Little Christmas bits 2

I was pleased to finish my second Christmas item on time. However, it was dark when I did so I decided to wait until this morning to take the photo and do the post. I have chosen something smaller for today.
Tuesday's project was a pieced Santa face, also in my Pinterest Christmas ideas board. It is a free pattern with a cutting and sewing guide. The cutting guide required just enough brain power to make it interesting, with numbered fabric colours and cutting long strips in half. The sewing was easy except for the little hat triangles. It suggests finagling them but my points just weren't meant to match up.
I made him into a kitchen or table mat with retired bath towel on the back as all in one wadding and backing. The pattern says it is a 12" block but mine turned out 11" so I added some borders. I think he needed at least one border to make him look right. He would probably make a nice cushion cover too.

Here is the link to the Pieced Santa Face tutorial.

Here is mine. If you hover over the image you will see the pin button. Why not pin it for later.

Happy Quilting and Crafting,
Val

Little Christmas bits

I have been so stressed the last month trying to sort out the listing for selling the house and then deciding to buy a block of land that I have done nothing but a bit of knitting. I just haven't been able to concentrate. Today, being the 1st of December seemed like a good time to get my act together. I would love to make something Christmassy every day until Christmas day. At least it will keep my mind occupied and hopefully keep me more relaxed.
So what is first. I have so many wonderful inspirational things pinned on Pinterest so I just picked something easy to copy. A cute little Santa that I have made into a tree decoration. I downloaded the photo then traced it with my whiteboard app, printed it out, and traced the pieces onto freezer paper.

Here is the original pin


and here is my copy.

Happy Quilting and Crafting,
Val

Wip Wednesday - knitting for my 18" doll, a bag and a quilt.

I have a talent for cobbling together several different design ideas. Occasionally I come up with something different enough to be considered original. I saw the range of gorgeous knitted clothes made for dolls by Maggie and Kate Create and just had to attempt writing a pattern for my 18" doll along similar lines. It will be a long cable cardigan with a collar. The fashion concept is not mine but the pattern made for my doll will be my original pattern. So far I have only knitted the back but it looks nice.

I like to knit in my back room looking out on the yard. I can see the bird bath and lots of birds just hang about. The crows are a cute couple. They will come to the bird bath together and sometimes they just sit together. Here they are on the back fence. They sat here for nearly an hour just canoodling. Their nest is in a nearby tree. I don't think it is finished yet. The cockatoos have been visiting the bird bath too.

I keep a bird observation sheet. You can see it in the knitting photo. I got the idea from somewhere else and made it my own. If you use Pages on a Mac you can have my bird observations page.

The bag I am working on is also a mixture of ideas from others. I have all the pieces ready to sew.

I have used lots of features like the bag at Patchwork Pottery.
I have changed the top so the zipper will curve over like many of the zippy pouches I have pinned.
I have added a flat pouch on the back to hold my iPad at the ready. It just slips in. No zip top. Because I would also need room for my purse and lipstick I needed the bag to have depth so I kept the gusset for the bag section. I want to put it over my shoulder so I have a long strap like a messenger bag.
The applique dog I got from the beautiful designs at Paste. Denise Fiedler makes framed pictures using vintage printed pages cut into shapes. Here is my applique plan.

Because Christmas is unbelievably close I have kept working on my North Pole quilt. I finished stitching around the applique pieces on the third row and I did a bit more on the Santa row.

I am linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced this week.

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Happy Quilting and Crafting,
Val

Quick Apron tutorial and a Gecko Mat with free gecko and leaf designs.

I picked up a couple of cute terry tea towels from Aldi that I new would make good somethings other than tea towels. This one is quick so there is nothing to download.

For the ties cut two 4" wof (from selvedge to selvedge) strips. I sewed then together to make one long strip. I left the selvedges on the tie ends. Make the ties by ironing in half then folding in the raw edges to the centre and folding in half again so the tie is 1" wide.

Sew right around close to the edges starting with the open edge.

Crease a fold in the tea towel then open it out and centre the tie against the fold line. Pin at each end to secure then fold over the tea towel. Pin for sewing.

Sew a rectangle starting along the folded edge about 1/4" in to secure the tie inside the folded tea towel. You are done.

Quick and easy.

Cute and small.

Practical.

What about a stunning gecko mat for the kitchen.

This fabulous gecko comes free from Fat Cat Patterns  I just printed it out and traced it in reverse. The line was dark enough to see through the paper when I turned it over. I had a colourful, tropical print and centred the fusible webbing cut out over the big flower. The background is  13" x 13".

I used machine buttonhole stitch to outline it. Then sprayed some decommissioned bath towel with basting glue and quilted it with some leaves I traced from the fabric.

I used my water soluble pink chalk pencil to draw them on the background.

I quilted, trimmed the edges and machine bound it with the matching tropical fabric.
My tutorial shows how I do the joining of the binding with a bias seam as well as more step by step.

You can pin this post for later.

 

Download the full mat tutorial from my Google Docs.
The leaves are fairly generic so even though I copied them from the fabric I don't think it will matter if I share the outlines here.
2 leaves jpg to download.
2 more leaves jpg to download.

I am linking up with Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts this week.

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Happy Quilting and Crafting,
Val