January sewing with Sandy

In December, Sandy (no blog) and I got together to decide what we wanted to work on in 2014.   I always find myself feeling overwhelmed at the holidays because I want to make my gifts but by waiting so long, I  realize that I can’t get done all the projects that are on my list. 

Soooooo, I told Sandy that I really wanted to focus on smaller seasonal projects.  Maybe even work on a Christmas item each month.    She so sweetly agreed and off we went on our quest for projects.  But…how should it be handled?  Well, Sandy came up with the idea of doing a wool project, a stitchery project, the Buttermilk Basin mats, a little quilt from the book “101 Fabulous Small Quilts”, and then another little quilt of our choice.  

Big plans?   Yeah, seems like it, doesn’t it?  But, if you are only working on these small projects, they are quite do-able.   I picked the projects for January and she will pick February and so on.  Now, get this… we both actually got them all finished before the middle of the month.   Woo Hoo!  Here’s what we worked on.

These are the little mats I’ve been showing you.   We needed to get caught up on the December one.  The patterns are by Buttermilk Basin, called “By thy Hands”.  

This is Sandy’s December mat.   You’ll notice when you see them together that they are different.  That’s because Sandy finds it hard to follow a pattern.  LOL    She actually took the February pattern and made it for December.   She can do that?   The quilt police won’t come knocking on her door?  Who knew?  Hmmm.   


This is mine and is the actual pattern for Dec.  

This is Sandy’s January block.   She decided a snowflake was in order.


And here’s mine.  Just like the pattern called for, except that somehow I got the middle points going the wrong direction.   It’s nothing I will change though.   Did I invent a new block?


Our “little quilt” project was picked from the March/April 2005 issue of Fons and Porter’s “Love of Quilting” magazine.  It’s called Prairie Cabin mini.  
This time Sandy made it like the pattern.  It’s tiny.   Measures 13” x 18”


I decided to make 2 of them, but when I got the blocks all made and laid them out, I fell in love with the look so made my quilt a bit bigger.   Mine measures 20” x 24”.    I am going to hand quilt it, so it’s technically not really finished.  

The quilt chosen from the 101 quilts book is called  Civil War Scraps.   It measures 17” x 22”.     This is Sandy’s.

Here’s mine.

And together. 

And where I put it in the house.  

On to the stitchery project.    It’s in the book “Hollyberry Stitcheries” by Kindred Spirits.   

Sandy made 2 of them.

I reduced mine by 50%.

You can see the difference in the sizes.   

And last…, the wool project.    The pattern is called “Sharing Christmas” and it can be found in the Special Winter issue of Quiltmania 2011.  
Sandy made hers into a pillow.  It’s pretty big but I didn’t get the measurements. 

This one is mine.   

We will put a few of the projects in our “Christmas box” so that we have gifts ready to go next Christmas.  See?  no stress!
Sandy is choosing the February projects and if you’ve followed her creations on my blog,  you’ll know that they are going to be wonderful.
And last, but not least, for those of you who asked about the pattern for the little mat I made for my friends with the candle holder that Mr CnW made, here it is.    I chose to use a different snowman and made the tree limbs a bit more wonky. It’s definitely a pattern to play with, and guess what?  You don’t have to follow the pattern exactly as designed.  Wow…what a concept.     
If you don’t ever hear from me when you ask a question, it’s because you are “no reply” and I don’t have your email address to respond.   Google how to fix that.  There are instructions all over blogland.  


See ya soon.  Hugs, Anne