Handmade Update

I realized that when I belted out a hat for my brother, I'd officially made something for everyone on my christmas list this year! My mom loved her quilted wall hanging and her thrummed mittens (which fit! and she, being my mother, didn't mind the wonky parts where I made my thrums too fat and unevenly spaced them!) My uncle seemed happy with his sweater - and it did fit him (although the sleeves were a little long and I think the shoulder cap could have been shallower - it was a little bunchy when I sewed it in and I thought I blocked it out alright, but I dunno) but I think one of my favorite things that I made were these Noah's Ark ornaments for my SIL - I'll probably make her more for her birthday in January!

Quilting for Christmas

My mother wanted a quilt top wall hanging for Christmas and I wanted an excuse to buy fat quarters, so it was a perfect combination! Unfortunately, she's kind of into the country primitive look lately, and she mailed me a couple pictures she'd clipped of the color combinations she liked - it's that sort of tea stained looking red, white and blue kind of look. Not what I'd choose for sure, but it'll make her happy!

I learned how to do the quick piecing method (where you cut the squares then sandwich them and sew two diagonal seams 1/4" from the center, then cut down that center line, to make perfect half squares, and then you can flip them and do it again for perfect quarter squares - you end up with fantastic triangles but never have to deal with sewing triangles together at all!) It was SO much fun!This is about 20"x20". I think I'll put some thin batting inside and put a back on it and use ribbons to tie it to a rod. Or, if I don't do that, then I don't actually have to quilt the thing. But the back isn't attractive, so I feel like I ought to do something and if I put a back on it seems silly to not quilt it, you know? I'll figure it out before Christmas!

As cute as the day is long

A little stuffie I made my my youngest niece, for Christmas.

I can talk myself into anything

Every year for my father's birthday I make him date bars from the recipe my grandma used when he was a kid. Every year, for nearly his whole life he's gotten date bars - there was a brief stint where my grandpa made them after my grandma died, but he forgot one year and my mom got a little miffed about it and the next time I saw my grandpa he handed me the recipe. I got the message. So anyway, I'll be seeing him on Sunday for his birthday dinner and I made the date bars Friday after work. Except that what really happened was that I made him fig bars. i know. The whole time I was making them I felt like something wasn't quite right, but I just kept going. This morning my eyes flew open at 7am and I realized THOSE WERE FIGS!

and the stupid thing is that i TOTALLY know the difference between a fig and a date - but I think I just had it in my mind that I bought a pound of dried dates and I couldn't shake it. This morning I dug in the trash can and found the wrapper and it did indeed say "figs" - it wasn't even like I needed to confirm it because, again, I totally know the difference. duh. So this morning I made Date Bars 2.0 after making a run to Meijer to get the right stuff. I'm going to give him both versions because it's not like the figgie bars are bad - just not date bars!