Welcoming December

Welcome December, season of hope!  After an unintended blog break during November, it's good to have that month in the rear-view mirror - enough said.  Some good came out of the last few weeks though, and here are two new finishes, just in time for the Christmas season!

First up, a Christmas gift for my grandson, since it was reported that he needed a new bed quilt.

I used a slightly size-altered version of Bonnie Hunter's Sticks and Stones free pattern.  "November Skies" is what I'm calling this one, since the overall colors remind me so much of a November landscape with only a hint of the earlier fall color remaining, and the predominantly gray skies we see around here in late fall.  Totally machine quilted, very simply with stitch-in-the-ditch and a grid through the blocks.  Once again I took measurements before and after:  original top 91x80; after quilting 89x78; and after being washed and dried 87 x 75 1/2 inches.  Lately rather than soaking and drying the Hobbs 80/20 cotton batting I've been just using the steam setting on the dryer to partially shrink and de-wrinkle the batting prior to layering and pinning.  Seeing a little more shrinkage this way, but I think the batting itself behaves much better and I'm not seeing as many thin places when it's laid out for pinning. 

One of those rare partially sunny mornings, about 20 degrees outside.

And a closer view.

Next up is our very own Christmas quilt!  After all these years hard to believe this is the first Christmas quilt I've made just for us.  Really happy with the way this one turned out.

This was begun in an, as it turns out, vain attempt to use up all the Christmas fabrics left in the bin.  I had seen a photo online last year of a similar quilt, but with no attribution or pattern available, so I drafted my own.

Used this tree stencil in two sizes for much of the quilting.

And "organic" holly leaves and berries between the stars.

I was able to use up all the remaining Christmasy flannels for the back and learned a valuable piece of information in the process - that being flannel and Aussie fur are natural magnets.  Yikes!

This photo was taken yesterday, before the nor'easter Ezekiel came to town, bringing with it a less than welcome accumulation of freezing rain, sleet, crunchy snow, more sleet, and on it goes.  Areas east of us are expecting 12-18 inches of snow on top of the ice.  Not a happy travel day, but a great day for sewing and catching up on some blog reading.  I hope the weather is better in your neck of the woods!