Santa Ornaments

After I finished all my Christmas gifts I didn't want to jump into a big project so I decided to make a few ornaments. The long Santas with the folded over hats were in my UFO pile from 2011. They are paper pieced and I had the front of Santa finished and they just need their backs stitched on. I stopped because I realized that I used scraps for Santa's hats and I did not have enough of the matching fabric to back the ornaments. Since the hats are pulled to the front you can see the back of the ornament and the front of the hat. Seven years ago I wasn't able to get past this problem but now I have no problem with having Santa ornaments with mismatched hats. Nobody is going to realize I didn't follow the pattern exactly.  Apparently after I made my tall Santa ornaments there was a little controversy about copyright and who the design actually belonged to so I can't link to the pattern.  It's paper pieced and shouldn't be too hard to figure out. I make 16 because why make just one?

The triangle Santas are a paid for pattern that you can purchase here.  I don't know why my links are no longer highlighted and I can't find an easy fix but if you click the word "here" it will take you to the pattern.   The triangle Santas were super fun to make so I made 12. I really like that they have some batting in them and are lightly quilted. 

Both sets of ornaments need their hanging ribbons but I need to head to JoAnn's to buy some first. Then I'll be all set for Christmas 2019 lol.

I also spent a little time this morning cutting fabric for some charity quilts that I plan on making next year. I'll be 50 in February 2019 and my goal is to donate 50 items next year. 

Merry Christmas

                                                            MERRY CHRISTMAS!!



I hope everyone is having a wonderful week. Merry Christmas to those who celebrate. If Christmas isn't your thing, I hope you are having a creative day doing the things that make you happy!


I have two little trees in my craft room. The larger tree has some of the handmade ornaments that have been sent to me over the years. I really didn't decorate the little baby tree but it does have the paper garland I made last year.

This Week's Videos (week ending 12-23-2018)

TTMT #74

WiP It Wednesday #21

S Hook Giveaway

Felt Tree Ornaments

Thank you for watching!!

I've Finished My Christmas Crafting!! WooHoo!!

 I'm cutting it a bit closer than I like with my handmade Christmas gifts this year but I am finished and the only thing left is to wrap all the gifts. Now there has been many, many years where I've been wrapping gifts past midnight on Christmas Eve. Hopefully not this year but we'll see.

I have finished Robbie's 4th pair of hand knit socks for Christmas 2018. This is the one pair that he has actually seen the yarn for so it was important that I finished these on time. Robbie wears a size 15 shoe so he does have pretty large feet and my hand made sock blocker makes them look even wider lol. I think I will treat myself to a pair of sock blockers in 2019.

My daughter wanted a bed runner so I made her one that matches her new sheets and her old quilt that I made her back in 2009 I believe. She bought a bed in a bag that had blue sheets and a blue ombre comforter. She doesn't use the comforter but instead uses her red and black quilt that she loves. So I thought red, white, and blue would pull everything together. Not that she cares.  I added the white for the background so that the wonky stars would pop.

It's probably hard to tell in this picture but the fabric we chose for the back is icebergs in the ocean. I let her choose from a handful of blue fabrics and I really like the icebergs.

Here is a little closeup of the wonky stars and you can see the blue grunge fabric that I chose for the binding.  This time I used a serpentine stitch to machine stitch the binding to the front. My Juki has a repetitive star design that I was hoping to use on the binding but it just didn't work out.  That's okay, I'll find another project for the stars.

I also made them a set of hanging towels for their kitchen. I made some for my house last year and my daughter requested some for their house. Little did she know that it would take a year for me to finally get around to making them some lol. 

My daughter loves red so I used the some fabric from the hoodie I made her last year.  Since it is Christmas I used some Santa on a tropical vacation. The orange one is for my oldest Justin. Lime green and orange are his favorite colors. The last one is a Zelda fabric for my youngest Robbie. He loves playing all of the Zelda games and this fabric is from his hoodie. Justin's hoodie had Blue's Clues fabric and I just didn't have enough left over from his hoodie to make him a special towel so I just went with his favorite color.

I hope everyone is on track with their handmade Christmas. 

I've changed my mind....I think

I've been thinking.....

I know, I know thinking is a dangerous sport. I think it's great that YouTube allows me to easily post my videos over here on my blog but it's making my blog feel "cluttered" to me.  There's a link to my YouTube page over there >>>>> on the right hand side of my blog so it's pretty easy to find my videos. I want to still make it easy for those who watch through my blog so maybe once a week I'll make a post  and list the previous week's videos??? That way they are all in one post and not scattered everywhere. Makes it easy to find the videos but also much easier to find my written blog posts. What do y'all think?


Just so there's a picture for this post.....

 This is a little container from KFC. I believe it held mac-n-cheese at one point. I loved the little compact size and the tight snapping lid so I kept. I thought I might use it for beads but that never happened. I wash my hands frequently during the day and of course that dries them out. Plus, working with yarn tends to draw the moisture out of my hands too. I like to keep some lotion in the craft room so I can easily apply lotion when my hands feel dry. You know how it is, if you have to get up and leave the craft room you'll find a half dozen other things to do and never the original thing you needed to do. Plus, I don't want to have 3 different bottles of lotion around the house. They tend to dry up after awhile.  All that to say...I filled this little tub up with lotion and now I can grab it without leaving my sewing area. Thanks KFC!

P.S.  The lid even says reusable and top dishwasher safe ;)

(VIDEO) Felt Storage

(BLOG) It's finally finished!!!

Friday morning's sunrise was spectacular. I looked out the window and the world was cast in a pink glow. Just imagine how beautiful it was in real life. While my phone takes wonderful pictures, I have never been able to master taking wonderful pictures of the sky.



I've started something new with the blog. Just a small little detail that I hope is helpful to some. As you may already know I post my YouTube videos here on the blog. I have followers who watch my videos from a variety of sources and I want to make sure everyone can easily see the videos. Not everyone watches them from my blog so I've started adding (descriptions) to my blog titles. If it's a (VIDEO) you will easily be able to tell that at a glance. If it's a (BLOG) or written post that is easy to see also. I hope this helps.

I also thought it might be helpful to list my basic timeline so you will know when to pop over to see what's happening in my craft room.

Tuesday:  Talk To Me Tuesday - where I discuss what's been happening in my life and I try to show a current quilting project or past project.

WiP It Wednesday: where I show all the crafty things I've worked on during the precious week.  Starting next year I will keep one project exclusive for the blog. I will show it during the video but mention if they want to see more then they need to pop over here to hear all the details.

Sew With Me Friday: on Friday's I post a sew along tutorial style video. Sometimes it's a viewer request or just something that I felt like working on this week.  In 2019 I am going to be doing some QAYG videos and trying different QAYG techniques.

Sunday: Sundays are for bonus videos or series.  Some weeks there may be no video or I may run a series of videos. I recently finished a series on hand embroidery stitches. My next series will be how I knit a mitre square blanket from scraps. Tomorrow's bonus video is about felt storage. Both full sheets and scraps of felt.

Saturdays: This is the day that I will be posting written blogs with pictures. I'm trying to make sure I don't repeat myself on these blog posts. That's why I'm going to be having a blog exclusive project. You have to come over here to see all the details and pictures. I love blogging and reading blogs so I want to makes sure I pencil in some time to do just that.



Now to the fun stuff!!

A couple months ago I was commissioned to finish this crewel embroidery project. Have I ever done crewel embroidery you may ask? Nope, not even a stitch lol. I've watched several videos on crewel embroidery this year and I was going to try it in 2019. I won't have to try it now because I've spent several hours working on this project. 

It is now finished!! When I received it the words were completed and a very small section of the clouds on the left side were done. Some of it was enjoyable and other parts were frustrating. I think it would have all been fun if I had the right tools for the project. Crewel embroidery is best done on stretcher bars where you can tack the canvas down evenly. I worked on this in a hoop and white it was taut it was never tight. I did learn that with wool when you take the project out of the hoop it shrinks back together if that makes sense. I did really enjoy the boat, mostly because by then I had figured out the process and the sail isn't stitched left horizontally. That seemed to make a big difference.  It is flying off to it's home later today which means I can start another embroidery project ;)

(VIDEO) Felt Mitten Ornaments

(VIDEO) WiP It Wednesday #20 Only 4 Projects!! It's crazy.

(VIDEO) TTMT #73 Icebergs and Hawaiian Applique

(VIDEO) How To Crochet Through the 3rd Loop

Hand Pieced -A Quilt Along

Earlier this year I decided that in 2019 I would hand stitch a small quilt from start to finish. I was just going to watch a bunch of YouTube videos and figure it out as I went but thanks to Kristin and Patty I won't have to figure it out on my own.

They are hosting a hand pieced quilt along starting in January.  I will add a link over on the sidebar so you can go check it out and see if you would like to stitch along with me. 

I couldn't wait until January so I grabbed a few 2.5" squares, drew my lines, and stitched them together.

I already do a lot of embroidery so stitching on a line wasn't very hard at all. It will take a little practice to get my hands in a position that works for me.  First time all my seams matched so well.

After Christmas I will be ordering the little wooden seam roller. I think that will help get everything to lay nice and flat. A little more practice on the long seams and I will be all set. I've also decided that while I will show my progress over on my WiP It Wednesday videos, I'll only be discussing my progress here on my blog. 

Is anyone else joining?

Clear Glass or Plastic Ornaments

WiP It Wednesday #19 WiPs and Future WiPs

TTMT #72 Stars & Bars Bed Runner

Colonial Knots vs French Knots

Stars & Bars Bed Runner and Friend Mail

My daughter asked me to make her a bed runner for her bed (of course lol). I made her a red and black quilt that she keeps on her bed year round. Earlier this year she upgraded from a twin to a double size bed. Which of course means she needed new bed linens. When I made her quilt I made it for a double bed so she doesn't need a new quilt. She ended up buying a blue bed in a bag set. So I thought I would mix reds and blues for her new bed runner. Of course if you use read and blue fabric you automatically tend to add some white.

It was a bit windy today. Picture me running back and forth trying to get the edges to lay flat in order to get a halfway decent picture. I added some seashells to the top edges but they weren't heavy enough.


I really like making wonky stars and I was planning on making the runner completely out of wonky stars with the possibility of adding some red or blue sashing but then I ran out of white fabric. So I decided to add some rail fence blocks. I made some blue-red-blue and others red-blue-red. I wanted to make some string blocks but my daughter is getting a bit impatient in a very polite way. She actually thought I was going to take two pieces of fabric and quilt a few lines on it and call it done. Now that she knows she's getting stars she's pretty excited. I have to dig through the stash and see what I can find for the backing. I might just end up making it reversible. I'm not sure if I have enough red or blue fabric that has been approved for the back anyways. My daughter does not like any fabric with flowers.

I received some exciting gifts in the mail this week. I had to stop at the counter at the post office to pick up this one because it wouldn't fit in my P.O. Box. As soon as I saw the package I was excited because I would tell that it was a plastic container wrapped in brown paper. I love storage containers.

The first I saw when I opened the lid was the Santa and Snowman embroidery patterns!!!  I love hand embroidery and snowmen and Santa are my favorites. There's even fabric to stitch them on - Bonus!!   So many fun things to try out. I've been wanting to try prewound bobbins and there are loads of them to choose from. 

I also received this lovely bundle of mini skeins of sock yarn. These will be added to my mitre square blanket. I may even use them as an advent calendar sort of thing this month.

Happy Crafting Everyone!!!!

Folded Origami Hexagon Christmas Ornament

WiP It Wednesday #19 Balancing Thanksgiving and Crafting

TTMT #71 What am I sleeping under?

Hand Embroidery FishBone Stitch

Quilt Blocks and Hand Embroidery

I felt like making some random 12.5" blocks the other day. I love sewing with batiks.

I have don't really have any plans for these blocks. I just felt like making them. For now, I'll add them to my other random blocks that I've made in the past. Eventually they will become a quilt or two but for now it's just fun to sew without immediate purpose. 

I spent several hours yesterday working on my Heart Flower Embroidery Design by CutesyCrafts. She has some fun embroidery designs but also wander around her blog for a bit. There are lots of fun things to see and make.    I am working on this design as part of my Hand Embroidery Series over on my YouTube channel.  A very relaxing way to spend a Saturday. The embroidery portion is almost finished. Then I get to decide how to finish the entire piece. I'm sure I will make it into a small art quilt like my other embroidery projects. I just need to decide on fabrics. 

WiP It Wednesday #18

TTMT #70 Wonky Monsters On Parade

Wonky Monster Quilt

I finished my Wonky Monster Quilt. It is now my favorite quilt but isn't our current quilt always our favorite? It ended up measuring 44.5" X 58.5". It's a nice lap size quilt or a child's size quilt.

Several years ago I purchased a couple of mini fat quarter packs full of fun and colorful monster fabrics. I used one fat quarter pack for the wonky log cabins on the front. I ordered some fun green fabric from Jo-Ann's for the sashing and borders. I wasn't sure if the green would be a good match but I love the way it all works together.

I did an all over wiggle jiggle free motion quilting design. I used a pale yellow thread for the quilting. This is the first time FMQing on my new Juki and I LOVED the whole process. It was so smooth especially since I used the extended table. I wasn't sure if I wanted to make any more large quilts but since I have the new machine I want to make all the quilts lol.

I used the second set of fat quarters for the back of the quilt. I used the green from the front to bring the back up to size. I like the back too.  I used Pellon cotton batting for the first time and it worked really well for this quilt. I love how crinkly it is straight out of the dryer.

I found a fun loop de loop quilting design among the many options for my Juki. I used it to machine stitch the binding down and I think it worked really well. So much easier than stitch in the ditch and trying to catch the binding on the back. Now onto the next quilt....

Woven Wheel Flower Hand Embroidery Tutorial

WiP It Wednesday # 17 Cardinals Appear When Angels Are Near

TTMT #58 When do you eat dinner?

TTMT #57 Collecting sea shells in the middle of the road

WiP it Wednesday #4 It's all about the Rare Bears

Here are the links to some of the things I've worked on this week:

Gather Hat

Heart's of Flutter

Barb's patterns

Robbie's rainbow socks

Grandmother's favorite dishcloth

Freedom wall hanging  Be sure to check Allie's other fun embroidery patterns on Craftsy.

Floral Unicorn 6" embroidery design   You need to sign up for the free newsletter to get access to her free patterns.

Teenager approved hat

Rare Bears


Here's a couple sites for those non-knitters:

Knitter's Knitcabulary

Knitter's Slang

TTMT #56 Construction, crafting, and missing comments

Here's this week's Talk To Me Tuesday video. I have a finished object, new starts, and everything in between.  It's been pretty noisy around here lately. The utilities project is right in front of my house so there's lots of beeping vehicles, diesel smells, and huge machinery noises.  I've also noticed that I am not receiving notifications of comments on this blog. I'm very sorry if you've commented and I didn't respond!! I've checked my settings and we'll see if it gets any better.

TTMT #55 The Week I actually Left My House

Rare Bear Charity Sewing

One of my charity projects for this year has been making unstuffed bears for Rare Science. I found this charity while watching videos from Rob Appell  aka Man Sewing on YouTube. In his Rare Bear tutorial video he mentioned that Rare Science prefers that we don't stuff our cute little bears. I figured that was perfect because an unstuffed bear is easier to make and less expensive to ship. Perfect.

This is a picture of my next 8/10 bear heads. I giggle whenever I take pictures like this. When sewing these bears you completely stitch the heads before moving on to the rest of their body parts. I've mailed and donated several of these bears so far but I've decided that I won't be making more next year. I've decided I'm really not a sewn stuffie maker. Too many pieces and it's not difficult to sew the heads to their bodies but it is a bit trying and fiddly. 

Hand Embroidery

I've always enjoyed hand embroidery but I've only used a handful of stitches in the past. I've decided that this year I'm going to learn as many new stitches as I can. While watching tutorials on YouTube I came across Namaste Embroidery. There are tons of stitch videos but most of them have music playing and no actual talking. I prefer to have someone explain the stitches to me and chat with me so it feels like I'm sitting right next to them stitching along. I know. I'm weird. Jessica also has a website where she sells a variety of embroidery designs. I also found these free designs. Both where on the same printout so I went ahead and stitched each of them. The one on the right is her original design and the heart on the left is her updated version with a few different stitches added. These are meant to be hung right in the hoops you use to stitch them but I think I might make them into a little wall hanging so they can both be together since they're basically the same design.

Charity Hat Knitting

I have more yarn than I feel comfortable having in my stash. It's only about four cloth shopping tote bags but for me that's too much. I don't like having yarn or fabric just sitting in my stash and not being used. I know. I'm weird. Anyways...There are many generous people collecting hats for kids, cancer patients, homeless, and so many other people in need. I've made hats for a few of these collections but I never really felt drawn to them. Clare, from The Big Family Homestead  is collecting hats for Vets in her area of Wisconsin. I felt drawn to this hat collection so I'm going through my stash and knitting some hats.

My go to hat pattern is the Bankhead . It was originally and adult hat but the designer has updated it so it fits baby to XL adult heads. I like that it has a little ribbing so it does have some stretch but mostly it's just a fun knit. Because I don't knit steadily on these hats it takes me about a week or two to make one hat. Depending on how much time and motivation I have for these hats. 

I've gone ahead and cast on my second hat using the discontinued Bernat Mosaics yarn. I really enjoy knitting with this yarn but this is my last skein. I'm going to have to mix it up a bit and alternate some plain hats with the fun to knit colorful hats. Otherwise I may never make any simple one color hats. 

Do you do any charity knitting?

TTMT #54 Miss Whiskers Cameo

TTMT #50 Happy Fourth of July!!!!

TTMT #49 All Tied Up

Talk To Me Tuesday (TTMT) #48 Short and Sweet

Talk To Me Tuesday #47 Everything's bigger in Texas

TTMT #46 HOOT! HOOT!

Please excuse the focus issues in the beginning. It clears up in time for show and tell.

TTMT #45 Lots of finishes

TTMT #44 Rainy days and knitting

TTMT #43 Knitting and Gnome Villages

TTMT #41 Happy May Day!!

TTMT #39

Button progress

I have been having fun just sitting and stitching buttons to my project. I'm trying for a color wheel color scheme but it's not a strict theme. In the beginning I'm adding all my extra large buttons because later on there won't be room for them. Nothing fancy for now. I'm just using the smaller pieces of embroidery floss and I'm not trying to match colors yet. I plan on adding beads and embroidery stitches to the buttons and parts of them might get covered anyways. I'm trying to be very relaxed and not stress over any part of it. There's enough stress in life without bringing it into the craft room, right?  

I'm leaving this out in the open just as you see it. Leaning against the desk top computer that I use occasionally. I like seeing all the bright colors when I'm sewing.

TTMT #38 A year of Buttons and Take Stitch Tuesday

Take A Stitch Tuesday 

A Year of Stitches and Buttons





                                                           Stormy Sky Shawl

HocusPocusVille blocks on grey.

Crumb quilt block test layouts