Hooking on Hump Day – Christmas Stockings

Hi everyone! It’s Cindy here to tell you about the Christmas stockings I made. Last year I finished a small quilt that we hung on our fireplace. It’s a bit small for the space so this year I searched online for a Christmas stocking pattern to crochet so we could add them to our display.

The stockings were hung from the quilt with care…

First a little word about how I hung them. Since the stone on the fireplace is so irregular, we couldn’t attach anything to the stone to hang the stockings from. Charlie found a 1/4″ dowl that was already stained and would work perfectly for that spot. To attach it to the quilt I used a matching brown thread and sewed three loops that hang down from the quilt. The dowl slips through the loops and even close up it’s difficult to see.

Now let’s get to the stockings. 

Charlie’s stocking
(Blue yarn is Red Heart Giant in Dark Country Blue – possibly discontinued)

I found the Country Cottage Stocking crochet pattern for free on the Who’s Homemade website. On the pattern page there are also links to paid patterns on Etsy and Ravelry and a video to show you the entire process.

Millie’s stocking
(Red is Caron One Pound in Claret)

The pattern instructions are well written and with the video there is no way to go wrong. I went “shopping” for the yarn from my stash and was happy to find colors that coordinated well with the quilt.

Walter’s stocking
(Green is Caron One Pound in Grass Green)

The only thing I did differently from the pattern was I added four rounds to the main stocking before adding the cuff to make them a bit longer.

Cindy’s stocking
(Purple is Red Heart With Love in Aubergine)

I like how the use of post stitches gives you a more closed fabric for the main body of the stocking. The toe was easy to work and with the help of the video the heal and cuff were no problem either. The white yarn is also Caron One Pound. It’s always nice to be able to work from your stash and create something new that will be a part of our holiday decorations for years to come.

I’m joining the The Loop Scoop Yarny Link Party (formerly known as Hookin’ on Hump Day). You should stop by to see some of the other projects people have posted.

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A New Holiday Decoration

Hi everyone! It’s Cindy here. I wanted to show you a new Christmas decoration I made.

Christmas Dachshund Quilt

I started this in a class during the 2019 Genesee Valley QuiltFest. The class was taught by Cynthia England and it helps to demonstrate her “picture piecing” technique. This pattern is called “Santa Pooch” and you can buy the pattern and fabric pack from her.

Close up of Head

The finishing instructions call for you to embroider the eye on the dog and it has you outline the white parts of the Santa hat to help them stand out. Charlie and I thought the outlining fell a little flat so I purchased some fluffy fleece from JoAnn Fabrics and added it to the hat instead.

Detail of Head with Fleece

Adding the fleece was quite fiddly but I managed to get it attached and I love how it turned out. I also added the little bell to his scarf which was part of the kit. I did most of the quilting using my embroidery machine.

Close up of the quilting

I used two embroideries from Embroidery Online by OESD. The straight border is called “Snow Quilt Border” and the corner is “Snow Quilt Corner”. Since the corner embroidery was a triangle shape and I needed it to have square edges to match the straight border, I used my embroidery software to extract a bit from the straight border to square them up. I also extracted one of the snow flakes and used that randomly in the white background. You can click on the above image to see the details. I also stitched in the ditch around the dog and the gift boxes with invisible thread.

Christmas Dachshund hanging above the fireplace

The fabric pack that came with the pattern had a different border fabric that I wasn’t crazy for so I found this perfect purple fabric to use instead. I love how it turned out and it makes a lovely addition to our holiday decorations.

 

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Thankful Thursday – An Award Winning Quilt!

Hi everyone! It’s Cindy here. Things have been a little quiet here for the past few weeks but there is a reason for it. I’ve been working on a quilt in order to get it ready for my quilt clubs big show the Genesee Valley QuiltFest. The quilt show starts tomorrow and runs through Sunday and tonight there was a members reception where they gave out the awards.

There are two types of ribbons that are given out. One set is for professionally judged quilts and the other set is for those judged by a group of quilt club members. I only have two quilts in this show and did not submit either one for professional judging.

I arrived at the reception a little late and they had already started giving out the “club” awards. Just a few minutes after I got to the reception area I was hearing the name of my small quilt and my name read aloud for a second place ribbon!

Listening Through the Glass

This quilt is about 48 inches x 24 inches and was made to put up in our living room. There is a lot to tell about how the quilt came together but I will leave that for another day. I didn’t expect to win any awards but I’m very thankful I did.

We are joining Brian for the Thankful Thursday Blog Hop!

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The Modern Jeans Skirt

Hi everyone it’s Cindy here to tell you about another crafty thing I’ve been up to in the past couple months. A while ago Miss N, a younger member of the knitting and crocheting group I belong to, put out a call to action on Facebook looking for someone that could help her convert some jeans she had to skirts. Miss N is working towards her Doctor of Ministry degree. For her internship this year she is working at a university interfaith chapel where she interacts with people of many faiths. In keeping with the preferences of certain religions Miss N wanted to be able to have some long skirts to wear for work. Other than formal wear there wasn’t much she could find in the stores to fulfill her requirements so she was hoping she could convert a couple pair of jeans to skirts.

Blue Gradient Jeans Skirt (click image for full detail)

If you are of a certain age like I am you might remember making these as a youngster. Back in the seventies it was cool to turn your jeans into skirts. We usually did them short and were able to use the bottom of the legs for the filler piece. Since Miss N wanted the skirts to be long I had to find fabric to fill in the center area.

Jungle Batik Jeans Skirt (click image for full detail)

Miss N came to my home and we looked through my fabric stash to see what would work well. With a little help from Charlie we decided on the two batik fabrics you see above. Now I’ll show you how I transformed a couple pair of jeans to the skirts.

Rip open the inseams

The first thing you have to do is rip open the inseams and the center crotch seam of the pants.

Re-sewn center seam

Then you adjust the front and back center seams so they lay flat and re-sew them.

Create patterns for the inserts

In order to fill the open area I had to make a pattern for the front and the back. I have a large roll of drawing paper that I placed under the legs and then drew a line to mark the edge. If you look close you can see that the paper was folded in half. After I drew the initial line I folded the paper in half and then adjusted the pattern to be the same shape on both halves. I also had to add about a half inch for a seam allowance. I then traced the shapes to the fabric.

Since batik fabric is fairly light weight I decided to add a little heft to the center areas. I used a thin muslin for backing and a very light weight batting and then did some quilting to hold all of it together. The truth is I let my embroidery machine do the quilting.

If you look closely in the picture above you can see the line I drew on the fabric from the patterns I made.

Paisley Quilting

On the light colored skirt I used a paisley style of quilting.

You can see the pattern on the reverse side better. For each paisley I had to re-position the embroidery hoop. There were about 10 on each side. I used a dark blue thread that blended well with the fabric.

For the jungle batik I used a quilt design that had butterflies and flowers and quilted it in a dark green thread.

Butterfly and Flower quilting

I fit each block of quilting together so most of the fabric was quilted.

Inserts cut for skirt

After the quilting was done I cut the front and backs out. Then it was just a matter of pinning them in place and sewing them to the jeans. The final step was to fit and sew the hem. I’m happy to say that Miss N was very excited to get her new skirts.

Walter poses with a skirt

While I don’t have a picture of Miss N in her skirts my super model Walter was more than happy to pose with them for me. I was glad I could help out a friend with this project and didn’t ask for anything in return but Miss N insisted on compensating me and gave me a gift card for one of the eateries where our knitting/crochet group meets. Thanks Miss N I was happy to help you out on this fun project.

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Wordy Wednesday

Hi everyone! Yes, we are alive and well. So sorry for the unexplained absence the past week or so, but I’m here to tell you all about it. Last week was a very busy quilty week for me. Monday and Wednesday were the first meetings for both of the quilt clubs I belong to. I’m now the membership secretary for the Genesee Valley Quilt Club so that means extra work to get ready for the meetings each month. Then on Thursday my mom and I went on a quilting retreat and didn’t get home until late Saturday. We had lots of fun and that is what I’m going to tell you about today.

Our retreat was organized by the Perinton Quilt Guild and was held at Watson Homestead. My mom picked me up Thursday morning and we made the 1 1/2 hour trip south in perfect weather.

Our workroom is under the chapel

We unpacked all our quilting stuff and then headed to our room.

Our room viewed from the work room

Our room

A nice hotel style room, but with no TV. WiFi was available in the common areas so I was able to keep up with reading blogs, but didn’t take much time to comment.

Main dining hall – dressed up for a wedding

Our workroom was large and bright. With only twelve of us there was room for each of us to have our own table as well as some common tables in the middle for us to do our cutting or lay out our projects.

View of workroom – Claire lays out her project

Right away my mom and I, who had never been on one of these retreats before, noticed an unusual picture posted at both ends of the room.

The ladies call him Lance

The ladies said that “Lance” comes with them on every retreat. I believe he is from an Abercrombie and Fitch bag. We knew right then that this weekend was going to be fun.

Most of the ladies brought more than one project. I started out by working on the quilting for the king sized quilt I had basted way too long ago.

My work space

I can’t remember when the last time was that I did some quilting on this project, but I hit a wall when I was having problems with the fabric bunching up. The first thing I had to do was pick out some of the last bit I had stitched and start over. I’m happy to say that I was able to complete quilting the parts I wanted to and now feel better about keeping it going.

A little working and a little chatting

Everyone had a great time working on their projects and getting to know each other a little better.

Mary W. worked on many different projects

One of my favorite projects was one that Patty P. worked on.

Patty P says her brothers aren’t really devils.

In addition to lots of quilting and chatting we also had some great catered meals. We were very lucky on Friday night and were treated to a delicious salmon dinner with a side of macaroni and cheese that was incredibly creamy.

Salmon, Macaroni & Cheese and Steamed Veggies

Apparently salmon is not a common meal to have, but the caterer had an earlier event where he served the salmon and there were far fewer attendees than he was told. We were the lucky recipients of this great left over meal. To top that meal off we also had a scrumptious dessert.

Chocolate Mousse

All our meals were great if not quite as special as the salmon with mousse.

On our last day there I worked on piecing the backing for the flannel quilt top I finished a while ago. In addition to our work room there was another smaller room that had large blank walls. I came prepared with the batting, quilt top, painters tape and 505 spray baste in the hopes I would have a place to baste all the parts together.

Basted Flannel Quilt

I didn’t take pictures of the process, but first I taped the backing with wrong side facing out to the wall. Then I sprayed the backing with the adhesive. The next step is to stick the batting to the backing. Of course it isn’t that simple, but for the sake of finishing this post lets just say it went on smoothly. The last step is to spray the batting and then stick the quilt top to it. I was jumping for joy to get this done. At home I don’t have a wall tall enough to do this so the only alternative is to pin the backing to the floor and do the same process on my hands and knees. This is so much easier!

As you saw above there was a wedding held at the center Saturday evening. Claire and I decided to surprise the happy couple with a little gift and made a couple of Christmas placemats for them.

Christmas Placemat for the Newlyweds

My mom did the sewing and I did the quilting. We never found the  bride or groom, but were able to give the gift to the brides father and hope the youngsters like them.

For our first ever quilt retreat we had a great time and I have plans on going next year too. I think Claire will join me if it fits her schedule too. Thanks to Sue P-T for organizing the retreat and thanks to all the other ladies for helping my mom and I to have such a fun time.

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Raffle Reminder – With an Update

Get your Blue Moon Magic Raffle tickets now!

As blog followers may recall my mom and I coordinated the making of this years Genesee Valley Quilt Club raffle quilt. I have set up a fundraising page through youCaring.org where you can purchase tickets.

Made by the Genesee Valley Quilt Club, this pieced and quilted work is 90″ x 90″ and will be raffled off to benefit the club and the Community Quilting Bee of Sojourner House at Pathstone.

Raffle tickets are $1 each. Tickets may be purchased world wide, but international winners will be required to pay shipping. Shipping is free to any winner living in the United States.

For each $1 donation a raffle ticket will be filled out with your contact information and you will receive your raffle ticket stub in the mail as confirmation. You may check the boxes to hide your donation amount or to make your donation anonymous so your information doesn’t show up on the fundraiser site. Your contact information is available to the fundraiser administrator only.

Update: I realize that not all of my followers use Paypal or like to use a credit card on the internet so if you would like to purchase tickets with a check just leave me a message in the comments section (make sure a valid email is used with your comment) and I will send you an email with information on where to mail your payment.

The drawing will take place on June 2, 2013 at 2:00 pm (Eastern time) at the RIT Gordon Field House in Rochester, NY. You do not need to be present to win.

Feel free to grab the badge above or any images of this quilt from my site to pass the word on this raffle. You can also go to the donation page and use the “Spread the Word!” section to help promote the raffle. If you have a non-wordpress blog you can create a widget like the one pictured below to put on your site as well.

Thank you very much for your support! I hope one of my readers wins this beautiful quilt (if I don’t)!

If you are in the Rochester, New York area from May 31 – June 2, 2013 please plan on visiting the GVQC quilt show “Magical Threads — Inspired Stitches” where the Blue Moon Magic quilt will be on display along with hundreds of other quilts.

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Magic Monday!

First up I would like to report that Lily Belle is home and feeling better. She is not completely out of the woods yet though.  Thanks to all my friends for your Power of the Paw to help her get better. I know Lily Belle thanks you too.

Lily Belle says, “Put the peddle to the metal daddy and let’s get home fast!”

She and her family are all getting some much needed rest and I’m sure her mom will post an update when she can. Now on to our regularly scheduled post…

Get your Blue Moon Magic Raffle tickets now!

As blog followers may recall my mom and I coordinated the making of this years Genesee Valley Quilt Club raffle quilt. I have set up a fundraising page through youCaring.org where you can purchase tickets.

Made by the Genesee Valley Quilt Club, this pieced and quilted work is 90″ x 90″ and will be raffled off to benefit the club and the Community Quilting Bee of Sojourner House at Pathstone.

Raffle tickets are $1 each. Tickets may be purchased world wide, but international winners will be required to pay shipping. Shipping is free to any winner living in the United States.

For each $1 donation a raffle ticket will be filled out with your contact information and you will receive your raffle ticket stub in the mail as confirmation. You may check the boxes to hide your donation amount or to make your donation anonymous so your information doesn’t show up on the fundraiser site. Your contact information is available to the fundraiser administrator only.

The drawing will take place on June 2, 2013 at 2:00 pm (Eastern time) at the RIT Gordon Field House in Rochester, NY. You do not need to be present to win.

Feel free to grab the badge above or any images of this quilt from my site to pass the word on this raffle. You can also go to the donation page and use the “Spread the Word!” section to help promote the raffle. If you have a non-wordpress blog you can create a widget like the one pictured below to put on your site as well.

Thank you very much for your support! I hope one of my readers wins this beautiful quilt (if I don’t)!

If you are in the Rochester, New York area from May 31 – June 2, 2013 please plan on visiting the GVQC quilt show “Magical Threads — Inspired Stitches” where the Blue Moon Magic quilt will be on display along with hundreds of other quilts.

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As ye Sew so Shall ye Rip!

Hi everyone! Remember a while ago when I accused Millie of causing mischief while I was laying out the quilt blocks for the flannel quilt I am working on? Well I think I owe her an apology. After I finished putting the blocks together I kept them hanging on my design wall while I worked on the flying geese border.

I kept looking at the blocks and while it looked very nice I felt that something wasn’t quite right. I remember noticing while looking at the picture on the instructions that there was a secondary pattern that should be visible, but I couldn’t see it. In case you aren’t a quilter a secondary pattern is when two or more blocks together draw your eye to more than the actual block (I tried to Google it but I couldn’t find anything). I got out the instructions again and discovered my problem.

What I realized was that in the second and fourth rows the hour-glass blocks should have been rotated 90°s. The bottom line was that I needed to rip all the rows apart and completely separate the blocks in two of the rows. I think Millie was trying to tell me to check my instructions before sewing everything together, but I didn’t listen.

It may be difficult to see, but if you compare the two pictures you should see that the stars in the middle row now have more cream-colored fabric surrounding them. It is also there for the first and last row, but not as complete. I could have just left the blocks the way they were, but I think the proper arrangement will make it a bit easier to quilt. After adding the three borders the top is now ready to baste and quilt. It’s finished size is 80″ x 80″ so it is a generous lap quilt.

 

My goal is to get this quilt completed soon so I can also finish quilting my king sized quilt and have them both ready for the Genesee Valley Quilt Club show in June. I purchased two different threads to use on this quilt. One is cream variegated and the other is a variegated thread with similar colors to the dark fabrics in the quilt.  Of course using two different thread colors will make it take a bit longer, but I didn’t think that I could pick one thread color to use across the entire quilt.

There is also enough left over fabric (especially all the left over triangles from making so many half-square triangles) that I should be able to make some pillows to go with it too. I just love the rich colors in this quilt and since it is flannel it is extra soft too. I hope you like it too.

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