not ready....

... simply not going to finish a couple of Christmas items this year....

.... these are the stitcheries for the wallhanging from Gail Pan's book Simply Christmas.... done on some lovely soft linen ......

This year Quilters Angel has been supporting RSPCA......  A quilt was raffled earlier this year

.... and over the last month people have been donating food and items for delivery on Christmas Eve...

I try and make useful pieces with scraps and wadding when I experiment with some quilting....

these blocks were given to me and are made from a fairly course cotton ..... and I have some sweet pooh bear cotton curtaining I used for backing... 

I rather like a couple of cared pets getting a quilt each....

(and I'm sure they won't mind the experimentas quilting)

... the other thing I won't have ready this Christmas is my North Pole quilt... though I have been working on the quilting....

this blue stippling is in metallic blue so there is a little shine to it.....

.. and the borders are with silver thread ....

.. the work to do now is adding all the embellishments on it and sew down the binding .....

Righto, Gotto Go....  I have to start my UFO list for next year??????

My Christmas Items ....

thanks Narelle for encouraging us to make Christmassy things.....

This snowy is from Simply Christmas by Gail Pan

and it will make a nice little door hanger ...

... a happy little fellow...

This year my decorating theme is Simple... but Stylish so I have been working on that

Do you remember those machine embroideries that Bev sent me?

well I made a little hanging decoration with one

and a couple of mug rugz

... one for Hubz ....

... and one for me....

simple..... but stylish - what did I tell you?

these will go in the Heritage box to be handed down for future generations 

I wonder what great grandies will think about us?

also I have the borders on my North Pole quilt.....

I love this one... must sort myself out to get it quilted now and add embelishments ...

... if you need some inspiration... go HERE and see what others have made

Righto, Gotto Go....

... only two months to go.. have you made you wish list? ...

Friday...... day and night......

I worked at a polling station for our elections yesterday.... 15 hours of issuing and counting.... I saw alphabets and numbers in my sleep last night!! ... and woke up to a new government this morning

These are blocks I have neglected lately so I have tried to do lots of them this last week... and continued during our Friday Night with Friends... hosted by Cheryl... who happens to be somewhere interesting like China... but still, we can't help that and must keep on sewing....

Val encouraged me ... and a few others .... to start sewing this lovely Christmas quilt.....  

... and these are the latest blocks I have done.... (I have worked hard on them this week!!)

this is the toy factory, the candy factory and the mittens factory....

... and here we have 3 stars....

(I love the pretend aurora borealis fabric for them)

... and a juice bar ...

(thanks Susan for my lovely juice fabric)

.... of course if you have juice you need Snacks too....

(thanks again Susan for my lovely snack fabric!!)

My son and daughter in law went to an art exhibition where you chose a ribbon and made a wish... this is their wish for me on the roof ... and I thought if I included it in the quilt Santa might read it and make the relevant arrangements .....
(perhaps I could bribe him with the promise of a firemans pole in the beach house)

... and over here is the barn where the reindeers sleep....

(ok.. the N is wrong...  I kept thinking it looked odd... and it's because I forgot to reverse my tracings ... so the whole thing is unreversed... the N looks silly but the great grand children will have something to talk about... beside the whole pole dancing Santa's of course...)

... and here is how Santa gets his gifts to everyone....

(still need their antlers and a rope)

 there will be lots of embellishing after quilting)

the blocks are trimmed and here is how they will be placed....

Righto, Gotto Go.. these need to be joined together and a border made.... and I need some more coffee and have a pop around to see what everyone else sewed ....

Some finishing touches....

I have done the last of my 9 patch swap blocks last week....

These are them all together and they are off in the post to Trish to share out.... thanks Trish.... i am so looking forward to my bundle made by bloggy 9 patchers...

These are so easy to do in strips ... sew the 3 strips together, press, slice and stitch the 3 rows - the points come together well (mostly!).

I am using the left overs plus other fabric from this range (Judie Rothermalls 25th Anniversary) for my Aiming for Accuracy quilt-along blocks seen a couple of posts ago

this is the latest of the A4A blocks

I started this applique last week and just finished these needlecases.  They are from Anorina's 52 week Scrap project
(tutorial HERE)

they are so cute it was impossible to stop at one

Anorina is giving us lots of different ideas for using up scraps.... and we've just started so there will be lots more to come!

... and I have finally add the binding to this small quilt (a UFO from last year) with lots of pieces (484 to be exact!) ...

.... which I am calling Organised Chaos ...

...... made from New York Beauty blocks free tutorials on line... (links to the different blocks can be

 found HERE)

It's a maroon stripey binding which is not clear in the picture but gives it a bit of a border

An adventure into paper piecing and I had a bit of fun with the quilting... quite heavy so the finished article is stiff....

It's not very big (36" x 29") so will use for a topper and the stiff quilting won't matter....

Righto, Gotto go.... I want to finish prepping the rest of my North Pole blocks and get to work on that

....and some secret stuff which you can't see ....

and it's .....

tomorrow... sign ups are HERE

It's that time....

Lovely Christmas gifts swishing around in blogland.... well done all of you... and now I have another 12 things to add on to my want to make list....... aaaaaaaahhhhhh ... does it ever end?????

I am continually enthralled at what people make... it is so motivating, and full of ideas and skills .... just so inspiring and lovely....

Anyways.... after all that gushiness .... I have made a couple of Christmas Items to go into Narelle's One Christmas Item a Month.... (except I did two....)

Firstly I made my Chilly Penguin Bag for the SAL....

(which I have shown before - but it is cute and Christmassy so here it is again!)

... and I also finished off quilting and binding this panel picture....

I quilted around the drawings

... some of them you can see quite easily like this little angel....

Thanks Narelle for hosting One Christmas Item per month.... even if we do two....

It's also time to share the North Pole quiltalong block....

Hmmmmmm

well you see .....

I thought I would be clever and plan the rest of the blocks together

I did get one of them ironed down.... but no sewing...

Thanks Val for hosting this Sewalong

... and now we have  ....

Righto, Gotto Go.... a bit of catching up to do today  ...

Off to the North Pole....

... well it feels like that is where I am today.... no warm and sunny Queensland here... it is wet, and soggy and not gone above 12degrees today.... trackies, warm slippers and loads of coffee.... and a bit of sewing....

Today is North Pole Quilt along show off day and I spent the cold morning making my latest blocks...

3 Trees....

... and Carl' Cars & Trucks/Delilah's Doll Shop....

  

.....but I just have a Boyz side and a Girlz side ....

... and then I joined some of the blocks together....

... and the other side.... 

I haven't been conscientious about reversing my pattern and not everything fits together as it should...  can you see the crack in the snow?

.... so far this is where I am up to.... 8 more applique blocks....

Val is hosting the North Pole stitchalong ... we are hoping to have this ready this Christmas - there's quite a few being made... not too late to join in.....

Just before I left for my warm sunny trip north I won an awesome prize from Cheryl at Cheryl's Stitchings who was celebrating 100 posts...

2 lovely patterns... one of Michelle Ridgeway and one of Anni Downs... two of my favourite designers... and fabric from Lynette Anderson and cottage garden threads.... and that lovely card... - it includes the recipe for those Chocolate Creams .....  chocolate and stitching is a winning combination....

Thanks so much Cheryl, I'm delighted....  

Righto..... my phone/camera is back.... I nearly kissed Mr Postie!!!