A quilt for my brother

This year I made a jelly roll race Christmas quilt for my brother out west.  Last year I finished one for my other siblings.  These are so much fun to make.  And they use up some stash :-).

jelly roll race quilt for Jim

Found this lovely bright poinsettia print for the backing

My friend Chris who lives across the street quilted this with a new Christmas tree pattern she got.

Lots of fun prints....they are like an "I spy"

Siblings Christmas

My sister from BC came to visit for a family wedding in November and we decided to get the house decorated for Christmas early and have a siblings Christmas on December 9th.  I have never had my Christmas tree up this early ever!  We have not celebrated Christmas together for many years, so this was the perfect opportunity.  

The day before the party, we picked up three of my granddaughters from school and they helped us decorate the tree and put up our village and playmobil Christmas sets. (Click on the photos to enlarge for better view.) 

Three granddaughters, Lauren, Leah and Kara, decorating with Aunt Thea

We enjoyed supper together and played a game and brought them home again.

On the morning of the day, my sister and I got the turkey dinner all prepped and wrapped up lots of gifts to place under the tree and set the table with our late Mom's china dishes.  We also had lots of candles and pretty Christmas napkins.

The china that my Mom and Dad received as an engagement gift in 1954 is still being used.  Here is my sister, Thea, getting the table all nicely set.

The Christmas village

My Mom embroidered this table cloth for me for Christmas probably 40 years ago.  The log cabin table topper was one of the first things I made when I started quilting in 1989. 

The stockings were hung to be filled later for the grandkids

Gifts arranged under the tree

Even the weather was picture perfect with a pretty layer of snow!

Last year I got together with a couple of quilt friends and we exchanged 2 1/2" strips to make a Christmas jelly roll race quilt.  You can read about that here.  When we decided to have Christmas together with my siblings, I started to think about a gift for them and the thought of a quilt crossed my brain!  A couple more friends wanted to make jelly roll races this year and I again joined in thinking I could make one as a gift for someone.  When we finished cutting strips, there were enough to make two quilts.  But, I needed three!  I remembered the top from last year which had not been quilted yet and ran over to my neighbour across the street, Chris Bogart to see if she could quilt three quilts in the next week!  She is a long arm quilter.   Yes, she was game and told me to bring the first one over.  She quilted all three of them in short order and I sat down to hand stitch binding in between all the other busyness of Christmas.  It was so much fun surprising them with their very own quilt this year!! 

This is the quilt for my brother Bas.  I chose the darker strips for his quilt.

This is the backing for my brother's quilt.  It was quilted with a beautiful snowflake pantograph

Close up of a few strips

This quilt was for my sister, Thea.  I added bright lime green squares between each square when sewing them together.

Close up of the strips

It was quilted with an awesome mittens and skates pantograph

The quilt for my sister Eva

Close up of the strips

This one was quilted with a holly design as she is an avid gardener.

All in all, it was a very memorable and relaxed Christmas.  I now need to make another Christmas jelly roll race for myself and maybe one for my other brother who also lives a long ways away and could not be with us.

Jolly Little Christmas

In January 2017, Lorna, of Sew Fresh quilts started up a sew along featuring Christmas blocks. Every two weeks a block was released. I have posted several times about my progress on sewing these blocks and I got a little carried away :-).  In early December, I got caught up on the blocks and then put some up on the design wall to make myself a lap quilt for Christmas.  I ended up sewing a few more blocks to make the colours work.  The Sinterklaas I had made earlier, was too dark for these blocks and I also had to make another ornament block so I could put them all along the top.  It just didn't look right putting another block in the middle.  Here is a photo of the lap quilt.  It is not quilted yet, but I hope to pin baste it very soon and get it quilted so it's ready for next year's Christmas.

lap quilt for myself

I had lots of blocks left!  I had made two more Sinterklaas blocks but one was too busy.  So, with these two squares I made pillows for two of my kids that still do the Dutch tradition with their kids :-).  

Ben's Sinterklaas pillow

Amanda's Sinterklaas pillow

 I then laid out 16 more blocks on the wall and got another lap quilt out of it for my daughter in law, Becky:

I made two more blocks, Santa and Sinterklaas to reflect Eric's Dutch heritage and Becky's Canadian heritage :-).

Here are a few close ups of the quilt.  I quilted it with wavy lines as Lorna quilts the vast majority of her quilts...quick, effective and doesn't take away from the lovely blocks.

The back of Becky's quilt

I still had a lot of blocks left so I made some pillows.  The first two pillows were for Becky and Eric:

I used two stocking blocks and added a couple of white strips around to make them large enough to fit the 16" x 26" pillow forms from IKEA.

Mittens

I finally found a great use for the Charlie Brown Christmas fabric I bought a few years ago. It was perfect for the back of Becky and Eric's pillows :-)

I then made two pillows for myself to change around the fall covers for my livingroom pillows.

my pillows

back of my pillows

I still have four poinsettia blocks left to make a table runner, but I ran out of time...they will be for next Christmas :-).  This was such an enjoyable quilt along. Thanks so much Lorna for a very fun year preparing for Christmas!

I'm going to attempt to link up at Sew Fresh Quilts'  Let's Be Social :-).  

Snowmen for Christmas!

Check out the cool snowmen/ladies I got for Christmas :-)

Aren't they the cutest??  I had admired them at my daughter in law's house and she knit like a mad lady to get a whole set done for me for Christmas...they still felt warm when I opened them LOL!  Thanks Heather.  I LOVE my snowman family!!