From This to That

I LOVE Christmas! Thank You to Carol and Madame Samm for giving me an extra incentive to get started ahead of time! I am a Last Minute Millie for sure!

I found this little puppy at our local grocery store just the other day and he was so cute with his little stocking in his mouth that I had to bring him home with me. (and he was only 99cents!) He became the inspiration for my mini quilt. He is a Jingle Beanie and his name is "Presents." I didn’t have any fuzzy fabric in the house and was unable to get to the store… then I remembered that I bought some stocking stuffers last year on clearance and they were fuzzy socks- but I wouldn’t have bought white ones. Thankfully the socks came in a two pair pack – one pack had a red pair and an off white pair! I just trimmed off the elastic at the top and Voila! had some very stretchy fuzzy fabric.

After I found a similar puppy picture on Google, I cut him out and got to use my handy dandy new appliqué pressing mat- I LOVE THIS THING! I used little squares from my stash for the background and did some fun FMQ in the checkerboard squares. His stocking has a ball and a little present in it.

As I was auditioning squares for the puppy, I decided I really liked these squares together but not for the puppy. So I made these nine patch variation blocks- I think they will be two table toppers some day. I used a tossed nine patch tutorial.

This table runner is made from Verna’s Cutting Garden Runner recipe from Moda's BakeShop) I used part of a charm pack of Fruitcake by Basic Grey. This was a fun recipe to make!

This stocking is made from a very, old very holey quilt. I have been talking about making something out of it forever. It was very hard to take the scissors to it. At least now it can be displayed and enjoyed. The lace came from a blouse that I always wanted to fit into and never could.

I lined the stocking with some fabric from my stash and machine quilted around the hexagons to give it some stability. As I stitched, I thought about the quilter who took the time to hand stitch this quilt. The colored pieces were probably well loved scraps of clothing. What an honor to be a part of preserving it for some one else to love! This will be a Christmas gift for a dear friend.