Simplify

After finishing my Christmas Decoration projects, my goal was to make several draw string bags to give as personalized gifts.  Then I was going to relax and enjoy the Christmas Season and time with family.  Oh, how quickly my plans changed.

First, my mom's friend had a "batting question" for me.  Turns out she really had four queen size sheet quilts she wanted me to make for her to give as Christmas gifts.  She asked before Thanksgiving, and I said I could do it.  I finished all of these in less than three days.

Next, my husband's boss asked if I could make a quilt for someone we all knew and appreciated whose wife just died.  I said I would be happy to do that.   I thought I could get to it after Christmas, but it turned out that they really wanted it done before Christmas.  So, I selected a simple design (inspired by this gorgeous quilt) and got it done quickly.

Next, my mother-in-law wanted to make a wedding quilt for my niece who just got married.  She originally planned on working on it after Christmas.  However, once she found out that said niece and new husband would be visiting for Christmas, she decided she really wanted to give it to her then.  So amidst everything else I was doing, I was helping her with calculations, cutting, planning, and sewing.  The quilt top was finished before Christmas, and the quilting was done after Christmas, but before everyone flew home.

Is anyone noticing a pattern here?

Then, my mom told me that one of my nieces was moving, but had been unable to finish her first quilt.  She had pieced the blocks.  Would I finish it up?  Before Christmas when someone planned on visiting her and could deliver it personally?  Um... okay.

All of that was done before Christmas while we also got ready for hosting several family dinners.  My family came on December 22, and we had 46 people come for dinner.  Thank goodness it was an open house dinner and not everyone was there at the same time. On Christmas Eve, my husband's family came for breakfast to celebrate my mother-in-law's birthday.  We had 18 people come then.  On Christmas Day we had 27 people from my husband's family come for dinner.  It was truly magical because all of his family (except for two Mormon missionaries) were there.  It was the first time in 17 years the family from New Hampshire and Germany were here together.

My sweet niece, Miss S, who was visiting asked if we could make time to finish a jelly roll race quilt that she had already pieced.  Of course, I made time to quilt with her.  She is such a sweetheart!  We finished this on December 27.

In the beginning of January I was finally able to quilt my niece, Miss H's first quilt.  She had brought it to me back in November and waited patiently for me to get to it.  It has wild quilting all over it.  I added the binding by machine to the top, and her mom (my sister) will sew it to the back by hand.  I hope to then get some better pictures of it.

After all of that I took a three week break from quilting.  I was exhausted and little burnt out.  Deadline sewing is not my favorite, but I couldn't say no to any of these projects for friends and loved ones.

So is it any wonder why my word for 2018 is to Simplify?  I hope to eventually write a post for each of these projects so you can see more pictures, but I'm not making any promises.  ;)

Knowing how I don't like deadline sewing, the crazy thing is that it took another deadline for me to get back to the sewing machine.  In April I will be teaching an intermediate Free-Motion Quilting class at my local quilt shop.  (I am still frequently teaching my basic Free-Motion Quilting class.) I needed to make a sample they could hang at the shop to advertise my new class.  I call it "Pleasantly Purple."

I want to thank my friends for thinking of me and for checking up on me during my blogging break.  As you can see, I was just so busy (and then so exhausted) creating and spending time with family that something had to give.  I really hope things slow down and I can get back to blogging more regularly.

XX,
Jasmine

Christmas Week ~ Day 6

{December Decor}

Welcome to the sixth and final day of Christmas Week here at Quilt Kisses.  Today I am sharing all of my quilty Christmas decorations.  We will start in my great room with an old table runner acting as a hearth stone by the fire place. 

Then you can see the new table runner on the cabinet nearby. 

The wreath table topper is on the end table. 

And an old Santa quilt is by the stairs (with new family pictures!). 

There are some new projects I shared earlier this week in the front room. 

Two Christmas quilts are in my bedroom.  One is old and the other a recent finish. 

Two more Christmas quilts are upstairs. 

There is even more Christmas quilts and projects downstairs. 

I love decorating for Christmas, especially with quilts! 

Thank you for joining me for Christmas Week here at Quilt Kisses.  Now that I have shared my seasonal projects it will probably get quiet on the blog again.  I'm looking forward to all the family time and finishing up some other projects. 

Merry Christmas from the Quilt Kisses Family!

XX,
Jasmine

Christmas Week ~ Day 5

Welcome to day five of Christmas Week here at Quilt Kisses.  Today I am sharing a table runner I made for my family room.  It was made with my Northcott Christmas fabric scraps.

I was in such a hurry to finish it before a family dinner at my house that I didn't take many photos in process.  Here is one on my design wall before I quilted it.  There are four different green fabrics, three different red fabrics, and two different creamy gold fabrics.

This is what it looked like during our dinner.

I quilted it with the same metallic gold thread I used on JoAnn's Christmas Tree quilt.  I used my Pfaff domestic machine for the quilting.

I have since added more decorations on the top to hide the speaker my husband bought.

I love how elegant it is.

To conclude Christmas week I will take you on a picture tour of my house.  You will be able to see all of my quilty Christmas Decor.

XX,
Jasmine

P.S.  I will be linking up with some of the fun parties on my sidebar.  Check them out to see what other quilters are making.

Christmas Week ~ Day 4

Welcome to day four of Christmas Week here at Quilt Kisses.  Today I am sharing the Christmas Race quilt I made with the scraps and leftovers of the Patrick Lose Christmas fabric. 

I cut out four inch strips from the odd shaped leftovers and put them on my design wall. 

It looked a little boring so I added a couple pinwheels. 

I couldn't believe the difference in overall cuteness with just a couple.  I trimmed all of the HST scraps from the Swoon quilt for a total of eighteen pinwheels. 

I added two more fabrics (a dark green pine cone and an ornament fabric) and pieced it all together.  While I call it a race quilt, I actually sewed each row individually so that I could plan where everything went. Then I loaded it on the Bernina Q24 with a minky backing and Hobbs 80/20 batting. 

I quilted it simply with big loops in alternating directions with white thread.  It went very quickly. 

The loops look so cute on the red minky backing.  It is a bright cherry red that is so soft it is silky. 

I added a dark red binding and it was finished before I knew it. 

It quickly found its home in the piano room by the matching tree skirt. 

I love how the piano room turned out with the new additions (even a new picture of the temple where my husband and I were married). 

However, if you think it stays in here you don't know my boys.  This quilt is already loved and drug around the house for cuddles.  It was so much fun making it that I wish I could just sit and sew up the rest of my Christmas scraps.  But I have other projects with deadlines to finish first.  At least I can share a table runner I made with scraps from earlier Northcott Christmas fabrics tomorrow.

XX,

Jasmine

P.S.  I will be linking up with some of the fun parties on my sidebar.  Check them out and join the fun.  

Christmas Week ~ Day 3

Welcome to day three of Christmas Week here at Quilt Kisses.  Today I am sharing the tree skirt I made for my pencil tree in the piano room.  It was made with the Patrick Lose Christmas fabric leftover from my Christmas Swoon I shared yesterday.

I love the look of Dresden tree skirts.  There are many tutorials online, but the ones I saw were all for bigger, fatter, Christmas Trees.  So I decided to figure it out on my own.  I am sharing my steps in case anyone else wants to make a similar one.  I made a template by extending the shape of my Easy Dresden ruler to be twelve inches long using some old scrapbook paper.

Then I taped a paper tree skirt together from more paper pieces made from the template which had the quarter inch seam cut off.

The twelve inches wide was a lucky guess.  It fit my space and my tree perfectly.

Then I used the paper template (which still had seam allowances) and a long ruler to cut out twenty wedges.

I pieced those all together leaving the last seam unsewn.  My paper template and piecing must not have been exact.  However, I knew that tree skirts don't lay flat, so I was okay with that.

I used spray basting to attach the top to some Warm and White batting.  Then cut them out the same size rounding the edge a little.

I put right sides together with some Kona White for the backing and sewed around the edges with a quarter inch seam leaving a straight part open for turning.  I later trimmed the backing even with the edge of the tree skirt and clipped the small circle close to the seam.  Note: I didn't add any ties because I didn't want them.

After it was right side out I quilted in the ditch and an eighth inch from the edge with my walking foot.  Then I put it around my tree using safety pins on the bottom to hold it together.

It ended up fitting my tree absolutely perfectly.  I love it!  Not only does it match the Christmas Swoon, but it also matches the Riley Blake Christmas bunting in the window.

Tomorrow I will be sharing what I made with the rest of the Patrick Lose Christmas fabric.

XX,
Jasmine

P.S.  I will be linking up with some of the fun parties on my sidebar.  Check them out to see even more quilty projects.

Christmas Week ~ Day 2

Welcome to day two of Christmas Week here at Quilt Kisses.  My second project is a Christmas Swoon.  A Swoon quilt has been on my bucket list since before I started blogging.  A couple years ago I saw one made up in Christmas colors with only six blocks and have been wanting a Christmas Swoon ever since.  I once heard that the Swoon block was originally called the Star of Bethlehem block, so I think it is very appropriate for the season.

Most of these fabrics are from various Patric Lose Christmas lines paired with Kona White.  The pinwheels you see are the scraps from the stitch and flip corners on the blocks. 

I purchased the pattern, but ended up cutting the blocks out my own way. The red pieces in the blocks below were all cut out at 6.5 inches square instead of smaller squares and rectangles like in the pattern.   I was grateful I had purchased half yard cuts instead of fat quarters.

That made it a lot easier to keep directional prints all going the same way.   

I quilted it on the Bernina Q24 with my favorite spiral quilting design. 

The binding is a cute red stripe and the backing is a holly print. 

I tried taking a picture of the whole quilt outside but it was too windy. 

I took it inside and the colors weren't as bright. 

So I just hung it up by the piano where I wanted it to stay. 

This quilt used 24 inch blocks with four inch pinwheels.  It finishes about 60 by 88 inches. 

I will be back tomorrow to share the matching tree skirt I made with the leftovers. 

XX,
Jasmine

P.S.  I will be linking up with some of the parties on my sidebar.  Check them out to see what other quilters are making.