Made with Love by Grandma

My mom made a quilted pillow sham for my youngest son, to coordinate with the Alphabet Soup bedding on his toddler bed. I knew she was working on it for what seemed to be a rather long time, but when my son opened his gift I was blown away by the quilting...it was just fabulous (I think anyway!). I love how she filled in each shape with the modern style of outlining each shape in concentrically (is that a word?) smaller shapes yet. Now I know why it seemed to take so long...all that starting and stopping. And of course, my 3 year old (the fabric fanatic) thinks it's pretty great, too!

Pillowcase Project

Earlier in the year, Jackie at Canton Village Quilt Works shared a pillowcase project her guild was working on for the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, a camp for seriously ill children.

I decided to try out Jackie's pattern to make a pillowcase for my 8 year old nephew that is a hockey fanatic. The hockey prints are from the Face Off collection by Clothworks that I found at this LQS. I have to admit, I had to read the pattern a few times through...it is commonly called the tube method. It finally clicked the other day and I was so impressed how neatly the cuff and french seams finished.



Now that I shared this with you, I'm off to get it in the mail... sadly it got left on the ironing board the other day as the postman picked up the last package to go to my husbands' family for Christmas.

For more information on contributing to the pillowcase project, check out Jackie's blog...they are taking donations until April 2010.

A White Christmas

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas... it is definately a white Christmas here in Minnesota. We had about 6 inches of snow overnight and are supposed to get another 10+ tomorrow before the wind kicks up.

This is the same mailbox that had a runner hanging from it last week...



I shared a photo of my spruce tips with a picturesque dusting of snow a week or so ago and now they are almost buried.



And today we were kidding about having frozen margaritas on the patio...



Warm wishes & safe travels to all...

Oodles of Oilcloth

I felt like the modern day, eco friendly version of a bag lady today...between my two boys, we delivered SEVEN large, lined/reversible oilcloth bags as gifts to various teachers.

As you may recall, earlier this summer I used the Purl Bee's pattern to make some oilcloth grocery totes for myself. They work great, but this bag is a bit more stylish and versatile making it more suitable for gift giving. It is an original pattern by my LQS that uses 2 - 5/8 pieces of oilcloth and webbing for the handle. Below I put a roll of paper towels in the bag so you could see how large they are.

This one below was one of my favorites...largely, because the black thread hid the less than perfect stitching. Half way through I switched to a walking foot, and the top stitching on the latter bags was much nicer.

And here are some of the other colors/fabrics of the seven bags, I had a few duplicates. These did go together rather fast considering their bulk...they were a much more realistic teacher gift than the table runners I had ambitiously envisioned. While my LQS doesn't have a web store, I'm sure they would be more than glad to mail a kit out to you...as you can see they have a great oilcloth selection.

Sunday Stash: An Aunt Grace Christmas

These are some Christmas prints by Aunt Grace...I'm looking forward to mixing these with some modern prints in a future holiday project.

Congratulations to Needled Mom, the winner of the Migration charm pack from the giveaway that I kinda hid at the bottom of my last post. Please email me at badlandsquilts@gmail.com with your address. Thanks to all who entered, it was fun to match up the names with the locations on the feedit widget.

Christmas Take Four Table Runner

Here is another quick runner that I made for a teachers' gift using 4 fat quarters of Nancy Halvorsen for Benartex fabrics. Take Four Table Runner is from Fat Quarter Frenzy Two by Susan Purney Mark and Daphne Greig.

I had hoped to make a few more runners so that I would have enough for my younger sons preschool teachers, but time is running out fast so instead this runner and the Quilt As You Go Christmas Runner were delivered to my older sons' church school teachers the other day and I'll be spending the weekend with oodles of oilcloth to make bags for the preschool teachers instead!



I'm almost to 100 posts. Since it's going to fall over the holidays, I've decided I'll try to come up with something grand for the new year...maybe at 111 posts? In the meantime, I thought a little giveaway is in order for anyone who might read to the bottom of one of my posts?! So leave a comment on this post telling me where you live...no blogging about and all those hoops to jump through..and I'll announce the winner whenever I post next (probably Sunday Stash). So, what is the prize? How about a Northern Solitude charm pack? And, yes I'll gladly ship to my international friends.

Lucky Me

I've gotten several packages at my house lately, mostly Christmas presents that I've ordered. The other day though, one was for me!

I won a giveaway from Rosebud's Cottage during the Cross Country Blog Hop. Included in my package was an Olfa rotary cutter & frosted ruler, the most recent Quilts & More magazine and a GE Designs pattern book. These are all such wonderful things but I am most excited about the 6x12 frosted ruler. It'll be the perfect size for a cutting area that I have on top of an old dresser in my sewing space... no more dinging the walls with the big long rulers.

Thanks for all the great goodies, Roseann! They are so appreciated. (Check out Roseann's blog here.)