Some New Year Finishes

I always pick up flannel and Minky (and sometimes lux fleece) remnants when I go to JAF. 

 I have amassed quite a few of all of these.  

I use the flannel for burp cloths and we not sure about the Minky.  

Until I figured out how to make self binding blankets! 

 Shanon fabrics has a free pattern and there are LOADS of video tutorials on You Tube. 

 I will show you how I did mine tomorrow though, just in case you are interested. 

 I did it quickly and late at night last night so...take it for what it is, LOL.

Anyway, I have made a bunch of blankets and used up a lot of the stashed fabrics! 

 YAY!! 

Here we go!

The 2 fox blankets were made using Lux Fleece for the center and 

flannel for the outside and borders.  

All remnants!

These next two were purchased fabric.  The whales and plaid are flannel with Minky inside.

This one is my favorite!  The outside is flannel and the inside is a fleece (I think).  

I have enough of the inside to make a second one but no more of that flannel, 

so I need to go get more of that.

I cut the plaid wrong and ended up with smaller pieces so when life gives you pieces, 

make a new plan!  

The Shannon fabrics website had a pattern for "Lovies".  

The back was 20" and the center I cut to ~14". 

 I was able to get 4 out of my mis-cut and a remnant I already had.

I had some larger pieces of flannel so crib sheets were made too.

I have put these 2 in my ETSY shop (clicking on the link will take you there) 

I am holding on to these as I have a plan (it's a secret plan at the moment though)

I had some regular cotton so made this crib sheet with that.  Daisy Kingdom fabric, so precious! 

This one is in my ETSY shop too.

Last night I made some burp cloths to go with the fox blankets. 

 Isn't that plaid on the back adorable?

I had the deer fabric left over for another set of sheets I made so use it up in these burp cloths. 

 I am not listing these (yeah, yeah, secret plan) but there are several others in my ETSY shop if you are in need for yourself or for a gift.  

These flannel burp cloths are so great for cleaning up everything with a baby!

I have made something every day now for the last 8 days!

CLEARLY, I can't keep that up!  

I did just get a quilt back that now needs to have binding so will work on that.

I made another chenille blanket that I have to photograph.

That (and some of the blankets) will end up in my ETSY shop too.

I need to get measurements first.

I am seriously hoping that I can continue to be so productive this year.

The 2 BIG "have to" quilts are a graduation quilt (top is finished, just needs to go to the quilter)

and a wedding quilt, which I finally have a plan for.

Are you a list maker?  

What things are on your "to do" quilt list for this year?

~XOP~

And Then There Were TEN

My SIL, Margie, and I had been talking about me making Christmas stockings for her house. 

 I re-visited this a few weeks before Christmas with her. 

 I am totally in love with Swell Christmas and

thought this line would make crazy adorable stockings.  

I texted her that I found the perfect fabric if she was still interested. 

 I kind of wanted to work quickly, before the fabric went up in price on the secondary market as there were 10 stockings that needed to be made.  

I also told her there was no way they would be done for this Christmas.  

Then the fabric arrived. 

Combine this with the fact that I had all my shopping, wrapping, decorating and cooking done and I could not help myself. 

 I thought, "Oh, I'll just do the kids stockings". 

 So that was the plan (secretly of course).  

I used one of the Maywood patterns I had, the one I used for the twins stockings.  

This meant fussy cutting 9 Santa faces for each of the 4 stockings and then making that stocking.  

It took me 11 hours from start to finish to make those 4 stockings.

This is how they turned out.  I LOVE them so much!

I used the green Santas with the red candy canes and the pink plaid for the girls.

I used the Moda Bella Betty's Red for the lettering

I used the red Santas with the green candy canes and the red plaid for the boys.

I used Moda Bella Peppermint for the lettering of their stockings.

I used Kona Snow for the cuff and the inside lining for all the stockings.

So...there was still 2 days until Christmas...you know I did. 

I just did 2.5" squares for the adult stockings. 

 I got those all finished with only the lettering to add on the 23rd. 

 I got up on the 23rd and put the names on the stockings and voila, they were done too.

 I was SO excited to gift those to my SIL. 

 She did not expect they would be finished so that made it all the better!  

She is one of the few who cherishes the things I make.  

I know that whatever I make her will be loved and valued.

 Here they are before adding the names.  Fronts

Backs,  I made them in pairs so the green Santa went with the green pointsetta etc.

First are the grandparents (my SIL and BIL), fronts and 

Backs

This is their first born and his wife, fronts

and backs

This is for their youngest son and his wife, fronts 

and backs

If you paid close attention you will see that I used the same pink plaid on all the adult women and the red plaid on all the adult men's stockings to match the kids. 

My SIL took a pic of all of them at her house.  

I bet they looked pretty sweet hanging up at their house on Christmas Eve too!  

I hope Santa filled them with a lot of great things.

PHEW!  That one was a labor of love.  

As a disclaimer, I have to say that she is paying me for them, but still a labor of love.  

Guess what?  I am getting pretty quick with these now too.  

I am happy that I am done with stockings for awhile now though!

Sadly the Maywood pattern is no longer available on their website.

I did download it and am so thankful that I did.

If you find a free pattern you love, download it to your computer.

I recently had someone ask me for a pattern I had downloaded YEARS ago.

I went back to find it and the link is gone.

Luckily I had written a tutorial about how I made my blocks so was able to print it for them.

Just a PSA for all my friends regarding free patterns.

~XOP~

Happy New Year and Welcome Back

Hey there, long time no see!  

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and break from work! 

I was able to be off for a couple of weeks and it was glorious.  

I certainly recharged my batteries as I know I was feeling a little bit run down.  

Ah now to catch you up. 

 I gifted some things over the holidays that I was not able to talk about previously

 so will start with those.

My SIL, Ann, has asked me for a quilt for a LONG time.  

I kept asking her if she had a baby or got married but sadly, she did not.  

She did, however turn 50 in October. 

Eventually, I would like to make quilts for all of my husband's siblings.  

I have now finished 3 out of 6 (not counting us). 

 I am not rushing to do this it is just whenever it happens to work in my schedule 

and the timing is right.

So, Ann's favorite color is purple. 

 Her house is not decorated in purple but I decided to make her a violently purple quilt. 

I even used royal purple minky for the back of this quilt.  

Do you remember the shooting stars quilt I was working on?  

Well, that one was for Ann.

You can see the backing up close in this photo.

My husband's family gets together on Christmas eve so 

I brought it with me on Christmas eve to give to her.  I think her face says it all.

We had so much fun on Christmas Eve. 

 It is super fun when BIG families get together.

My family grew by one this year.  

Not pictured are my eldest daughter and husband.

First Christmas together

MANY Christmas seasons together, LOL

 We have many great nieces and nephews.  

Not all of them were present (and the 2 bigger girls are actually nieces)

This is *most* of our nieces and nephews and spouses.  

I have more to share about Christmas but so many photos with that one

that I will make a separate post so stay tuned!

Thank you to Mark and Jackie for hosting another wonderful Christmas eve for our family!

~XOP~

Huckleberry Railroad and Crossroads Village

Last Friday hubby and I went up to Crossroads Village and 

rode the Huckleberry Railroad Christmas train.  

The village wasn't open when we arrived but we got a few photos on the train depot. 

The train ride lasted about 40 minutes and went by lots of light displays.  

There was a conductor to punch our tickets (like on Polar Express) as we boarded the train too.  

A live Santa waved to us about halfway down the track.  

As we passed the houses on the train I said that I would not like to live by the train tracks 

and hubby said oh he would love it.  

He would be out waving at every train that went by! 

 LOL, and he would too.

We walked around the village waiting to board the train. I took this of us in front of the candy shop.

We asked one of the conductors to take this of us on the caboose.

 Patiently waiting to board the train.

All of the buildings were decorated for Christmas

 Look who I ran into when walking around the village!

 Caboose!

This was the train station.

My grandpa used to work for the Pere Marquette railroad.  

It merged with the Cheaspeake and Ohio (C & O).  I have always loved the Chessie cat!

We got to see Santa too!

I thought this was cool.  Looking down the track you could see a gigantic snowman.

After the train came back the entire village was lit up.  It was so beautiful.  

This is the "Tree of Lights". 

 They told us that they begin putting lights on it right after Halloween and 

it takes that long to get them all up!

There were several of these pine trees all lit up too.

Of course, I could not pass up the patchwork snowman.

I tried to get photos of the lights while the train was moving but they are just a blurry mess.

We went to the Christmas buffet after the train ride and walked around the village.  

It was almost like being in our own Hallmark movie (almost)!

~XOP~