NATIVITY QUILT

I have finished the quilt. It is all quilted and the binding is a self binding. I think I like doing that instead of going through all the hassle of doing an extra binding. The extra fabric is there already.




All you have to do is, cut the exta fabric off the quilt leaving one inch of fabric and batting. Now cut off 1/2 inch of the batting. Now fold the fabric once over and then again onto the quilt front. The half inch batting left inside will stuff the binding and make it look nice..

Tuck the corners very neatly by folding down the triangle piece in the corner twice and butting the two ajoining seams close to it and pin. Now sew it all around, doing the same treatment to the other three corners. It looks good to me..yipeeee, no more binding. I don't see any difference, except that the seam of the binding is on the front instead of on the back and you can do a better job on it as you can see it as you sew. Oh use you quilting foot that makes the fabric feed good.


The back has the three kings on their camel. I don't know if you can see it clearly.
The quilt has a very calming effect.

NATIVITY QUILT STARTING

I thought I'd do a bit of quilting and started yesterday with this lovely panel of the Nativity. I am making this for my MIL who will turn 96 in a couple days.

I did a simple 9 patch and 4 patch and worked the extra angles and stars in. MY friend did it before me so I had a pic to go by and just changed a few things.



Here you can see the parts worked into the nine patch and some exta to make it work.

Here is the first stage of all the parts put together. I used all sorts of different star fabrics that I had.




Here it is all complete with borders. Tomorrow I will quilt it on the quilter and bind it.




I thought I'd show you something yummy as well. This is a German dish called "Frickadelli" (sp). I had that cooking while I was sewing. We must eat.

GIANT CLOTHES PINS (TOLE PAINTING)

Everybody seems to be painting giant cloths pins, me too lol. I just couldn't resist. Here I am painting santas and things distract me so I have to go do them. These large clothes pins can be used as recipes card holders or bag clips. I prefer to use them as bag closures or anything that needs a cute hold-it- together.





You can paint just about anything on these. Jingle bells, snowmen, santa, elves, angles. I had these little patterns already so I used them. You could use these to clip a bag containing a gift. Cats would look read cute or even a dog....
I opened a shop in Etsy
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5315586&order=price_desc

GINGER BREAD ALL DRESSED UP

OK, the little darlings are done. You have seen the flat look, now here is the 3- d effect. These are cut out of 1/4 inch birch plywood and are about 6 inches tall. These are a nice size for ornaments.






I bought them and the pattern at the Artist club and they are a Kay Quist pattern. Kay designs such beautiful whimsy and I love it. I still have lots to paint, so keep tuned.

I am trying to figure out how people make tutorials as I wouldn't mind giving some technique lessons...painting is such joy.


Her is a pic of just the two at the end to get a better view. I can see now I need to clean up a bit here and there and glaze a wash here and there and I need a highligh streak on one of the candy canes....

GINGER BREAD IN THE BEGINNING

I have started again. I might post some mini lessons as I go along. Here are some of my gingermen all basecoated. They look flat and boring. Now the process of shading and highlighting and making them 3-d will start.