....and we're up to 56

Worked on arcs on Tuesday with a bunch of friends for a whole day and in the evening with another friend. Yesterday afternoon I started 6 more and finished them off this afternoon. I am now up to 56 arcs finished. Half of them have the warm colour in the background and half the cool colour. They look very pretty in the buckets. 84 to go....it really isn't too bad once you get going :-).

I'm up to 32!

I think I have these arcs down to a science (or an art?). I've experimented with different ways of doing them and have it working pretty slick :-). Here are arcs #21 - 26

....and #27 - 32. That makes eighty-eight to go.

All of these arcs have at least one Kaffe Fasset fabric in them. Good thing each arc is different or it would get quite boring.

A doll party

My two friends and I met for our Christmas get together on Wednesday. We had plans to meet before Christmas and were snowed out both times! So, we finally managed to pick the one sunny day this week with no flurries in the forecast and had a great time. We have all been busy with dolls lately and brought them along so they could all meet each other :-). Don't they look like they're having fun? Click on the photo to enlarge it. The two tiny dolls at either end are Reliable dolls made in Canada. The left one on the chair is made in Italy. Many of the baby dolls are made by Zapf Creations.

Lynn made this cute little clothespin holder for me! Isn't it just the cutest?

I had made giant pin cushions for Lynn and Amy from the Moda bakeshop site. They are really cool and definitely giant!

Amy's pin cushion:

Lynn's pincushion:

My American Girl doll, Kit and Lynn's handmade doll:

Lynn's doll from her childhood! Her Mom made this dress for her with the same fabrics as a dress that she made for Lynn. What a treasure to still have this!

We went shopping at Value Village in the afternoon and found these cute clothes in the baby section (3 months size) which fit Lynn's Betsey Wetsey doll.

What fun!! We hope to get together one of these days and make clothes for our dolls. We have a huge collection of patterns between the three of us as well :-)

Indian Orange Peel Night in Canada......

We got together with six of us to work on our Indian Orange Peel homework on Tuesday evening. Now I don't know what to call our evening anymore....QNIC (Quilting Night in Canada) or PNIC (Peeling Night in Canada) or IOPNIC LOL. In any case, we did peel and got a few things done :-).

My treadle got a workout while I was sewing 8 arcs simultaneously:

Pat picked up this wonderful storage bin at the Bibles for Missions thrift shop on Tuesday. They are meant for storing Christmas decorations. There are two sets of two, but they snap onto each other....perfect for this project for taking along!

Pat and Gail busy sewing and cutting:

Deb's first arc that she did at the class:

Deb ironing fabrics for her four patches:

This project requires thinking!! Christine and Deb are contemplating something :-)

Christine's accomplishments of the evening:

You need to be well organized with this project and remain organized as well!

Christine:
Chris and Pat choosing fabrics for four patches:

Is this a warm colour or a cool colour?

We had four ironing stations set up and didn't blow any breakers!!

The arcs I worked on on Tuesday evening and completed this morning. Yikes, is that a warm background AND warm points arc I see on right side?

Did four more this evening, so I'm up to 20 altogether now. Next batch and I'll have less than 100 to go :-)

Corn and Potato Steamers

For my daughter and daughters in law, I made these microwave corn and potato bags for Christmas. They were fun to make and are great to use. It is essential that you use 100% cotton fabric, cotton batting without scrim and cotton thread to avoid fires in your microwave! Here are the corn bags:

These were simple to make, just a long rectangle with an overlap at the top:

The potato bags were more work. They are lined halfway inside with potato fabric as well. I had a fat quarter of chili pepper fabric and with some creative cutting and piecing, managed to get a round one for myself to heat tortilla shells in the microwave. It's supposed to keep the shells warm at the table too:

Here is one of the potato bags with the flap opened up:

The pattern is by Legacy Patterns and called "Baked Potato & Tortilla Steamer". They also have a pattern for the corn steamer, but I did not like the way it was put together. This is the corn steamer made with the pattern. It is made in one big finished rectangle and then the sides are folded up and top stitched. However, the lining shows through at the sides which I didn't like. So, a couple of my friends and I put together the other version...much less fiddle fussing and looks finished.

Doll clothes for Kara, Lauren and Leah

This year it was Kara's turn to get a doll bed, quilt and diaper bag from Grandma. She turned 3 in October and I gave her the doll last year. I was running out of time (I got finished at 1:30 Christmas Eve and the party was starting at 3:00 :-). I dug through my drawer of 2" strips and chose pinks and greens and yellows and sewed them to the batting and backing "quilt as you go" style. Pink binding around the quilt and it's finished!

This is the back of the quilt:

A sleep sack for Kara's baby. Lauren and Leah got one of these 2 years ago, so now all their dollies are matching:


The doll bed and quilt:

Diaper bag with fitted cloth diapers, plastic toy lotions, powders, spoon, fork, etc.

The rest of the diaper bag goodies:

Granddaughter Lauren is 6 and got her baby three years ago already. But which Mommy doesn't like a new party dress for her baby eh? The fabric was leftover from my niece's bridesmaids' dresses:

Leah (4) got a dark green velvet dress for her baby:

...a few more arcs

Finally made a couple more arcs for my Indian Orange Peel class homework...lots to go!! But, at least we're making progress. Now that Christmas sewing is finished, I can concentrate on keeping these moving. We are getting together with a bunch of us to work on them together; we need a support group :-).