I Almost Forgot!

I didn't blog about it before, because I wanted it to be a surprise, but for Christmas, I made my sister an apron and hot pad set.

Earlier in the year, she asked for a full apron.  Leave it to me to wait until the end of the year to actually do it!  I had seen Sew Liberated's Emmaline Apron pattern a while ago, and I'm glad I chose it, because it turned out so cute!  My sister said she wanted something in blue and cream, and I immediately thought of Denyse Schmidt's Greenfield Hill line.  This is me modeling it, you'll have to excuse the huge preggo belly...

I like alot of things about this apron, but the thing I like the most is that it's reversible.  Two aprons in one - it doesn't get better than that!  The other thing I like is all the nice little features that give the apron lots of great character - like the gathered bodice, the darts in the skirt, and the bias binding.

I didn't want to give her just the apron, so from the scraps I made her to hot pads. 

Here's the whole set together.

I'm happy to say that she liked it!  And I'm glad I decided to make those hot pads, because as she was opening her gift, she said, "Oh, I needed some of these!"  That's always a good feeling.  And I have to say that honestly, this wasn't my favorite fabric line.  But after it's all said and done, the fabric made a really beautiful apron, and I'm glad I went with it.

Baby M's Quilt - DONE (and some other stuff, too)!

I've been quite the little machine this weekend!

Sunday after church, I made 4 of those little deer ornaments for my friends from college.

Then I put the binding on a little hot pad/quilted trivet that I had made a few weeks ago for one of Grant's friends who's getting married. I decided it seemed weird to just send one of those, so I made a coordinating one.





The story behind these is this...I was browsing the couple's registry, and I saw that they registered for a set of four flour sack towels. They had already been purchased for them, so I bought another towel off their registry and a mixing bowl. While I was at the store, though, I saw those flour sack towels, and I decided to buy a set and make something out of them. So that's where I got the fabric to make these hot pads/quilted trivets.



This morning, I got up WAY too early (on my own) and finished up the binding on this quilt. I've had this quilted and halfway bound since October, when the baby was born. But I became paralyzed by the thought of hand-stitching the binding on. I had started it, and got part of one side done, but that was it. Now that I've successfully (but still not perfectly) machine-bound quilts, I was excited to finally finish this quilt, and get it sent off! So here it is...





Here's a picture of the binding...I used some of the scraps from the quilt top to add a little interest to the binding.




I used Crazy Mom Quilts tutorial for her "Sweet Baby Quilt," and I really loved doing this one! The fabric for the front and back is Tula Pink's "Plume," and the fabric for the binding was from a sheet set that I found at Target.

All that's left for me to do before Christmas is add a binding to a mug rug, make another mug rug, and make a little something for my Dad. It's very doable!

More Festival and Other Stuff...

On Saturday, Melissa and I went back to the Quilt Festival in Long Beach, wearing our LAMQG gear, and meeting up with other guild members. I got more fabric, but y'all don't want to see that. Here's a picture of those of us that came to festival (well, not all of us, but this was the best we could do) that I'm stealing from Alissa's blog. Don't we look cool?



In other news, one of my good friends is getting married on Friday. She told me a while back that there was this apron that she fell in love with at Kohl's, but she didn't get it. When she went back to get it, it was gone. She described it as "perfect." Then she told me she wanted me to make her one. No pressure, right? She saw the apron I made (which can be seen on my other blog), and she really liked it, so she wanted me to make one for her in red and black, which is going to be her kitchen colors. I got the idea to make her some hot pads to go along with the apron.

This was all back in May. Early May. Plenty of time to get everything done. But did I do it then? No! I started, with every intention of finishing early, but I got frustrated, and gave up. I blame my old machine. Two days ago, I decided to not pick up the stuff that I had already started on, and instead start from scratch. I have to say, I'm glad I did. I like what I made in these last two days much better than the things I started in May. The original apron I made was red with the patterned fabric as the accents. And the hot pad I started back then...well, it's terrible. Just last week, I saw this tutorial for a bullseye block, and I thought that would be perfect for the hot pads. So see, my procrastination paid off.

Wow, this is turning into a long post.

Anyways, here's the finished product. As you can see, I had some trouble getting a good picture, because I had a monkey crawling all over it.




So this picture will have to do.




It's definitely not perfect, and has plenty of that character stuff, but hopefully she likes it. I'm giving it to her today.