AYOS, and a little bit more - December

Our pattern this month was Mini Shine by Sherri McConnell.

I loved the pattern, it was nice and easy and really cute!

I love trimming my little squares, the blocks turn out so much better!

The fabric line I chose for this little 17" mini is 

Riley Blake's Country Girls by Tasha Noel.

I love the color scheme and the teeny little prints which lent itself so well to this mini.

I machine quilted the mini with straight lines, and they aren't all the same distant apart.

I think it offsets the uniformity of the stars.

I backed the quilt with Country Girls as well, but it looks pieced :)

Merry Christmas!

These are four of my sweet grandchildren.

Kennedy (7) Lucy (14 mo.) Charlotte (4) and Bridger (9)

What does Lucy see that no one else does?????

Ha ha!!!

Isn't this the best Santa photo you've ever seen?

On and on goes the torture, but the other children are oblivious to Lucy's terror :)

How long must this darling be traumatized?

Mom, you have got to rescue me!!!!!

Merry Christmas to all, enjoy your family and friends :)

Christmas Chalkboard

I made a chalkboard, it hangs in my kitchen/family room area.

I create a new design for every season and holiday.

This is the one I wrote for Christmas, I wanted to share it with you.

Doll Bedding

My son is making my little 4 year old grand daughter, a bunk bed for her dolls.

I am making the bedding :)

Isn't this the cutest photo of my Red Rose reading a book? Lol!

Little Boo is listening to the story too.
(This is the other side of the above quilt)

Red Rose is an 18" doll and she fits the mattress perfectly.

I made 2 pillows and 2 mattresses, they're both reversible.

I made 2 quilts, and this is a photo of both of them, front and back.

I had so much fun making these gifts!!!

Whit, finished!

I made this little table topper in September, I wrote about it here.

I machine quilted it myself, with stitch in the ditch, echo straight stitch, and a wavy stitch on the border.

I love all the little flying geese, and didn't want to quilt over them.

I made this for my daughter, and she loves blue.

I really enjoyed sewing this mini, and would recommend the pattern.

Mini Medallion - finished!

I found this beautiful mini medallion QAL series at 

Clover and Violet's blog.

The mini medallion was designed by Chrissie at Sew Lux.

The QAL was six months, which included a border every month.

I chose a selection of oranges, aquas and greys, and I used a cursive text print, the same one throughout the quilt.

All of the tutorials can be found on my Pinterest board here.

I highly recommend to everyone, to make this mini.

The directions are really easy to follow with photographs for all the steps.

I backed the quilt with an orange Lila Tueller print I had in my stash.

I like it a lot!!!

I machine quilted the mini with a straight stitch.

I've tried that before and really enjoyed the process.
I even used this mini as a table topper when I taught the Young Women today :)

For those of you who follow my blog regularly, I've made a decision to post twice a week instead of three times.

It's just too difficult trying to make projects to blog about so often!

In January, I will only blog once a week.

This way, I will be able to show you tutorials and things I can teach you about.

I hope I won't let any of my regular blog readers down by doing this.

Have yourself a Quilty little Christmas, Quilty Fun!!!

I finished my quilt top and I love it!!!

It's Lori Holt's #haveyourselfaquiltylittlechristmas quilt along, which she posted on Instagram, tutorials and all and it's free!

You have to buy her book "Quilty Fun" to have the complete cutting instructions for some of the blocks, but that book is worth every penny and more!

You can also find it at Joann's, use a coupon, and save lots of money :)

I made the pieced four patch border and there was lots and lots and lots of cutting involved.

These bright colors make me so happy!

Here's the border assembly line.

Let me just say that it's time consuming but well worth it, for a cute scrappy look.

Ta da!!!

My finished quilt top is really Christmasy and colorful :)

Lori also created Mr. Snowman who will be sewn onto the back as a quilt label.

He's so cute that Lori is making a mini quilt, using nine little Mr. Snowmen and Snow women.

I really want to make one, but it's time to finish my Christmas preparations.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing the progress of my quilt, I'll show you the quilted version in a month or two.

Stacked Windmills

As you may have read on my blog before, I joined a virtual quilting bee through Instagram.

This is the book that the bee is based on, each member in the hive can choose any of the 13 quilts when it's their month.

My month was October and I chose the Stacked Windmill block.

This block is made from charm packs and each block is sewn in a really different way, by stitching all around two 5" blocks and then cutting and pressing them :)

I wanted the center to be pink, the background to be a black or grey text fabric and the rest of the block to be yellow and gray.

All of the hive members are superbly awesome except one.

She dropped out after she received all of her bee blocks, the second month, oh well....

I already knew this, so I just made an extra block, easy peasy!

This is a look at all of the blocks I received on "happy" mail days :)

I think they look fantastic together, with all of their varying shades of pink, yellow and gray.  

Can you believe that not one single hive member used the same text fabric?

I've always wanted to use text fabric as a background and I used this opportunity to do so.

This isn't necessarily the order that the blocks will be sewn, either.

I think I want to sash the blocks with a light to medium gray, and I'm not sure about the border yet.

I won't be able to sew these blocks together until the new year.

Christmas planning awaits!

I have included all 12 blocks if you're interested in looking at them.

I think it's fun to look at all the varying designs of fabric that everyone used.

I can hardly wait to finish this quilt, I have loved the process and the kindness, generosity and friendships of the other hive members.