Ive finished TWO things...

Wow it must be the festive time of year but Ive finished two projects and all with the help of my new machine which I think Im in love with (once I realised that to get a quarter inch seam you had to change to a special quarter inch foot!) First I got sick of the Christmas tree skirt staring at me from its almost but not quite finished position. So that had to be finished- and was! The result you can see. Its a bit bulkier than I wanted but still its finished and once under the tree I will feel a huge relief. The next quilt was a single quilt made up from disappearing nine patch pattern, and did I have some problems with this scrap quilt. All was going well I was enjoying cutting 4inch blocks and seeing my scrap bag go down a bit. Then I sewed them all together. Still good. Then I cut them in half and in half again and then I realised that some of the patch werent even. Like some had a bigger width than others. So then I figured that once I sewed them together they would magically come right. But No! So by the end I was sewing them together and just thinking this will be a good cat quilt. Im really not happpy but I will add large borders to it and fold it nicely with the Americana quilt and the friendship star scrap quilt to await quilting.

I went to a book fair today and grabbed some very old (70s) quilting american magazines and even a book complete with plastic templates! I love these old magazines as once you get past the garish yellow and brown colours of the seventies the patterns are as good as any recent ones. Plus old magazines seem to have really good articles..go figure. I havent been able to get into the quilted dreses yet though, but who knows perhaps the fashion industry needs someone like me to reinvent this particular theme?

So from my books I have some ideas for my next two scrap quilts. The one with the Ohio stars pictured is all in scraps and then I found another one Im really impressed with (the one with the templates) that has a whirly gig type of pattern again all done in scraps and these look so impressive. I also have ecided (mostly) to do my reproduction fabrics in a double irish pattern wih tthe greys a sbackground fabric.

My Christmas photo for today is a snowman filled with blackmetal sand to make him stand that I made last year. yes I found my lost bag of decorations, but is it me, the heat, the tiredness or too early with decorations or not enough new or new handmade decorations but I feel particularly jaded with this years Christmas. My festive spirit is not with me at all and normally it is THE thing I love when it comes to seasons. I will have to get together with my girls and watch lots of snowy Christmasy Santa Claus DVDs. That is sure to get me in the mood (i Hope)

So enjoy your day wherever this bloggy message hits

love from crafty but not yet Christmasy Cherry