My Janome is back and sewing just fine. I've been FMQ on the Viking Murder Mystery quilt. I just finished quilting the center of the quilt this morning, so now it's just quilting around the outside edges left! There is still a lot of area left to quilt, but the major wrestling of the quilt is over.
I finished the last two grandkid Christmas gifts this week, so all the grands gifts are finished and wrapped. I still have adult gifts to finish, and a couple still to start, but progress is happening.
I am sidetracking my Christmas projects a bit. I promised DD#2 a huge hot pad to put on her kitchen island, and and although she's lived in the house three years, I still haven't delivered. I want to make a double sided topper, with Thanksgiving on one side and Christmas on the other. I think I made the center of the Thanksgiving side two years ago, and I cut the borders but never sewed them on. I had several ideas for the Christmas side, but never pieced any of them, so the project just sat. DD#2 is hosting Thanksgiving this year, and with Thanksgiving being a little later, and me actually having Christmas well in hand, I decided no more procrastinating (or proCRAFTinating) on this.
I sewed the border on the Thanksgiving side, and instead of any of the ideas I had been debating for the Christmas side, I opted to bust a couple charm packs I had in stash instead.
It's not fancy, but the charm packs had some really fun Christmas gnome fabrics, and decided to let the fabrics speak for themselves. Now I've just got to layer it, baste it and quilt it, and I've got some black and white gingham ready to bind it with, which I think will look good with both sides. My large hot pad I used two layers of wool batting on, on this one I'm going to use one layer of cotton batting with a layer of Insulbrite. I don't have enough wool batting scraps to do this one with wool, and although I think two layers of cotton batting would work just fine, I have some Insulbrite so I'll use it. The main goal is to be able to put this on any surface and cover it will hot serving dishes and not damage the surface of whatever it's on. I don't know about you, but before I made a huge hot pad, I was always running out of potholders to protect surfaces when hosting for a crowd. I usually ended up getting the last couple things out of the oven with towels, and then not having a safe place to put the last of the casserole dishes. Having one large hot pad that everything goes on works much better for me. The last couple times DD#2 hosted, she borrowed my hot pad, which is the wrong size for her needs. When I'm hosting, I set the food on top of the washer and dryer, which are in my kitchen. So my large hot pad is a huge rectangle. DD#2 has a kitchen island, and this big square will fit nicely to one side of her kitchen sink. With Thanksgiving falling late this year, I think I should be able to get it done with time to spare. This is not a surprise, so I can show it on the blog without a risk of a surprise being ruined.
If any of you are sewing for Christmas, I hope you are making headway on your list too. it's a busy time of year for everyone!
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