Christmas Projects

I gathered all the projects I made this Christmas together to take a picture before I wrapped them and my first thought was "Is that all?" It seemed like such a little pile when I thought of all the work I did. But it wasn't such a small stack: 4 quilts, 2 sets of pillow cases, 4 hand quilted ornaments, a cape and 6 little girl bracelets.





Jayne came up the first week of December to visit mom and dad and await the birth of Leslie and Clay's baby boy. Lucky me, little Sam was a week late and Jayne and I got to play. It was like an early Christmas present. She was making dress up things for Chase and Caitlin's girls and asked if I wanted to make anything for my grand daughters. Since she had all the supplies and I am not stupid, I said yes. So I made a cape for Maggie and bracelets for Maggie, Lily and Molly.

                 
Of course I made quilts for Christmas presents. Maggie got her big bed quilt, a wonky log cabin made with wonderful pink, aqua, orange and green fabrics. I titled it "Duck, Duck, Maggie" because of the ducks (my sister Ann said they were avocets because of their up turned beaks) printed on the fabric. I played around with the back and pieced in leftover blocks to jazz it up a bit. It is one of my favorite quilts so far.

When I was in St. Louis last summer Lily asked me if I would make her a "cool" quilt. She had worn out the tied quilt I made Matt when he was 15, but it was a light weight quilt that she could use in the summer and still keep cool and didn't want to give it up. I used a poly down batting that I quite liked because it was so much lighter than the cotton batts I usually use.  I named the quilt "Lily in My Garden." It is made with fabrics I had on hand, thanks to the infusion of mom's fabrics to my stash. It is a bittersweet thing for mom to see me use her fabrics, she is glad they are being used, but hates to seem them used at the same time. The blue in the quilt reminds me of mom, she loves blue fabric with tiny white flowers.

I had  a Madame Alexander Huggable doll to give to Molly but the poor dolly seemed so cold in her hard blue box that I just had to make a quilt for her. Her dress was yellow with red cherry accents so I made a baby doll quilt to match. It was so much fun to make a little 18 x 24 inch quilt. I finished it in 24 hours, all but hand sewing the binding. Again I used fabrics from mine and mom's stash. How could I not name it "Molly's Dolly Quilt?"

I didn't realize how well planned the quilt was until it was finished and
spread out.  It was hard to appreciate the overall design when
 I was looking at each individual strip as I was mending and quilting.

A couple of years ago I was with mom at an antique show when she bought a vintage log cabin quilt top. It was pretty hammered and I thought she was crazy to buy it. This fall she pulled it out and asked me what I thought we could do with it. The seams had pulled out in places and on closer inspection it looked like there were nylon fabrics (shudder) in it as well as cotton and some seersucker and other really ugly fabrics. I told her I didn't know if it was worth spending a lot of time on, but she left it with me and I added it to my unfinished project shelf. She mentioned the quilt a few times in the next few weeks, but I ignored her. I was trying to think of something to give her for Christmas, but she really doesn't need anymore stuff. So I took another look at her log cabin quilt. I decided I probably could mend the seams and quilt it for Christmas. I used the poly down batting I used for Lily's quilt to make it light weight and easy for mom to pull over her legs and fabric from her stash for the back. The original quilt size was 84 x 72 inches, way to big for a throw quilt, so I unpicked a row and pieced it into the back.  In her stash was a piece of vintage red fabric with large white flowers that I used for the binding. All in all it turned out great, despite a few tucks and pleats due to the original quilter's quirks and my own.

I know that in the future I will not be able to do Christmas projects like I can do now. I see the sadness and frustration in my mother and mother-in-law eyes as they wish they could work and create as they used to. But for now I will plan and sew and enjoy the process each project takes. And then I will pass my stash on to their grandchildren when I cannot.