus a fire in the fireplace, it was such a cozy, wonderful day!

I was able to finish up all my planned Christmas projects. Unfortunately, I did not get any great pictures of the entire cream-on-cream crazy-quilted wedding commission wall hanging I did for a client. I will share some (poor) block pictures I took, however.  I don`t know why they are so dark here. They look much better in my photo editing program.....

(Above) This is the center medallion area, 2 blocks tall. It is outlined in a dyed gimp trim, and the bow used to tie the flowers is from the wedding dress. There are rolled roses, gathered velvet flowers, yo-yo flowers and others. Carved MOP buttons and vintage millinery too. The woman for whom this was made used to be a florist, so we wanted to include a lot of flower motifs in the quilt.

(Above)  There is a lot of lace included from the wedding dress.  In addition to what you see above, there was a marquis-shaped motif that we used a lot, and actually influenced the shape of the center medallion.

(Above)  You can see the marquis motif in the lower left of the above picture, as well as in the one below.  As well, I included lots of vintage laces, doilies and buttons.

None of the blocks are too elaborate, because my client wanted to keep the look elegant and simple, without a cluttered (what we would call encrusted) look.   Below you can see the second bow used in another block. 

Naturally, there had to be the traditional Victorian good luck motif of a spider in a web. As it turns out, that motif also has a special meaning for my client.  See the butterflies in the cluny lace?

This is the picture, poem and other information that was printed on silk and attached to the back of the quilt.

We hope to get more formal and better pictures in the new year.  :-)  The quilted wall hanging finished out at about 44” across and 34” tall.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This is the Frozen-esque flannel nightie that I finished up for my DGD London for Christmas. It fit her perfectly and she changed into it to hang out in all day!  :-)

Finally, I have begun a new quilt for my son Shane.  He wanted dark, bright, geometric. And since he is a painter/artist/graphic designer, I had to use the paint print fabric.

As you can see, my design wall is waaaaay too small. I am currently working on rearranging my sewing studio so I can double the size of the board.  So if that looks funny (only the first 2 rows are sewn; the rest are pinned), it is because it is curling around the bookcase. Make do.

Finally, I am having a year-end sale in my Etsy shop. 20% off everything (even the Clearance section) with the code BYEBYE2014.  Link to my shop is on the sidebar. I hope you will drop by!

I may have a bit more to share before the New Year rings in officially.  In the meantime, I hope you are enjoying your Holidays!

Kahlua and Cream-on-Cream

I thought that title was rather clever, for me. No, I am not drinking Kahlua and cream.  But I will explain.

The cream-on-cream refers to the wedding crazy quilt I am still working on.  Currently (as in yesterday, today and tomorrow) I am basting the quilt and a layer of thin batting to a false muslin back.  Hand quilting, actually, with large stitches.  It doesn’t show on the front, and it is just boring stitching on the back, so there are no pictures. But if that bothers you, raise your hand. . . .  Yeah, that’s what I thought. So, we will move on.

Yesterday my cousins Carrie and Kim (who are my age; I am actually their aunt by marriage)  came over for our regular Sunday “Sewing Day”.  Carrie’s daughter Jenny plus Kim’s granddaughter Trinity also came. I helped Trini finish her sewn Scottie Dog (no picture of hers, in peach and white). But that is all the sewing we did.  Oh, I know. I can show you the scottie I finished for my daughter Megan.  It`s an old vintage patchwork pattern from the Forties....

But getting back to “Sewing Day”.  It was actually Making Kahlua Day.  We made a quadruple batch (to divide up for 4 families).  Jenny shared this picture on her Facebook page and captioned it  “I hope we have enough...”.  One of her friends wrote back, “For what? An army?"

Oh yes, we take our Kahlua very seriously.  

Our Kahlua efforts. .  in any jar we could find !

Now we will need to soak off some of the old bottle labels so we can cover them with printed Kahlua labels.

Well, Bruce is home... so I am going to go upstairs to greet him. Then pour myself a Kahlua and eggnog.  Mmmmmm.... try it!

Work in Progress Wednesday

I am currently working on a commission quilt/wall hanging for a woman in Park City who has, during this long process, become a friend. This has been one of the most delightful projects I have ever worked on, and as the process draws to a close, I am simultaneously excited to see the finished project and sad that it will soon be over.

This will be a cream-on-cream wall hanging comprised of 20 8-inch blocks.  My client is giving this to her mother for Christmas, and we used her wedding dress that I salvaged from remnants of the dress and another strange wedding quilt (that someone else had tried to make. It had the entire bodice as the central piece and looked as though someone was coming through the quilt...... enough said). 

Every block contains a piece of the wedding dress fabric, and much of the lace is from the wedding dress as well. The recipient (my client’s mother) was a florist, so there are lots of lace, silk ribbon and other flowers throughout. The marquis shape of the center medallion echoes the shape of the lace pieces from the dress that are scattered throughout. There is even one entire sleeve cuff on the right side (to the right of central medallion). The central portion is all ribbon flowers (or yo-yos). I still need to add in a stem and some leaves. there will also be some seamwork below it. Lots of the blank-looking areas will be covered (as will many seams) by lacy little doilies or other lace motifs from the wedding dress.  Plus I will need to re-check that everything along the seam lines is secure after trimming/sewing the blocks. 

The back will contain a dedication with a picture of the wedding couple printed on silk.  I should be able to finish it this weekend or early next week. 

While I`m working on this, I am also working on a couple sewn Christmas gifts, which I will reveal at a later date. 

I`m linking to:

Work in Process Wednesday at Pintangle   AND

WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced