Happy Holidays!

This makes for a great day to do a little writing, since it feels like the whole city shut down.  It’s very calming and I like it. 

Just thought I’d post what I received for the Holiday Swap at the last PMQG meeting.
I got this AWESOME bag and little pouch:

Here’s the pretty yellow inside, it has a hard bottom too so it can sit on it’s own:

I was super happy with this… and I REALLY needed a bag like this too ~ thanks so much Tamara King!  You rocked it! Although I think I would have been happy with anything on that gifty table, there are some amazing creative types in our group! 

This is what I made my swap partner:

It’s a pillow cover… I fell in love with the deer fabric.  So Northwest. I might have to get some of my own! 

Quilting Start

I also started quilting the hexie dragon quilt this week!!  After a few weeks of practicing hand quilting, I’ve decided to free motion quilt most of it with my machine. 

It’s a basic Singer dometic machine with a darning foot attached.  I set the stitch length to zero and away I go.  I used to tape over the feed dogs, but I find it doesn’t seem to matter on this machine if I do or not. 

I went around the whole outer edge of the patterned hexies, and around the dragon itself.  Then I started a wood-grain looking pattern… I think it’s looking pretty good, but I’m concerned about the color of the thread.  I want the wood grain affect to go vertically, but the hexies go from light to dark… so if I use dark thread you’ll see it on top, and if I use light thread you’ll see it on the bottom.  I’m considering two thread colors??  but am unsure how to have them meet in the middle.

While I’m thinking about this, I’ve started straight-line quilting the dark brown border horizontally.  It’s looking really cool.  Since it has wool batting, the quilting is very dimensional and dynamic!  In these shots you can also see the blue basting thread which will be pulled out after I’m done quilting. 
Oh… I’m so relieved to have started!  My quilting is by no means perfect… at this point, I’m just going for overall effect. 

So that’s what I’m off to:  a little family time and some sewing.  Doesn’t that sound like the perfect holiday?
Hope your holiday is just as great!!