The fourth dolly quilt is finished

Hello, everyone.  The fourth dolly quilt is finished and probably that will be all of them for this year.

This one, as y'all can see, is a doggy themed quilt. There are also leftover squares from a spring-themed charm pack apron made last spring. All of the fabrics are from stash.  The binding is pieced from 2.5" strips.

These are fun to do, but there is a lot in the to-do pile just now that needs to be caught up on.

(Edited for spelling)

Reconditioning Old Balls

Hello,  everyone. It's a cool day out around here, but there is plenty of indoor work to do.

Shiny, glass ball ornaments, as we all know, eventually start losing the even shine they came home with. The ornaments are still fine, they just begin to tarnish or otherwise look shopworn.

Here are some that were found to be getting grubby when the tree went up. In this picture they have received a coat of matte Mod Podge (glue) and a coat of glitter. They spent the night drying and this morning they got an overcoat of glossy Mod Podge.

It's my hope that the gloss coat will stop the glitter from shedding all over the place, and make the blown glass balls more durable as well. Not that one should attempt to juggle them! But ordinary existence in the being on a Christmas tree should be easier now. Nothing like 2 coats of glue to reinforce things!

After they dry, the cap will be glued in place and the little wire loop reinsert. Then they will be ready for use.

Working on Christmas decorations

Hello, everyone.  The Christmas season is compressed this year: the Fourth Sunday of Advent is also Christmas Eve.

We're trying to get the decorations up in a bit of a rush as a result.

The living room tree, with the Christmas quilt on the wall.

The library tree, mostly decorated with eggshell ornaments, with the quilted tree skirt. Bowl full of pincushions in background is just incidentally there. 

The nativity scene, with a new strand of lights. (The old string was dead.) 
These are the progress thus far.

Dolly quilts

Hello,  everyone. 

Things were busy lately,  and time slipped away, sorry it's been so long with no posts!

Recently I have been making gifts, as it's That Time of the Year. These are some little quilts for baby dolls.

The dollies are next to the quilts. 

These are simple 9 patch settings, with a bit of sashing to make the size a little more than 12 inches across, and a header strip and footer strip for a little extra length.  The quilts started with the bag of 4.5 inch squares and grew from there. I did cut a Layer Cake batik square into quarters for the contrast squares on the left one. The four pieced squares were left over from a spring-themed charm pack apron project. 

The red, white, and blue doll quilt a little while back is part of this grouping, and there's one more to go, pieced except for the header and footer, and needing a bit of quilting and binding. 

All of the fabrics for these quilts were in the stash, along with the batting. 

Trying out the OESD embroidery press cloth

Hello, everyone. 

Today I tried out my embroidery press cloth. This had been part of the wonderful, amazing loot from last year's Houston Quilt Festival. Its purpose is to pad the embroidery while it is pressed.

See how well the letters stand out on the linen! And at this end, a perfect pressed in image of the embroidery. I'm in love!

(updated to fix spelling)

A new bag (stash usage)

Hello, everyone. 

I had gotten a pattern for "Hip" zipper pouches a little while back.

 I got it for the cute little travel trailer, but it happened that the first bag made from it was more of a textural kind of bag. 

I substituted the tassel fringe for a ball fringe, because the fat balls type of fringe was the wrong color. Buttons were added for little people to fidget with, too. And a hang tab was added. 

And the only part that wasn't from stash was the fringe.