A Midnight Clear - A Christmas Quilt Finish

 

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas! We had six kids (4 step-grands ages 14, 11, and 9yo twins) and our two Littles (age 9 and 6) and three adults (our daughter, son-in-law, and his Mom, Florence) visiting on one of the warmest Christmas day we've ever had. The kids were sweet, and we had good food and good times - a truly lovely, memorable day.

The quilt and the embroidered pillow were gifted to my daughter and son-in-law for Christmas The quilt was inspired by a simple pattern on Susies-Scraps.com found via this post on Jocelyn's blog. You can read more details about the quilt in my previous post and the pillow (from an embroidery pattern by Joy) in this post.

Blowing in the wind

The rich dark green of the sashing and binding was the inspiration for the name "A Midnight Clear".

I made this little mug rug for Florence, who has become an unexpected friend!

The pattern also has a pumpkin version - you can find it on Etsy right here.

Edyta Star's Silent Night is my Christmas project for next year, inspiration by Karen - go see her beautiful flannel version here. My daughter has already claimed it based on this one un-pieced block!

This post is linked to the following:

Kate's Life In Pieces

Melva's Melva Loves Scraps

Brenda's Monday Musings

Project Quilting 12:2 - Fussy Cuts

It is Season 12 of Project Quilting, and my first year participating has been fun so far! The challenge for this post was fussy cuts, one of my favorite things to do and one that I do very infrequently.

I had a piece of fabric purchased years ago that was cut from a pajama set. I have forgotten the designer, maybe Heather Ross? At any rate this lounging girl is adorable with her magazines and kitty.

I basically made a block around the fussy cut, then built a pillow cover around the block. The front is backed with some light batting. I embroidered a running stitch inside the fussy cut with rich brown floss and then quilted in the ditch. 

The cats and books backing is another fabric I had in my stash.

Jack thought his tail would add to the photo, so I included it.

Here is a closer look at the hilarious cat-related book titles

Jack has claimed this pillow since I first began working on it, so I'm not sure that I will give it away.

More information about Project Quilting 12 can be found by clicking on the button in my sidebar. Be sure to take a look at Pieceful Wendy's adorable fussy cut cats mini here as well as others' projects in the linkup right here. 

Vintage Christmas Pillow and Peppermint Twist Blocks

This Christmas pillow features Lori Holt's Vintage Christmas cross stitch. I believe I started this after Christmas last year and finished during the summer. This morning I put a backing of plaid Christmas flannel to make it cozy.

In my last post I mentioned the Peppermint Twist pattern by Margot Languedoc and how I wanted to use the blocks to surround the Lynx Star block that I had just finished. I started the blocks, and I really like them! Margot has a clever way of making the smaller twists as cornerstones with the sashing, and I love the effect. Instead of incorporating these blocks with the Lynx Star block, I may put Lynx Star on the back of this quilt so that each side can be a "star"!

There are a LOT of HSTs to square up (one of my least favorite tasks!), but when the block goes together it is worth the tedium.

I'm using mainly Aurora fabric from Moda, the same as I used for Lynx Star, as well as some gingham from my stash.

At night I'm working on a stamped cross stitch table topper called "Village in the Snowfall" that I purchased from Herrschners. The kit came with plenty of white floss, but I decided to try one of DMC's twinkly threads - Mouline Etoile in Blanc - and I like the hint of sparkle (hard to see in the photo!)