Monthly Mini December 2021

I hope you all had a nice Christmas, and were able to spend time with family and friends. Ours was quiet, but we connected virtually here and there for some fun times. I'd never done Face Time before, and my sister caught me off-guard when she called on Christmas day. I was totally unprepared a (ie looked like a hag, lol!) but who cares! My two nieces were there and we had a great time!

For my Monthly Mini, I thought I'd do something more light and festive for Christmas. 

 

I think this has kind of a mid-century vintage look. The green is another Cranston print probably from that era, I wish I had more of. The center shirting is from Sheryl Johnson's Delightful Dozen (Temecula Quilt Co.) a beautifully done repro of a classic print. The rest are ... well, anyone's guess. My friend Pam shared her pattern for the tiny star, which finishes at 4 1/2". I will be making more of these in the future. 

When I thought of lining up the three stars, I had in mind a horizontal orientation. But it seems to be perhaps a little happier standing straight up. I never hung it up for Christmas (no decorating at all this year) so its future remains to be seen. 

I had just finished machine quilting a huge monster of a quilt, and another not-so-huge but still large one, so I'm not looking forward to any more large quilts any time soon. I'll try to get some pictures of those two later. 

Meanwhile, I'm really enjoying working small, and especially working with scraps.  As you know, I love antique doll quilts, and love making little quilts inspired by them. I wanted to try to recreate this one, but my reds are all wrong. I need to find some brighter reds, that look old.

 So I went the other direction and used black.

This little quilt falls right into Janet O's scrap challenge. The hourglass blocks were leader/enders made from the bonus triangles left over from my Flying Geese quilt a few years ago. You haven't seen the last of these, as I still have lots more. 

I have a quirk when it comes to binding. I like to machine the binding on to the back, then fold it over to the front and hand stitch it down. There are a few reasons I do this. Often I want the binding to have more of a presence on the front of the quilt and this way I can make it a titch wider, if I desire. It also lays flatter, which I believe lends a more organic look. Also, I feel I have more control of the corners this way. Yep, after 35 years of making quilts I still struggle with the corners. 

For Christmas, in an effort to pare down some of the bigger pieces in my stash that have been hanging around too long, I made everyone shopping bags. It was sort of a last minute hairbrained idea, so had to plow through and get them done in a hurry in order to get them in the mail on time. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take a single picture! But fret not, as I went ahead and kitted up several more bags to assemble at my upcoming quilt retreat, and hopefully I'll remember to take a few pix. 

Now I'm back to the scraps, making little gift-y items such as mug rugs and pot holders. 

Not a very good photo shoot, but there you have it.

Happy New Year, my friends! 

love, Sandy

Ooops ... I almost forgot the link to Wendy's blog for the rest of the Montly Minis!

Ps. None of the comments I left today have shown up on the blogs where I left them. I hope this is just a fluke