Cabin Friends

I finished Cabin Friends over the holidays.  I'm very pleased with it, though working with so many browns and greys made me long to do a nice bright project.

It was supposed to have snowflakes in the corners, but I wanted Christmas trees.  They were really fun to embellish, though I should have waited to bead until after quilting.  Live and learn!

I used beads as accents instead of French knots on the eyes to give it more shine.

I added some bling to Frosty's hatband as well.

And each log cabin block got a center bead. This wall-hanging is almost crusty with beads. This wall-hanging is almost crusty with beads. 8)

                       
I made a rod pocket in the back with three button-holes for the hooks.

My stitch-in-the-ditch turned out pretty well this time. I set my machine as slow as it would go, then ran it full out; it took forever, but I got much better results than normal.

Cabin Friends and French Braid Update

Work is almost complete on the Cabin Friends central applique. I just have to finish stitching the bird and give him some legs. I had to add some blocks to the side for the little bird to perch on. This part has been lots of fun; I'm almost sorry to be done with it.
And here's the central panel for the French Braid quilt. Design work is so much more taxing than just following a pattern. I second guess every single decision I make. I'm fairly pleased with the shape of the bunny, but now I think it needs some blue plaid accents, or maybe I should stitch it down with a pale blue blanket stitch for contrast, or something... So many decisions!

Cabin Friends Update and a Bunny Picture

I got lots of stitching done during the NFC Championship Game (Go Packers!) My little snowman now has a hat and most of a nose. I'll have to put some of the log cabin's blocks together before I can continue past the carrot, because the little bird extends past the green edge out onto the quilt.

I promised myself that I would sit down at the drawing board and come up with a bunny applique for the French Braid quilt. This is my third and best attempt so far. (The first one was a dead ringer for the rabbit in "Donny Darko" lol. NOT the look I was going for!)
My Mom is the artist in the family, not me, but I'm not done yet. I think the legs need to be a little longer, the body a little thinner, and the whole picture is the wrong size (though a Xerox machine will fix that.) It's good to have something on paper, though. I get nervous whenever I'm faced with a blank sheet of paper, and it's hard to force myself to actually make the attempt, so this is a big step forward for me. 8)

Cabin Friends Update - Thank Heavens for Football

Thank heavens for the NFL playoffs or I never would have gotten so much stitching done! Can you believe there are 84 linear inches of green trim to stitch on this block? The hat brim is just ironed on so far, but the blanket stitching on the snowman and the trim is all done.
The rest of the block shouldn't be nearly so much work or so boring. Wool really is fun to work with, but it's nice to change colors every once in awhile. I think he'll look even cuter once he has his big carrot nose in place. At least this is way more fun that making pinch pleats!

Cabin Friends Update

I just love working blanket stitch on felted wool. I got the snowman and the bird subunits completed, and I'm still working on the green border. After that, I'll attach the head to the background, complete the hat, add the carrot nose, and perch the bird on it. Piece of cake. ;) Then there's the rest of the quilt to do. At least I have the log cabin squares completed. Oh, and there will be Christmas trees in the corner squares, but I haven't even designed those yet. I replaced the very grayish kit fabric provided with a white/blue felted wool. It looks so much better! Whatever you do, don't try to bleach felted wool. My grey fabric turned pee yellow when I soaked it in bleach. Now wouldn't that have made a lovely snowman? :O

I'm going to post an update on "Cabin Friends" every Sunday. I haven't decided if I'm going to keep it or give it to my sister as a birthday present, but I'm going to make every attempt to get it done by May. I'm hoping regular blog updates will keep me on track.

On the Second Day of Christmas...

We had a really nice time in Shreveport: lovely Christmas Eve service, where Larry's Dad, Stan, sang in the choir, followed by a dinner party with Stan's girlfriend, Sabra, and her whole family. That might seem like a pretty remote connection, but even though this was the first time we had met anyone besides Sabra, they were very nice and we had lots of fun. 8)
Last year, my sister, Cindi, gave me a lovely felted wool snowman Christmas kit and a stack of coordinating flannel fat quarters. Here's the wool.
I loved working with the felted wool for the puppy dog pincushion. This looked like lots of fun too, only there were 36 (yes 36!) tiny little flannel log cabins that had to be made first. Thankfully, they are not at THIS stage anymore.

I worked and worked (wasn't I supposed to be resting?) and got all 36 of the little blighters done. Here is my first shot at arranging the log cabin blocks. You can see in the picture that the wool design extends out to cover a few of the log cabin blocks, so they have to be ready first. I'm only going to sew together the row of blocks that gets overlapped, so I don't have to embroider the center while holding the whole quilt top.

I'm going to replace the corner snowflakes with Christmas trees. I don't like the bright white snowflake color, and they look like way too much trouble anyway. I think Christmas trees will look much better.

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas Day. Remember, the 12 Days of Christmas only just STARTED yesterday, they run through the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6th. It always makes me so sad to see real Christmas trees pitched out on the afternoon of the 25th, just as the real Christmas season is getting started.