Some Quilty Things

Brrr- it is way too cold here for this to be the South!  We have been getting this unwanted gift of cold air from our Canadian neighbors to the north!  It is unusual to have frozen ponds around here.  It is definitely feeling a lot like Christmas these days!

On Monday, it was a wonderful day with my Anything Art Bee at Ruth-Ellen Flanagan's house.  The topic was dimensional beading.  Ruth-Ellen has taken classes from Nancy Eha and others.  She had many beautiful examples of beaded pieces to inspire us, like this section of a finished piece.

She showed us how to make little beaded trees with bugle beads and seed beads, and then join the seed beads together to make a "forest."  This one is Ruth-Ellen's, not mine!

We also did  a corkscrew, and she showed us how to sew on Shisha mirrors or cabochons.  I'm not even showing you mine, because I felt like I was all thumbs that morning.

With a last name like Flanagan, you would never know it, but Ruth-Ellen is Jewish, and we had our second annual potato latke lunch after the beading lesson.  Also some kugel made in Massachusetts.  It is a sort of noodle casserole, but it tasted like apple coffee cake to me.

I have finished two customer quilts this week.  The first is another of the die-cut quilts made by Stampin'-Up demonstrator Martha Armstrong.  This time, even the fabric is a Stampin'-Up product. It coordinates with their scrapbook papers.

 It is very perky and cheerful in some non-traditional Christmas colors.  Martha chose not to use Christmas motifs for the quilting, so she could use it all year.  I did mostly spirals and swirls.  Of course, you have to go around and around the flowers to attach each tier to the quilt backing.  They are only glue-basted on when I receive the quilt.

The borders are stripes and polka dots.

The back is an even larger polka-dot print.  I used one of Signature Thread's newest colors, Misty Jade.

The other quilt is by my customer, Gertrude.  This is the first quilt she has ever made to keep for herself.  It was a Block-of-the-Month quilt from Bernina. 

The navy frames around the patchwork really make the colors pop against the lime green in the alternate blocks.

I did a leaf meander in the patchwork, and leafy circle wreaths in the green areas.

The borders were navy blue.  I just did some heart-shaped leaves and loops.  I neglected to get a good picture of the borders before Gertrude picked up her quilt.

The back is also lime green, but has a small print, which I like because it hides any little knots or other flaws.

I have two more small customer quilts to do before Christmas, and some small applique wall-hangings.  This weekend my kids and grandkids (and granddog Roo) are all spending the weekend, and on Saturday many of my Turner relatives are coming over for dinner.  I expect to be pretty busy the rest of this week!  How are your holiday preparations going?  Keep smiling!