Thanksgiving Decorations

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We had a total of 9 people for dinner and we cooked some very good food! My husband smokes all of the meat in his smokers. We started brining our turkey a couple of years ago - it's the best thing we've done and will never cook another bird without brining!

I didn't take any pictures that day (what was I thinking???!), so I thought I'd share the quilts that I used to decorate our house.

Fall leaves - pattern using pineapple blocks with leaf and acorn applique:

(I have a 2nd top like this in work- pineapple blocks are foundation pieced...just need to do the applique but thinking I may leave them off as it's thick with the foundation.) Most of the fabrics came from MN, I think...

This was draped over the old Singer Sewing machine cabinet.

Next Pumpkins Gone Wild:

This was super easy to make...a Pumpkins Gone Wild jelly roll, the Cozy Quilt Strip Tube Ruler and free directions to make the Daniela block. My LAQ quilted with pumpkins!!! Detail of quilting:

See the pumpkins in the brown border? They are soooooo cute!

We had to put two tables together to seat everyone. Beforehand, I had the tables separate and had runners and decorations on each. One table had this runner from last year:

It's really a Sunflower block/kit from Fat Quarters Quilt shop. I think it's from the 2010 San Diego run, but it may be a year or two earlier...I really should have written on this when I finished it! I stitched it in the ditch to finish. I love the colors - they are more fall-like so I used it as a runner.

This is a border print runner. I previously showed the pattern, etc on my blog. This fabric I bought while in MN during the summer and made a ton of runners. Here's the one I kept for me:

These are so easy. Get the pattern and the 60 degree ruler. You can make one in a couple of hours! I love the ruler and have used it with other patterns so it's worth the investment.

That's all from here! My machine actually broke last Monday and I can pick it up tomorrow. I'll get back on the Christmas gift sewing quick before the tree goes up...my daugher won't let that happen until December. Did you know December starts later this week???! YIKES!!!

Happy Holidays!!

Oh my! Been away too long...

Honest, I didn't mean to be away for so long... and I don't have much to show for my time away. Well, ok, there is a lot in this post, but a lot of them are just shares of old finishes...

I did have a couple of finishes...and I have one more not posted. I'll have to get some photos taken during the next weekend. I typically put a collage of all of my finished quilts in my Christmas letter and have to get that done next weekend, so I know I'll have more photos...

For now, here's what I've been working on ...
Red/White/Blue Bowties

This quilt was inspired by a trip to a friend's family cabin for the 4th of July this past summer. The cabin is a dark red and all of the furnishing are red, white, and blue. So I made this quilt. It was quilted with fireworks:

So cool! the pattern was something my LAQ does freehand. When I gave it to my friend in October, I unrolled it and she said "this will look great at the cabin! She totally got what I was thinking!!!

I also made a pennent - well, actually two since I messed up. Here's one stretched across my staircase (bad photo):

This side says "4th of July" and on the other side it says "America" - again, inspired by the cabin and will love it's new home. This is the bigger of the two. I made the letters...and then the pennents and the pennents were too small. So, I redid them bigger...and then redid letters smaller. My friend got two!!!

The next quilt was the first Bowtie quilt I made. It started with some leftover blocks of my mom's...

These bowties are bigger than the one I made most recently. Those were 2.5 inch blocks... Here's a close up of the quilting on this one:

It was a different LAQ that I stopped using several years ago. I like the LAQ I use now - she's an artist and everything comes back so much better than I envision!

Since I was digging through quilts for the Bowtie AND it was October (yep, way behind), I took pictures of the quilts I was taking into work to decorate for Halloween.

This one was made by my friend Mary:

She is the "Scrap Queen" and all of her quilts are wonderful!

This one is a sample of applique. I forget what magazine it was from, but I like her! Photo is sideways..dang it!

The fabric was leftover from this quilt:

OK, also sideways...darn! I think I did this one at the same time with a former coworker and friend... It was lots of applique which I'm not really fond of doing! But I do like this quilt!! I have another similar one for winter...I'll show that when I put it up - which will be after Thanksgiving!

This one was super easy! It's made with a Jelly Roll (Pumpkins Gone Wild - or something like that) and the ruler and pattern from Cozy Quilts...I think the block is the Daniela block...

My LAQ did loops and pumpkins for the quilting design.

Aren't they cute? I love this quilt and it always gets many compliments! It's bright and cheerful!!

My friend Mary gave me all of her black and white scraps as she had made a couple of things with them and was sick of them. I'm playing with them and the dresden ruler. Here's one dresden

I think it looks cool on my lime green cutting mat... maybe I'll do them with some bright colors for the backgrounds and centers.. I have more cutout and they are super easy to get to this point.

I recovered my loveseat but still had the same pillows. So, I took some fabric scraps and batting scraps and turned one of the pillows into this:

I'm thinking of doing the other one in green and red for Christmas...the batting was given to me and is high loft. I had a quilt made from it, but it was very difficult for the LAQ to use, so I'm using it as "stuffing" instead...

Lastly, I've been making these cute "Folded Fabric Bags" this weekend. I'm going to use them for the packaging for Christmas presents for the work group. Here's the one made from the kit purchased at the SD Quilt Show:

I put my ruler inside to show the size of the bag. Cute, huh? I'm making bags just a touch smaller than these and then some 1/2 the size...

That's all I got for today... Hopefully, the next post will happen a lot sooner...but most likely after Thanksgiving. We are putting on a FEAST this year. I can't wait!! My husband smokes the turkey and ham...and they are delicious!! I do everything else (thank you Costco for making delicious sides!!).