Full of Busy

I'm not exactly sure where the past month went - it's just flown by!  What's more there were only 16 photos taken on my camera too...  The picture above is of the lovely sunrise I witnessed last week.  A few minutes later it had disappeared.  We've been getting quite violent weather just lately with red weather warnings issued for our part of the country.  This morning we woke up to frost/snow on the mountains but the view was soon obscured by the clouds rolling down over them.

One of the things I did manage to take a picture of was the little Christmas gifts I made for my eldest daughter's teachers.  I followed a wonderful tutorial on Attic24 and soon had a little production line going to produce these.  Unfortunately due to bad weather conditions the photos are not their best as light has been a problem.  I'm happy to say the gifts have been well received.

I guess one of the reasons for the month going so quickly, and the lack of photographic evidence for the passage of time is because I've been full on writing and editing.  I want to release my first book once I've worked out how to turn it into an eBook, closely followed by the sequel.  There's still an awful lot of editing to do though...

And finally we are still trying to get ready for Christmas here.  The tree is up, although there are baubles on the floor daily as the girls keep messing with them, most of the presents have been bought and delivered and there are just a few more food items we need for Christmas day.

Have a very merry Christmas everyone & a prosperous New Year!

Christmas Placemats & Coasters

Okay, its October I know and maybe a bit early to be thinking about Christmas placemats and coasters but I really want to be prepared this year.  Last year my sister came to stay with us over the Christmas break and found herself wrapping up my old, tatty placemats with left over Christmas paper as I'd not been able to find new ones I liked or I was prepared to pay the extortionate cost of just because they were "Holiday" themed.

I came up with a very simple idea for my placemats, partly because I'm new to the whole quilting business and also because I liked my Christmas fabric so much I really didn't want to start cutting it up and piecing it together again.

This is what I came up with from the lovely fat quarters I bought (above).

Firstly I used my old placemats and coasters as templates to cut out my fabric (seemed easier than having to measure and draw!).  I cut out coordinating fabric for the backs and cotton batting too.

I layered the pieces up carefully because when I made a pencil case for my eldest daughter in August I didn't think about the order of things and ended up with the batting on the outside instead of between my fabrics - yes I'm that silly!

Next came the sewing; just a simple stitch close to the edge of my fabric.  I didn't want a big bulky seam.  I'm loving my walking foot too.  It makes thick layers of fabric a breeze to sew over.

I chose two matching threads for the actual quilting part.  I recently purchased a lot of different coloured variegated thread so I was itching to use it.  My actual quilting skills aren't very good and I wasn't able to buy any dressmakers chalk in town so opted for a normal chalk stick and a ruler.  By placemat number three I was starting to improve though - thankfully!

And here are the end results!  I made 6 placemats and 8 coasters.  I didn't quilt the coasters as I didn't think they needed it.

Here are the fronts and backs of the placemats so I guess technically I could use the flip sides for everyday if I wanted to, making them more multipurpose.

And finally the coasters.  Hopefully they will last us a few years yet.  All in all they were fun and simple to make and I learned so much making these.

I'm thinking of using some of my left over material to make some Christmas cushion covers.  Those fat quarters sure go a long way on small projects so it will be interesting to see what other ideas I can come up with :-)