Christmas Quilts

This has been a busy last few weeks.  I had started Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street Mystery, but an a step behind now.  But I'm off until after New Years and hope to get a good piece of sewing time in.  This will be a busy Christmas.  I know I have never gifted so many quilts at one time before.

My maternal grandmother tried to make quilts for each of her grand children when we graduated from high school.  And being there were 40+ she really had her work cut out for her.  Since I am single and have no children, I decided to carry on this tradition with my nephew and 3 nieces.

Darryl being the oldest got the first graduation quilt.  Being a boy I wasn't sure he would have an appreciation for a quilt, so I made him a long twin, where as the girls got full size quilts.  This weekend Darryl was home for the holidays from Chicago.  He had been hinting that his quilt needed a little help.  So I told him to bring it along and we would have a look at it.  For being 14 years old, it has been well loved.  Mostly the binding needs replacing and the back and a few fabrics on the front will need a little patching but that is all doable.

Darryl has been married over a year now and I felt he was due a proper quilt.  My mother made he and Anna an embroidered quilt for the wedding.  I had been working on one as well but didn't want to over shadow grandma's quilt so I mainly work on it at retreats.  I decided this year to get it done and off my list.  My wonderful friend and machine quilter, Wendy Paskus quilted it for me.  Between my mom and I, we got it bound so that I could give it to them Sunday before they returned to Chicago.

In addition to Darryl's quilt I had decided to make quilts for my great niece and nephew, Molly and Jack.  I have had Jack's quilt done for a couple of months, but decided I should make one for Molly as well so that they would each get a quilt.  After quilting Darryl's quilt, Wendy went to work on Molly's.  I got Molly's quilt on Thursday and worked all day Saturday to get the binding on.  So these were both delivered on Christmas eve at great Grandma's home.

 

 

 

 

 

Now back to Easy Street mystery.

 

Easy Street Step 3

Well, this is where I start falling behind.  I still have 50+ of step too to still done.  But just remembered that Bonnie suggested doing what you can of each step  and catch up later.  I have time off between Christmas and New Years and hope to get a good deal of sewing done.  But may also have 2 quilts to bind before Christmas if I get them back.

The other hiccup is that Saturday night while I was relaxing and web surfing someone kicked in my front storm door.  By the time I got over the shock and checked things out they were long gone. But that puts me in a position where I really don't like to go down in the basement to sew.  I found yesterday I didn't mind being down there during daylight, but in the evening I want to be in a defendable position if need me.  Some times I get sooo mad about this kind of s**t.

Well, tonight is Charm Christmas and tomorrow night is Variable Star Christmas. 

Will worry about the new door when I'm off between Christmas and New Years.  At least this is the end of the year and not the beginning.

Easy Street Part 2

The 2nd set on instructions came out for Easy Street on Friday.  Today after the Pline family Christmas I started on it.  Making flying geese is one of my least favorite units to make.  But I decided to try Bonnie's technique and see if they turned out any better.

I bought both rulers that she recommended and went at it.  But still have troubles with them not turning out well.  I know part of the problem is hanging on to them too tightly when I put them through the sewing machine  After the first 10 they seemed to turn out better.  But my saving grace was the "Mini Fit to be Geese" ruler I got for my previous small group mystery.  The ruler is  from Open Gate at www.opengatequilts.com.  It really helps me true these up. 

So for now I have gotten started on them and will see how it goes until next Friday's instructions come out.

Pline Christmas

Today was the Pline Christmas party.  My mother is the second oldest of the twelve children of Martin and Bertha (Felpausch) Pline.  Of the twelve we lucky to still have 9 of them still with us. However, Aunt Pat lives in South Carolina and doesn't always make it up.  This was this years shot of the brothers and sisters.

And this is the rest of the pandamonion that is the Pline Christmas....

 

 

 

It was good to see the cousins.  I don't even try anymore with the great and great-great grands.