Merry Christmas!

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Just want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart! Hopefully I will be back in full blogging swing in the new year! Lots of pictures to come then :) 

Umm hello December? Where did you come from?

Pin It Now! Oh my goodness! Where in the world did November go?!?!?! I apologize for my complete lack of posting, it has been absolutely crazy here at the Beaton household!

We just got finished moving from our teeny tiny dingy apartment into a light filled town-house with a gorgeous view of the Rocky Mountains, but I am still trying to find a place for everything. I did finally get my sewing desks brought over from the town-house and set up, I am still trying to figure out where to hoard  organize all my sewing supplies.

I have also been super busy at work as I had a student most of November, as well as a few of us nurses are making crocheted Elf Hats for our babies to wear on Christmas Eve/Day as a surprise to their parents. As well as being part of the group who is organizing how we are going to decorate the NICU this year as the last couple years have been truly awful.

To top it all off I went to a craft night my girlfriend Jenny hosted and ended up being invited to a cookie exchange which consisted of me making 6 dozen Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookies yesterday ( I love my mixer!!! So much less stress!) We are getting together tomorrow evening to exchange the different cookies and get all the recipes! Here is the Christmas Wreath I made at the craft night, can I just say that I love it and that its actually a nice bright white. This is just an awful picture!

I have gotten most of the quilting done on my brother in laws quilt "Go With The Flow" and will show a picture soon. Rubies, Diamonds will likely be done at my parents house on my mom's long arm when I get there. So I guess I am wrapping up the top and madly finishing it before I leave again! ( I fly out for a visit on the 5th!! :) so excited!!! Here is my cat Kalesh "helping" me quilt Go With The Flow

I just popped my Modern Christmas Table Runner into the post and I can't wait to show you it and the most adorable ornament ever that I made to go to my partner :)

I need to madly finish start and finish my scrappy mug rug for the swap to be mailed out on the third. I have a good idea of what I am going to do just need to find a smidgen of time to get going!

Thank goodness the Doll Quilt Swap 13 is not until Jan/Feb

 So all in all it has been absolutely crazy here and I am glad it is December. Still have a million and one things to do but hopefully since we are now finally done moving I can start getting more done :)

So everyone, Welcome to December! I hope you get lots stitched and I am hoping to post again on Monday with more quilty pictures.

Happy Stitching!

Kallie

Cathedral Finish and Modern Tablerunners

Pin It Now! Well hello!
Sorry it has been a bit since the last post, I have been a bit busy at work and we are packing to move to our new rental house at the end of next week. My husband and I are super excited as there is even a fireplace in the townhouse and tons of natural light in the dining area where my sewing will be!!! Hopefully this will help with being able to take some better pictures.

Modern Christmas Table Runner
I have been joining a couple of swaps through flickr which have been super fun! I am working on my Modern Christmas Table Runner over the last couple days and am falling in love with it. I am hoping to maybe make a pattern out of it so stay tuned! Here is a sneak peak of the table runner so far:

I am planning on some hand stitching around each section, need to finish the borders and I might do something in the middle of the star blocks so they do not look so empty. Maybe some candy canes?

This has been super fun to make and I can't wait to see my finished product.

Cathedral Windows Quilt Along
I have also finished my Cathedral Windows Quilt Along top. This project was so fun and easy! The tutorials are all very well explained and create such neat blocks. You should check out the flickr group here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/cathedral-window-sampler/  and see all the great colour options people have done.
Not sure if I showed you my final 2 blocks but here they are:

And here is the completed "top" I resized my blocks down to 9" finished, so the top is 31" square. Its going to make a super cute wall hanging.

I am off to go back to packing now before work. So I hope you all have a wonderful Saturday and can get lots of stitching done today!

Kallie

Updates, Swaps and a finish!!

Pin It Now! Well hello!
Welcome to the land of snow!! Yes I said it again, the dreaded "S" word. Well it has been snowing here in Calgary off and on since last Tuesday and so far it is here to stay. I have been doing some hand sewing and cutting in between work since I last posted as my lovely machine has been in the shop for a tune up. It has desperately needed one since I do so much sewing on in and as I need to get 3 big quilts finished and bound before Christmas!

We are also moving in the middle of november to a cute little town house we are renting from a co-worker. My husband and I are so excited as there is a cute fireplace in the living room and tons of natural light where all my sewing stuff is going. It is going to be a very, very busy month!

I also just signed up for two swaps -the Modern Christmas Table Runner Swap and the Scrappy Mug Rug Swap! Talk about ambitious!!! The sign-ups are closed for the table runner swap but there is still another day or so to get in on the scrappy mug rug- go here http://www.flickr.com/groups/1533394@N22/ and sign up!

I already have my design for the table runner sketched out although I won't show it quite yet. I need to get the fabrics first. But I am super excited for it and can't wait to show you.

If my partner comes by to snoop around, here is how I did my tree a couple years ago and I want to do it similar to this again this year if I can.

Here is my inspiration picture from flickr just for fun. Don't you love the bright colours?


1. reindeer mug rug, 2. merry christmas table topper, 3. Candy Cane Binding, 4. Snowman Runner, 5. Christmas Cathedral Windows, 6. 2011-11-13 Countdown To Christmas table runner top quilting and embroidery details, 7. Holiday Mug Rug, 8. Mug rug #1, 9. Mug Rug for Grant and Kelly, 10. Christmas Mug Rugs, 11. Snack Time!, 12. Merry Christmas Mug Rug, 13. Untitled, 14. savvy_4, 15. xmas runner final, 16. Christmas Mug Rugs, 17. christmas ornaments, 18. christmas ornaments, 19. table-runner received from Fiona!, 20. Tablerunner in all its glory!, 21. Modern Table Runner Swap Received, 22. MCTR swap, 23. Modern Christmas tablerunner at home, 24. Modern Christmas Table Runner - received from Vicky, 25. Winterkist Created with fd's Flickr Toys


Rubies, Diamonds and Garnets Too!
Well, I have officially completed my top for rubies, diamonds!! I am just waiting for my machine to come back from the shop so I can get started on quilting it. I am so excited and happy with this quilt. I plan on splitting the batting in order to be able to quilt this on my machine at home. So that will be interesting! Sorry for the crummy pictures but it has been very dreary here and I have bad lighting in our apartment!

Cathedral Windows Quilt Along
I am behind by two blocks at the moment since my machine is in the shop. But I have until the 15th of November to make sure all the blocks are complete and together. Again I have been making mine ~9 1/2" instead of the 12 1/2" they started out as.

I love the little mushroom print!

Is this not fun!?

 Now the block above is definitely my favourite!!! It is so much fun, easy to do and just stunning. I have plans for this type of block so stay tuned and you shall see what I have in mind!

I {heart} Snow!

I believe I had shown some of this ages ago. Well, it is now complete, quilted and bound. As much as I want to keep this one for myself, and had originally planned on doing so, I know my mother-in-law will love it just as much as me because she adores snowmen. This is a wonderfully soft flannel by Shelly Comiskey called I Love Snow.  I followed the pattern they designed for the fabric as I loved it so much and for once I did not change anything and let the fabrics speak for themselves. 

 Vintage Plates
My LQS does what is called a Freebie 15 each year. The basis is that you get a free block "kit" each month if you bring in the previous block completed on the 15th of each month. There is also "companion" blocks you can purchase for 10$ each month as well. Doing both gives you a large bed quilt. We don't know what the finished quilt will look like so it is a mystery! This year just started in October and I have the first blocks completed. The pattern has been names vintage dishes and apparently will all be done in sherbert colours. I think it is going to make a wonderful spring/summer quilt.

Freebie #1

Companions #1

I thought this was hilarious and couldn't help but share it!

Happy Stitching!

Kallie

Cathedral Windows

Pin It Now! I have been busy working on my Cathedral Windows Quilt Along Blocks! I am all caught up now and am super excited to see the next block. I am doing mine in fall themed colours. To see my first two blocks go to the previous post. My third and fourth blocks are below. Huge thank you to Bree from http://my-crafty-crap.blogspot.ca/search/label/cathedral%20window%20quilt%20along who is hosting this wonderful quilt along and who helped me with re-sizing my block #3 to 9 1/2"!

Block 3

Block 4

Aurifil Block of the Month

Just finished the October stitchery from Aurifil. It is so adorable and fun I had to stitch it right away!

Cohen's Baby Quilt
So I have completely finished Cohen's baby quilt! I was super excited to get this one done. I started off fighting the quilt by attempting some free motion quilting, hated it, ripped it out, tried a stencil, hated it, ripped it out and then just stared at it for a bit and realized I should just stitch in the ditch as there is such good lines on this quilt and it would really stand out on the backing so that is what I did! Stuck with stitching in the ditch, and oh my do I love my walking foot. It is fantastic when quilting so nothing shifts or puckers, especially since I was working with flannel.

All done sitting under Baby Love for my niece Kaitlyn. Both need to get washed and shrunk and will be given to their new owners at the baby shower for Cohen's quilt and Christmas for Kaitlyns. 

Love this quilt! It is so cuddly and boyish!!

Sorry for the awful picture but you can see the quilting a bit here. Love the grey polka dot flannel as the back. 

So glad I put the strip across the back and his name on it. Just adds so much to the back I think! 

Well thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a lovely evening!! 

Happy Stitching

Kallie

Updates as promised!

Pin It Now! It has been cold out here in Calgary all day today and is currently zero degrees with a feels like of -4 celcius and its snowing off and on! So I have been a hermit all day and cancelled my plans that involved leaving the house!! Its too cold!! Now I promised you lots of updates and pictures today so here they are!!!

First, the turkey turned out lovely. Doesn't it look scrumptious!! (let me tell you that it was!)

Rubies, Diamonds and Garnets
Progress is a bit slow right now but I only have to applique 2 more big pieces (one hexie and one dresden) and then applique the 4 centers on the dresdens! So I am getting very close!!

Done this one!!

See how I need to add the centres to the middle of the dresden?

Only two more empty spots!! I am so excited it is almost complete!!

 Cohen's Baby Quilt
My girlfriend at work just had a beautiful baby boy on October 2nd who is now named Cohen. A couple of us plan on getting together next month with her for a quiet lunch, cuddle and small baby shower. I was really happy Cohen was a boy as I bought the kit for him before we found out gender!! Whew! The pattern is Baby Cakes and the fabric is Wild Ones that I got as a kit from Connecting Threads. It is a lovely soft flannel which I hope will be super cuddly for Cohen. I was planning on quilting it today however I found I did not have enough batting and I was NOT going out today. SO hopefully I will pick some up tomorrow and get this lovely quilt finished!

Whole Top

Close up of the fun boy prints!

Poor picture of the backing of the quilt. Please ignore the wrinkles!!

I am in love with this part of the back!!!! I fussy cut his name out of the side and corner setting fabric from the front and fused it to the back. I then machine free motioned around them to make sure they stay on. This just makes me so happy that I could put his name on the quilt like this!

 Cathedral Windows Quilt Along

Have you heard of the Cathedral Windows Quilt Along being hosted by Bree at http://my-crafty-crap.blogspot.ca/ and Pellon. If not please click on the widget to the top right of the blog and it will take you to all the fun info!

Now I have never done Cathedral Windows block before but a quilt make out of it is on my eventual to make list. I have done the first 2 out of 3 blocks so far (block one twice actually!!) and they were super easy!! The tutorials were fantastic and easy to follow. There is a flickr group as well to show off you blocks for a chance at a lovely prize!!

Block 1 

Start of Block 2 

Finish of Block 2! This is a bit more truer to the colours. 

Tree of Life!
So yesterday I showed you a couple pictures of half square triangles that I had made. Below are mine and what I received so far in our swap ( I still get 4 more baggies of half square triangles.

These ones were mine. See the red/yellow triangle with the wee flower in it? Well I bought the last 2.5 m as I am in love with it and want it as a backing or border on a quilt!!

This is the book we are using. It is a great book with lots of patterns that work well with swaps of half square triangles. We are doing the Tree of Life Wallhanging

Such a lovely pattern! I likely will not be done any time soon as I have a ton of on the go projects but it will wait patiently for it's turn! 

Randomness
Now I had made some Apply Jelly a couple weeks ago and it did not set as thick as I would have liked. So I have been trying to figure out other ways to use it in case those who get it for christmas don't want to use it on toast. And oh boy I found a couple ideas! I have been putting some on my cinnamon buns which is sooooo yummy! I also plan on trying it on my new favorite carrier for jam which is ice cream, and my mom suggested to mix it in with oatmeal. Add some cinnamon and apple jelly and it will be MUCH better then the store bought stuff.

Aaron (my hubby) decided to see if Kalesh liked milk. See the little cap in the corner? He finished it off and started trying to get the rest in the milk jug! Silly kitty!

And here is Nox cuddling with his mousie on his cat post this morning.


Hope you have a wonderful and warm evening!

Happy Stitching
Kallie