Christmas Gifts 2015

Well now that Christmas is over and done with, here are the gifts I was working on (in addition to the doll quilt):

The blocks I had done from the Great Granny sew along got turned into a pillow for my sister, who crochets. Because let's be real, that quilt probably wasn't going to happen. ;) But she loves it and plans on hanging it as a mini quilt, so I'm happy she's happy. :)

 I bought some new quilt tags from Mad Mad Graphics and I used the first one for her gift.

For everyone else, I used the Sweetwater custom blocks (from their First Crush block of the month) to make pillows. I had their names and wedding dates (or dating anniversary) put on the block. I then embroidered the design using their wedding colors and found matching fabric for the pillow. I made it so it fits a 12" pillow form and everyone loved them.

I found these cute twill tapes labels at Joann's and everyone got one on the back, with the exception of mine.

This one belongs to me and it not only has our wedding date (and colors) but I also included our dating anniversary.

Instead of the other tag I used the "PS I love you" tags I found at my local quilt shop.

All in all, everyone was happy with their gifts and I'm happy to be done! ;) I think most quilters and crafters probably feel the same way right about now.

Lots more photos can be found on my Flickr

Grandpa's Shirts Turned Pillowcases

Remember Grandpa's quilt? Well, I still had quite a few whole shirts leftover and some of my mother-in-law's siblings who wanted a little something of their father's too. I decided on making pillowcases for the siblings (since more quilts would be a bit much for me) and came upon this inspiration on Pinterest.

click here for tutorial

It was a really quick and easy project, and I ended up making 7 pillowcases total. I still had 3 corners of the white handkerchief used in the quilt plus my mother-in-law gave me another blue handkerchief, so all 7 pillowcases had a corner of a handkerchief sewn into the front pockets.

All 7 of the pillowcases

All of them got the same tag as the quilt

3 of them used scraps from the quilt backing

Stuffed with an 18" square pillow form

She flew to Iowa for spring break and delivered the pillowcases to her brothers and sisters. They all loved them, which makes my heart so happy. I think at this point I only have a few shirt fronts left since the backs were used to make the quilt. So I may make a few more of these pillowcases using the quilt backing scraps for the back piece. And then all the remaining shirt pieces will end up being cut into squares for future projects. But for now everyone has a little piece of Grandpa so there's no rush to whip up another big project any time soon.