Christmas on the Cards

 A little Christmas post on Christmas Day.

This year's Christmas challenge at IPS Eastern branch was making a fabric postcard to be sent to a care home resident. I made a few and sent some to friends and neighbours too.

After posting the cards on Instagram I was also invited to take part in a fabric postcard exchange by some Russian quilters, and I made a special New Year  themed one for my exchange partner in Moscow.

It took some time, but the card arrived safe and sound, almost at the same time as her card came to me:

So, this is how I dived into the world of textile postcards and started to discover its possibilities. If you haven't tried them before, there is a little tutorial on IPS website, and Instagram is full of inspirational examples.

Forgot to show the backsides - here I got to play with some of the decorative stitches on my machine that I do not normally use for anything.

Linking up to:

Off the Wall Friday at Creations by Nina-Marie

Can I Get a Whoop Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

December Cushion of the Month for IPS

 The December instalment of our "Cushion of the Month" project just had to feature Christmas symbols, and although there are many, I picked holly and poinsettia as the whole thing was going in the botanical direction by now.

I plan to make all the samples with Moda Grunge fabrics, and as the holiday edition needed some shine and sparkle I used Moda Grunge metallics for the appliqué; red and green provide the perfect seasonal contrast.

I'm using stylised simplified shapes in Art Deco style, but the addition of berries makes this appliqué a bit more fiddly that the others. I still think they add a lot of interest, but I made a note in the instructions that buttons can be used to represent berries.

The quilting is in angular leaf-like shapes to work with the appliqué.

Previous instalments:

October cushion

November cushion

Linking up to:

Off the Wall Friday at Creations by Nina-Marie

Can I Get a Whoop Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Nordic Christmas

It's been a year coming, and it's finally here:

I planned to make it for last Christmas, I had the pattern ready, and the fabrics bought, but only got round to it this year. It's the same technique that I described in the Nordic mug rug tutorial, it's known as "pixellated quilt" or "watercolour quilt" and it's made of 1'' (finished) squares arranged on fusible interfacing to keep them in place.

I had two sets of red and white fabrics, and I decided to use both of them - stars for the top and bottom parts, and trees for the middle. This was a mistake, as it would have looked more cohesive with the same fabrics throughout.

Still, I like the fact that the fabrics are not solids, but have this little patters, it makes the whole thing livelier.

The patterns I used are based on the traditional Nordic knitting and cross-stitch charts that I modified to fit my overall size.

With everything so busy the quilting had to be very quiet. I wanted to do just simple loops to make it quick, but then I saw this loops and stars pattern in Pinterest and decided the stars will work well with the stars in the fabric, so I went for it.

You can hardly see the quilting in it, anyway.

Very conveniently, the Christmas challenge theme in the Eastern branch of the IPS this year was "Red and white cushion" and used the same technique and the same fabrics for my cushion.

I'm now considering making a second one to match.

Check out the tutorial if you are interested in the technique, and Merry Christmas Preparation to every crafter!

Linking up to Off the Wall Friday at Creations by Nina-Marie
Finished or not Friday at Busy Hands Quilts
Can I Get a Whoop Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Show off Saturday at Sew Can She

Wrapping Up Christmas Sewing - the Mug Rugs

Now that some of these have already been given and some have just a couple of days to wait, I'd like to give an account of (part of) my Christmas gift making - mug rugs.

These are 8'' and feature beautiful animal-themed fabric I have left over from a Christmas quilt made two years ago.

The next ones are 6'' squared and are a part of my poinsettia craze. If you haven't seen my tutorial for them yet, check it out.

Finally, the 7'' Nordic mug rug which featured in another tutorial, has a family now! Family shots:

Merry Christmas to all!

Linking up to Can I Get a Whoop Whoop? at Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Off the Wall Friday at Creations by Nina-Marie
Finished or not Friday at Busy Hands Quilts

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Winter Forest Friends

I have a very special (and somewhat unexpected) winter quilt to share with you today, boys and girls. It just came to be, almost of its own accord, as a chain of chance events and spontaneous decisions, between big projects completed and Christmas gifts made.

I have written before about the great prize I won in the Handmade Halloween link-up - a pattern by Lorna McMahon of Sew Fresh Quilts. Although I was busy with a couple of projects, I couldn't resist trying it out and was really hooked. Lorna's technique is very clever, so the sewing was much easier than I had anticipated, and between this and that I made three of Lorna's forest friends - the fox, the deer and the bear.

It was the deer that prompted the direction where it was all going - of all the browns I have I thought the most suitable shade was the one with snowflakes on it (it's a strange kind of pattern really - snowflakes in brown -, but it was on sale when I was looking for various browns for a project...) So the poor dear deer ended up looking like he had a snowflake on his nose and wasn't happy about that. And then the background, which was supposed to be just neutral, suddenly appeared to look like heavy snowfall.

That's how I decided to make it a winter quilt, and winter forest in my understanding isn't complete without a red squirrel and a hare turned white for the season. So I set myself a challenge to try and design a couple of blocks using Lorna's techinique.  I must say it took a lot of juggling the shapes to achieve a compromise between image likeness and ease of sewing, I can now really appreciate the effort Lorna puts into her beautiful creations.

I think I managed to create a reasonable hare and squirrel, and also an owl to finish the layout. I was also lucky to find this snowflake batik that completed the winter look - I saw a fat quarter of this fabric held by a lady in front of me in the queue to the till and, thankfully, there was another left.

I had a nice (leftover) piece of pine print green, which supported the forest theme, and I looked for some tree print to use in the border, but could only find this holly one - so we also have a hint of Christmas in the air. I had so little of the green left, that I had to make the binding of two fabrics, and barely had enough.

And with this tale of winter magic, farewell, boys and girls, have a most wonderful Christmas, don't forget to believe in miracles, and make sure to check out Lorna's site Sew Fresh Quilts and her weekly link-up Let's Bee Social for even more wonderful quilting inspiration.

Poinsettia Mug Rug Tutorial - Raw Edge Applique

Anybody who has read this blog during the last couple of weeks will notice that I am obsessed with poinsettias this Christmas season. During the Christmas demonstration at the Eastern branch of the Irish Patchwork Society I showed some ladies how to make these poinsettia mug rugs and the participants seemed to enjoy them, so I thought I might share the process here as well. It's not a pattern as such, rather an idea for an easy last-minute gift or decorative element.

For the mug rugs in the tutorial photos I used raw edge appliqué to use up some of the scraps from my large poinsettia quilt, you may notice that some fraying develops around the edges, but I don't mind that. In my demonstration and in the Christmas wreath mini quilt I used fabrics prepared with the crafted appliqué technique, which yields a clean edge with no fraying - you can choose what suits you.

You'll need:

• quilt sandwich (backing fabric + batting + background fabric) about 6.5'' squared (or any other size to your liking, but make sure to leave some margin for trimming)
• green and red scraps
• glue stick or pins if you're making it raw edge
• matching thread
• a piece of binding about 32'' long

I prefer to make this kind of appliqué freehand, without templates, and poinsettias are great for that, because they are not particularly symmetrical and their leaves have very simple shapes. When you are eyeballing a leaf shape, you give it unique character and are free to play with size, shape and positioning, however you can download this cheatsheet to use as your guide.

Christmas Wreath - Crafted Appliqué Style

Just wanted to share my entry to this year's Christmas challenge at the Eastern branch of Irish Patchwork Society.

I made it in express mode, in the last couple of days before the meeting, so no process pics. The background is a kind of ombre-effect log cabin, the image itself - free-hand, little-planned appliqué made using the Crafted appliqué method. I also used some beads for holly and mistletoe berries and poinsettia buds. The size is about 20''.

Here are some other beautiful entries from the challenge:

I was thrilled that my piece took the second place and brought me a beautiful fabric prize!

During the afternoon after the meeting there were some Christmas demonstrations, and I showed some ladies how to make poinsettia appliqué, and I think I'll also make a small tutorial for that here on the blog, too.

Linking up to Linky Tuesday at Freemotion by the River
Let's Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts
Crafted Applique Linky Party at Buzzing Bumble

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like ...

Dear Santa, I've been really good this year - I finished my Christmas quilt a month (a whole month!!!) ahead of Christmas. I think I deserve a present.

This is my Poinsettia wall hanging, 85 by 107 cm, all machine-pieced and machine-quilted. I used one of my favourite techniques, curve piecing, which I showed in this butterfly tutorial. Again, I designed the pattern with gentle, easy-to-sew curves, so the assembly was quite fast and smooth. The most complicated part was choosing the fabrics for each piece, I think there are 17 different red fabrics and 8 green ones here (not to mention three black ones :))).

I quilted the poinsettia with very simple curves that parallel the edges of various pieces and resemble the leaf veins, and the background with simple spirals.

The low winter sun means it's getting difficult to take pictures of a quilt without it being overshadowed by a tall tree or the neighboring house. Besides, the wind doesn't let it hang straight. However, I think I managed to get one beauty picture of it:

I got fascinated with poinsettias this year, and I have a couple of small projects with them in progress as well, which I hope to be able to share next week.

linking up to Off the Wall Friday at Creations by Nina-Marie
Finished or not Friday at Busy Hands Quilts