Christmas Quilt Exchange

Last week I met with my quilt bee at one of our members home, and what a home it is! Her and her husband built the home several years ago using old barn beams from New England. (there's so much more to this homes story and I'm sure I'm not saying it right but you get the point).
Their tree is beautiful especially with her new antique quilt hanging on the next floor up on the balcony. She just purchased this quilt it's from the late 1800's for $50.00! It is wonderful.
(she's not sharing!)

The quilt doesn't have batting in it, it does have a back though.

All appliqued with a sewing machine.

Another beautiful tree in her balcony.
So last year at our Christmas bee party we put all our names in a hat and each drew one. Whom ever name you drew you make that person a nice size finished lap quilt by our next Christmas party. Of course you had a whole year but most of us (including me) were still sewing at the last minute. But, we all made it and each quilt looked just like the person it was made for. So lets take a look.

Little Deb hiding behind her quilt. Deb loves civil war reproduction fabrics, so she loved this piece made for her by Judy..

A beautiful quilt for Judy made for her by Deb.

Martha with her quilt made for her by Mary.

Beautiful piecing.

Mary with her quilt made for her by Kay.

Wonderful pieced blocks with a great paisley boarder.

I made my friend Kay (who's always cold) a toasty warm flannel quilt.

Close up, most of the flannels looked like wool.

My friend Martha made me this wonderful black, tans and gold batik quilt. I love, love batiks (and of course wool)!

This is a better picture of it at home. You can see it's perfect for my living room.
That was a fun party!

A few years ago all my bee members and I spent the year making our grandchildren/children Christmas quilts. Mary who's already made 10 or more had 2 more to make this year, this is one of them. It's a spit rail fence pattern made with alot of her left over Christmas fabrics.

What makes it so cute is all the outside "logs" are this great white with red and green dot fabric.

Christmas Greens Arrangements

My friend stopped at our favorite little second hand store and found us another "cutter" quilt to share. Its a beautiful indigo blue and white in the Irish Chain pattern.

Quite old with cotton batting,

and hand quilted. We didn't cut up the blocks, just divided it in half lengthwise.
More on this later.
 

Last week was I gathered with my friends from my Herb Society at P.J.'s art studio to create fresh arrangements for our Holiday tables. There was a great variety of greens.

Rose hip and dried flowers.

Dried teasel and seed pods waiting to be painted with gold and silver spray.

A basket full of fresh berries and box wood greens to choose from.

These are a few of the finished arrangements, Santa sitting on dried reindeer moss with greens in the back of his sleigh.

An old tin can becomes a great piece with greens, pine cones and silver pods.

P.J.s beautiful arrangement with candy canes, photographed on one of her stools the students sit on to paint (love them).

This piece will have a tall candle in the back of Santa.

One of my pieces I arranged for a friend in a blue canning jar.

Another piece in a little  wooden crate using the teasel and spray snow.

The piece I made for myself using a clay flower pot I spray painted creamy white and hot glued on vintage buttons years ago. I put a plastic insert inside to hold the water then filled it with oasis and a variety of greens.

And back home I folded the quilt lengthwise for my table and added the arrangement.

Fresh rose hips and a candy cane candle.

Finished with spray snow.

And my last winter arrangement is on my porch. I put this together every year the first of November with fresh greens, rose hips, and red dogwood branches from our walks in the woods. Also, fresh cut holly branches from our shrubs. This will stay nice until middle of  March.
(I keep the soil in the pot left over from summer and add a big pot of water to the arrangement).

This was suppose to be the first picture on this weeks blog but some how ended up at the end, what a great piece.

Quilt Guild Christmas Party

Last night was my quilt guild Christmas party (we have about 125 members). Along with lots of great food, we had a quilt challenge which began last year at our Christmas party. Everyone received a "fat" quarter of holiday fabric with the challenge to use it in a piece to be displayed this year. The pieces were on display last night and voted on for viewers choice. The following are a few of my favorites. The first one (up above) was a beautiful tree skirt.

 

This group of "lil twister" wall hangings was made by a group of friends

all with the same challenge fabric.

A cute collection of wall hangings and Martha's mitten table runner.

This was different with the black fabric strips between the Christmas fabric.

Yo yo  tree with buttons.

This was beautiful with the snow domes filled with the challenge fabric.

A pieced fabric bow wall hanging.

Love this fabric made into a stocking.

This is just too funny!

A cute holiday purse.

My friend Mary's paper pieced snowflake.

This was the challenge winner (a commercial pattern),

Love the tiny pieced tree skirt.

This piece would have won best workmanship (if there was that category), I believe the center is hand appliqued. The piece was made by Sue Thumser.

 

A cathedral windows wall hanging.

 

I love this piece, it's not traditional Christmas but a great sampler.

This wasn't in the challenge but brought for "show & tell". This tree skirt was made for a white Christmas tree decorated with candy ornaments. The tree skirt is pieced candy jars.

Jill, our out going Chairman with her "thank you" quilt made by the board members. What a perfect quilt for a quilter. Love the pieced spools and applique boarder.

And speaking of spools, look at the cute wooden spool I bought yesterday at Target. It's wrapped with peppermint stripe cotton ribbon.

Not bright colors, nice toned down colors.
$4.00 in the Christmas wrapping area.

Last Friday early morning when I woke up out my window was this sliver of a moon.

On went my warmest jacket and out I went to capture it before the sun came up.