Quilts from 2024 and What's in Store for 2025

I actually the quietness of January.  Because I live in the Northeast, we tend to get a lot of snow every winter.  This makes me want to stay in and find peace in the down times.  It's a much slower pace of life, maybe because of the darkness.  My evernings are filled with watching tv or reading.  

Winter is a good time to spend days in the sewing room or stamping rooms without any fear of missing out on anything - Ha ha.  

Last year I worked on finishing up some UFO's - my unfinished quilts and projects.  Sadly, I only got 4 more quilts finished!  And there's still a LOT more in the (naughty) pile!

Here are my 4 finished quilts from 2024:

1.  The Bowtie quilt for my granddaughter

2.  The Irish Chain quilt for my daughter's new home

3.  The Red Quilt for myself so that I can have a quilt in every color

4.  The Flowered Chandelier quilt for one of my friends

My goal this year is to finish up at least 6 more so that I can start on some new quilting projects. I have lots of fabric fat quarters and jelly rolls that are ready to get used!  I have been making each of my friends a quilt, and the list is only half complete.  So there's work to do - LOL.

This weekend I'm going on a sewing retreat and I hope to get some more things finished.  But we'll see.  
 

Bird Ornament

Each month I get together with ladies from my Stampin Up demonstrators group.  We take turns meeting at different houses.  It was my turn and I made them each a little ornament using papers from One Horse Open Sleigh and bird cut outs from Nests of Winter. 

Each one is a little bit different.  I cut the circle shapes out of chip board and 2 pieces of designer papers to cover the front and the back of each one.  I fussy cut out the birds and added a stamped saying, a small ornament topper some twine.  

The designer papers make it look like the birds are "in the woods."  I think if I was going to make these again, I would put them onto the wooden ornament shapes.  That would make them a little bigger and more interesting.

One-third of my downstairs is set up for making crafts and having people over.  Here is the set-up for my demonstrator friends to come over and make a couple of crafts. 

 I enjoy my crafting time with friends.  :) 

 

11th Annual Ornament Exchange

This year we had two new girls attend our annual Ornament Exchange, with a total of 9 ladies.  We love our special night together; it's really one of the highlights of the Christmas season for me.  

My son is usually here to get our photos, but this year we were on our own and had to take selfies.  

The night begins in the kitchen, where we have appetizers, dinner and maybe even a little Christmas cocktail.  Everyone brings something to share and the variety is always so exciting.

Don't you just love Amy's dress?  Seriously, I would wear that if it was mine.  :)

Here we are snacking and waiting for everyone to arrive.

After dinner, we move to the family room and we each take turns telling about our ornament - how we got the idea, how we made it, etc.  Linda had taken a trip to the German market and ended up making us each a little Scandinavian horse.  

This is Kim and she made some pretty little trees that she sewed and added sewing embellishments onto.  

Amy found some greenery and made a cinnamon stick Christmas tree embellished with buttons.  Although I don't have photos of all of the ornaments (not sure why), they were all amazing!  The ladies spent so much time and effort into making their ornaments.

After our exchange, I have another ornament craft ready to make at the crafting table!  We wrap up the night crafting, chatting and just having a great time.  

I am honored to have these wonderful crafty friends and each year I can celebrate that by putting their ornaments on my tree.  Have you ever been to an Ornament Exchange?  Have you ever thought about hosting one?  You just need a few crafty friends to get started.  

 

Making Nativity Ornaments

Every year, I host an Ornament Exchange for my crafty friends.  I think this year is the 11th year!  We all look forward to it and plan our ornaments throughout the year.  

This year I made a Nativity wooden ornament.  I have been collecting clothes pins for a couple of years now and decided it was time to make the project.

I found some Christmas carol papers that I cut out and glued to the backgrounds.  I sanded the edges and sponged them to give them a little bit of an antique look.

I had a package of wooden ornaments and one of wooden hearts and I used them for the background.  I painted the wooden cut outs and stained all of the clothespins, which was kind of messy.  

The little clothespins were from Michaels and they made the perfect baby Jesus.

Joseph was painted green and Mary was painted blue to give some color.  And I had a roll of burlap ribbon that I cut and used for the swaddling cloths to keep baby Jesus warm.

Mary gets a jute rope bow and lastly I added some buttons and sparkly embellishments to finish them off.  

I ordered the rusty stars online and used some old Stampin Up wire to attach them to the ornaments.

There a LOT of glue from my glue gun used to hold everything all together.  

I made about 20 of these so that I had extras to give out at Christmas and some to put in my shop.  They took a couple of weeks to get all of the steps made to complete them.  But I like how they came out.  The girls at the Exchange loved them. 

But then I had another idea...

Remember the old quilt that I picked up at the Vintage market in the spring?  I cut out some hearts from it and sewed along the edge to hlep them keep their shape.  

I thought that the quilted heart would make a good background for the clothespins.  I decided to use the older vintage clothespins for this craft.

Here is what they look like and I have to say that they really have a vintage look to them!

The clothespins have been well used and I think that adds to the project.  I didn't paint Mary and Joseph this time, but left them plain.  

And I had to glue the star onto the quilted piece because the background wasn't stiff enough to hold the wire.

I didn't get a chance to use or give any of these out this year, so I will save them for next year.  :)

Which Nativity ornament do you prefer?  The one with the wooden background or the quilted background?

 

Two More Quilts Finished in 2024 (#3 and #4)

Before 2024 was out, I finally finished up two more quilts that I had been working on.  Here is the Red Quilt that I made using jelly rolls.  

I added in some pinwheels to give it some interest.  I think it adds to the quilt.  

I free motioned some roses in the quilting.  I found a rose pattern in one of Pat Sloan's books.  I practiced doodling it for about 2 weeks, then quilting it in.  I think the rose quilt pattern matches nicely with the pretty flowered fabrics in this quilt.  

I'm going to keep this quilt for myself.  It's not a Christmas quilt, just red.  I know it's simple, but I love how it turned out.  

This is my second Chandelier quilt.  I made it using some greens and flowered fabrics.  It's for one of my friends who loves to be outside and in her garden.  

For the machine quilting, I free motioned some large flowers onto the quilt.  I love the bit of whimsy that it adds to the piece.  

On the back I added a couple of strips of patchwork.  I like how it breaks up the back and gives it a little visual interest.

I'll be giving it to her in a couple of weeks for her birthday.  I don't think she reads my blog, but I guess we'll find out.  LOL

 

Reindeer Fun and Forever Forest

Finishing up my Christmas cards, I had a class where we featured the Reindeer Fun stamp set.  Every year I buy the sets with deer in them.  I think I see a pattern here!  

For this card, I fussy cut the reindeer image out of the designer papers.  I added him to a couple of circles from Spotlight on Nature dies and then stamped a tree from the set.  I like the little banner of festive lights that comes with this set.  

The card is actually an easel card and the ladies who come to the class were impressed with it.  I got the idea from Janet Phillips.  

I saw this card on Pinterest by Vicki Boucher and I love the neutral colors on it.  The tree die comes with this set and has all kinds of possibilities for a wintery scene.  

I colored in the deer using Stampin blends and cut him out with the coordinating die.  I added some die cut presents to make his scene more festive.  

He is prancing through the forest into his winter wonderland.  It doesn't get much better than this.  :)

This third card looks like a snowy mountain scene.  It reminded me of the tall mountains out west in the Grand Teton Park.  I found the sample online by Su Mohr and knew right away that I wanted to make this card.

The trees are die cut in copper and really stand out against the mountains,.  Both of the die cuts are from Forever Forest.  
 

I plan to use this set again to simulate some of the landscapes that I saw in my National Parks trip this past year.  Everyone loved it.  

Here is a little ornament that I made using a package of wooden cutouts that I had lying around (Ha ha).  I cut out the deer image from the designer papers with the die cut and then cut him 2 more times from plain cardstock.

I mounted the layers together to give the reindeer extra layers of thickness.  It is pretty much made the same way as the card.  

I have been experimenting on adding other designer paper images to the wooden cut-outs.  There are more to come.  LOL

Where Have I Been

In late September, through the first week of October, I went on a National Parks tour.  It was great weather, I met great friends, hiked and took some awesome photos.  Near the end of the trip, I got covid and had to go into the hospital in Jackson Hole, WY, while the rest of the group finished up the tour without me!

After I finally got home, I was sick for weeks and couldn't go to work or make any craft projects.  I'm fine now, but I've gotten a bit behind on my blog posts.  No sooner after getting better, I somehow got the flu and was sick through the holidays for a few weeks.  

Now that the "sick" days are over, and I hope they are, I'm working on finishing up projects, cleaning and sorting and can't wait to start some new ones!

Maybe I will even make a wall hanging or something to commemorate my trip.