Finished in the nick of time

I know, Christmas was almost a week ago, but life hasn't slowed down yet.

My quilted gifts were very well received and nobody had any idea that two of them were started less than a week before Christmas.



Most summer days my grandpa can be found on a fishing boat with a pole in his hand while my grandma sits beside him with a book, so they really loved their fish-themed lap quilt.


And the whole family was shocked when they asked when I started "Flower Patch" for my grandma. They were pretty impressed that I started and finished a quilt in three days.


Last, but not least, my cousin got engaged about a week before Christmas and informed us his new fiance was coming to Christmas. She's a teacher, so I cranked out a quilted messenger bag to hold her school papers. I finished it at 1 a.m. on Christmas Eve. Then I wrapped all the presents.



She thought it was store-bought until my proud mother said, "Stephanie made that." I considered it a pretty good compliment.

Good thing I checked my list twice

I was in the process of checking my list twice last weekend when I realized I forgot to get a gift for my grandmother for the SECOND year in a row. I'm a bad grandchild.

She's very difficult to shop for. My mom once found a gift she'd gotten her stowed away in a closet with the tags still on it years after it was given. The only want to really make her happy is to give her pictures of the family (which my mom has already taken care of with photos form my wedding this summer) or make her something.


I already cranked out a table runner at the last minute last Christmas, so on Saturday afternoon I found myself at the fabric store picking out fabric to make her a lap quilt in less than a week. I picked up two charm square packets and 10 fat quarters to make a 45" by 54" four patch lap quilt. The charm squares made it pretty easy and I used strip piecing to make the four patch blocks so I had the top pieced and basted in a day.

I'm also finishing another lap quilt for my other set of grandparents. Somehow I've managed to burn the candle at both ends and am now sewing the binding on both quilts. Now I just can't wait until I have kids old enough to help with the wrapping, since my husband claims incompetence in that area.

Quick weekend projects

I started and finished three quick projects on Saturday.

First up was a fabric book for my six-month-old niece. Since fabric books come in ready to cut out panels, this project was very quick. All I had to do was cut out the page spreads, fuse half of them to fusible fleece and then sew the other side of the page on.


I would recommend switching to a heavy duty needle in your machine when it comes time to sew all the pages together down the center, as I broke my regular quilting needle within the first five stitches.


The first thing my niece did was pull at the pages, so fabric books make great presents for little ones who like to grab at everything but still enjoy a good story.


I also made my niece a quilted Christmas stocking. This would have only taken a couple of hours, but I decided I didn't like the original top to the stocking. So I took it off an replaced it with the red fabric you see here.



Then when I made a trip to the weekend sale at JoAnn Fabrics, I found a panel for this purse. I changed the pattern by attaching fusible fleece to the outside layer and quilting it. I think the next time I make a purse I'll also add medium- to heavy-weight fusible interfacing to the inside layer as well to give it a little more stability. But I really like how it turned out and I've already gotten compliments on it.