Christmas Stockings?

I have been playing around with fabrics to make Christmas stockings for Hubster and I. My goal was to have them match (or at least coordinate) with the tree skirt I made and posted about in my last post. 

I can't seem to nail down a good color scheme/pattern though. Here are pictures of the fabrics and fabric combos I am working with:

 (Reds! Apparently I don't have many bright reds in my stash.)

 (Some greens. A few more modern prints here)

 (I think that I like this color arrangement the best. I like the green and gold combo!)

(All the fabric)

I am very unsure as to the final product I am going to make. I have some ideas though:

• I want to incorporate white fabric or maybe Kona Snow into the arrangement to brighten it up a bit
• I don't think that I am going to use the DARK GREEN (almost black) pin dot fabric
• Maybe the stocking part of the stocking (ie. not the cuff) can be made of a combination of red/white and green/white hourglass blocks. Then, the cuff can be a combo of the gold/white hourglass blocks. 
• Maybe a combination of gold/red/white/green patchwork squares throughout
• Maybe red/white/green candy cane-style striped 
• Maybe one of each? Technically, I need 4. One for Chris, me, our "Boys" (2 boy cats, Gob & Tobias) and one for our "Girls" (2 girl guinea pigs, Daria & Delilah).

I have so many ideas floating around. Can someone just tell me what to do? 

xoxo

Christmas Tree Skirt!

Guess what I did this weekend?

I sewed a Christmas Tree Skirt! I happen to be the luckiest crafter ever because my LYS (Local Yarn Shop) and LFS (Local Fabric Shop) are two doors down from one another. After work on Friday I stopped over at my LFS, Flying Geese. I definitely knew that I wanted to make tree skirt, but I was totally clueless as to the fabrics I wanted to use. Then, I found this pretty Moda fabric:

I fell in love with it immediately. I am not sure if you can tell from the picture, but the flower pattern is almost pixelated. Another good way to describe it is like pointillism; the pattern is made from little square dots. It is perfect. 

When planning the tree skirt, I did know that I wanted to make it double-sided. I found this fabric for the other side:

It is VERY Christmassy, and I love it. 


Then I was thinking about the edging, and Mardi at my LFS suggested using some type of decorative edging from Calico Corner's or JoAnn's. So I hopped on over to Calico Corners and found some bauble-type edging that screams Christmas to me. Here is the completed pallette:

I forgot to take pictures at the beginning of the process. It just completely slipped my mind, so forgive me. He are some progress pictures:

(I cut out the circle to about 44 inches in diameter and sewed the bauble-y edging with BAUBLES IN facing the RIGHT SIDE of the fabric)

(Pin much?)

 (At first I thought my free motion foot would be the easiest to use when navigating the edging, after more stitching I realized that the walking foot worked really well too)

 (close-up)

(Finished sewing the edging on)

 (Then I cut the same 44 inch diameter circle from the reversible-side fabric and the batting. For the batting I used the thinnest 100% cotton batting possible)

(Then I had to pin together all 3 layers. The sandwich you see about is 1) Moda fabric RIGHT SIDE down, 2) Reversible-side fabric RIGHT SIDE UP, 3) backing. The difficult task was making sure that I didn't catch the bauble part of the edging in the stitching. After this portion was stitched all the way around, I cut a slit up the about 19 or so inches, just the radius of the fabric. And then cut around a circle that I had marked out in the beginning. Then I flipped the tree inside-out and had the right sides facing correctly.)

 (I wish I had taken better progress pictures, but I didn't. This is a picture of me stitching up the cut going the radius of the fabric. I just folding the edges in and stitched right on top of the fabric using white thread in the bobbin and the needle. I also slid in white twill tape to act as the ties holding the skirt together)

 (Sewing the inner circle of the skirt)

 (FINISHED!)

(Completely finished skirt!)

I love how the skirt came out. It was pretty challenging, as I am new to sewing with curves and I have never used edgings before. In retrospect, I don't think I would change anything. I originally wanted to quilt the skirt, but I wasn't sure how to factor that into the pattern. Maybe next time!

I have a TON of leftover fabric and I hope to make Christmas stockings.

If anyone is interested in me creating a real tutorial, let me know and I will be happy to!

xoxo

P.S. that is item #2 off my bucket list!

Good Folks Mug Rugs Finale!

I finally finished these mug rugs! I know it took a while,but I will discuss the challenges I came across at the end. For now, pictures:

(binding pinned and ready to go!)

Here are the finished mug rugs:

 

(This is the first one I completed, which means that it the first time I did machine binding. Needless to say, I will be keeping this one due to the many errors)

 (I love the straight-line quilting of this one)

 (This is one of the blocks that I pieced incorrectly. Woops. But I love the end result and am considering doing an entire quilt like this!)

 (This stippling job isn't SO bad.... Except for where I crossed my path)

 (I am pretty happy with this stipple job too!)

 (Another woopsie piecing job. I REALLY like this one too. I will definitely be making more!)

 (This was the MAJOR FAIL of a thread tension situation. I actually really like the way the bad tension looks, but I still should have paid attention when I started)

 (This mug rug was quilting using random straight-line quilting. I don't love it, but my neighbor does, so she will likely be getting this as a Christmas present!)

 (MY FAVORITE! I Will definitely be keeping this one for myself because I do love love love it. I love the diagonal quilting and if I had to pick a favorite color, it would be teal)

 (I also love the backing fabric. I love the entire Good Folks collection, but this may be my favorite)

 (more stippling)

Here are some of the sewing I think came out the best. I am very excited because I am a new quilting, so I am patting myself on my back a little bit here:

(Good machine binding from the front)

 (Good machine quilting from the front)

 (A corner I am VERY proud of from the front)

 (That same corner from the back)

 (Machine binding from the front that you can BARELY see)

 (Machine quilting from the back, too bad I forgot to change my bobbin thread)

 (Another good corner from the front)

 (Machine binding from the front)

(Another good corner)

Enough tooting my own horn, here are the FAILS:

 (FAIL. Keep in mind that this was my first block practicing the machine binding, it turns out that it was pretty tough!)

 (A bad corner. Actually, a majority of them were bad. I definitely need to pin my corners FLATTER and then my walking foot goes over them without moving.)

 (Not so good corner from the back)

 (Didn't change the bobbin thread, woops)

Overall, I really loved making these mug rugs. Actually, I brought them into work and one of my coworkers suggested using one as a mousepad and guess what? It worked perfectly!  

Things I would do again:

1) Machine bind!! I loved it. I won't think that I will ever hand bind. Sorry. Don't judge.

2) Double hourglass blocks. I love them too. I definitely learned that my cutting needs to be more accurate so the blocks line up better.

3) Straight-line quilting. I love the look. The feel is completely different from stippling. Straight-line quilting makes a much sturdier and less flexible feeling product. I like it a lot for the mug rug or mousepad application. I used my 1/4 foot and spaced the lines 1/4 apart. I would NEVER do that for an entire quilt. It would be miserable to do and I also think that it would result in a stiff and no comfy quilt. 

4) Stipple/Meander: It was stressful at first, but I did improve. I wouldn't do this for an entire quilt either though. I think that it sort of morphs the piecing done. On of my coworkers mentioned that it make the block look confusing, and I sort of agree. However, my stippling was on a large scale, so it produced a very soft and flexible product which is desirable in a quilt. We will see. 

Things I won't do again / work on:

1) I definitely need to plan the project better. Improv just takes WAY too long. I would really like to do all my cutting at once and not have to think about it later. 

2) I think I iron too much. I haven't seen that as a negative yet, other than things taking longer than I anticipate them taking.

3) I need to learn how to maintain a constant speed with stippling and my results will be much better. I hear that comes with time though.

4) Match up my thread better with the fabrics. I don't have a huge thread collection and had I been working on a quilt, I probably would have bought thread to match. However, I was a little unhappy with the thread match-up with some of the blocks. I guess that's an excuse to buy thread? Yup.

5) OH. I definitely need to get better at taking pictures. Maybe a new camera is in my future, who knows.

I think that may be it! This sums up the "Sew Mug Rugs" item on my bucket list. I do plan on making a bunch more, especially so I can hand some out to my coworkers.

If you have any questions/comments feel free to post or email me!

xoxo