Saturday, November 10, 2007

Can Halloween really be over at Mare's Nest?????




I thought everyone must be completely sick of seeing Halloween here, so I'm showing my Christmas quilt in progress. It has actually been in progress for, um......... a few years. Yeah, a FEW years. It all started after I had been quilting for a couple of years. You see, we had a mish mash of stockings at our house, and I thought it would be neat to make everyone a special personalized quilted stocking. They all thought it was neat until they realized that meant not having their old familiar stockings. At one point I thought I might have a bloody mutiny on my hands. However, being the brilliant thinker I am, I'll stop for a moment so everyone can cough a bit here. I came up with the idea of taking apart all the old stockings and putting them on blocks and making a Christmas quilt for the entire family to have in the living room. I knew I could not quilt this on my machine, so I decided to do it as a quilt as you go and did each block separately. Next I stitched them together in rows adding as necessary to make them come out even. Then I covered the seams on the front with more Christmas fabric, and realized ...
DUH! I still needed to cover the seams on the back! At this point you say to yourself, hmmm some brilliant thinker! What I should have done is put the raw edges to the front and covered the stupid seams ONCE. So, now I am in the process (for the last HOW many years?) of covering the bulky back seams with bulky flannel strips. It looks like I may get it done this year though, there aren't too many left to go! Yippee!
And for those of you who thought - silly you- that I was serious about Halloween being over........ Here is the spider and partial web from Vanessa's quilt. We did get it bound last night also! She found some absolutely awesome black and white irregular stripes that look perfect with it.
And, at quilt guild my friend Trudy brought me this spiderweb quilt! She made it in 99 ( I know this because she is a good little quilter and labeled it) and doesn't really like it. She was thinking of donating it to Goodwill, but the last time she did that I happened to be in there and bought the wallhangings she donated. So, she figured she would save me the time and money and just give it to me! What a gal! So, NEXT year, we are really doing Halloween up good!

10 comments:

Leigh said...

What a great Christmas quilt. It's a lovely idea with the stocking and as the grandkids arrive you can add more blocks !!!!!! ;-) Now there's a thought for ya, lol. If you want any more great suggestions don't be shy just ask,lol. I'm full of em.
How lucky were you to score that Halloween quilt, it's gorgeous.

Susan Freebery said...

First, and foremost, how much does that Christmas quilt weigh exactly? Secondly, I can't believe you had the same revolt I had when I tried to change our stockings to a uniform group. You would have thought I had asked the kids to eat the family cat, they carried on so. A miserable display it was.... anyway, I could just see my kids cutting the old stockings off of the quilt to save them...

Tamera said...

Isn't it funny that when you have a quilt that you have struggled with, all those feelings and memories come flooding back each time you look at it?

Oh, and you LEARN so much, LOL.

Sarah Nopp said...

Years is just fine for Christmas projects! At least it had better be... I have been working on a gift for my mom for... well... hmmm... I think it has been over a decade now.
*swearword*
sigh...

Sarah Nopp said...

Oh- about the Uniform stocking thing... I have to side with the family on this one!
I have the stocking my parents got for me when I was a newborn. It is my one and only stocking. I do have other wonderful stockings from stocking swaps, etc. But that stocking is my stocking.

Quilter Kathy said...

I love your Christmas
stocking-quilt idea!
What a wonderful family heirloom!

Meredith said...

But I am not ready for Christmas. Kidding lol. The quilt looks great. As for stockings we have ones that do not match but I made them at different times. It was nice that you took the family into consideration.

swooze said...

Love the Halloween quilt. What a great idea for the stockings.

doni said...

Don't you hate it when family members don't want to follow your plan! I love the quilt - I hear there are 46 days until Christmas! Time to get to work! [Here too!] Ladies - start your sewing machines!

atet said...

What a great idea for the Christmas stockings! Although, matching stockings in our family would incite a riot. My Mom has knitted stockings for just about every member of the family for the last 30+ years. (there may be some relatives by marriage that don't have one -- but I don't think so) -- all are different, all chosen based on the person's personality or gender (every baby gets one in suitable baby colors) -- and almost NONE are done in Christmas colors. So much fun!