This Creative Week Christmas scraps turned into gifts

 

previous Christmas quilt hanging in our stairwell

Welcome to my creativity round up this week!  This week I took part in a free workshop on creativity with three lectures a day. I love Eric Maisel. 

I spent an amount of time being creative in the kitchen this week, (yep even dog cookies turn into art around here)

cranberry applesauce poodle cookies as a mandala

getting out the Christmas dishes, and kitchen towels, hanging quilts around the house from previous years, and using Christmas scrap fabric to create a few gifts, and soothe my harried soul...

I approached each little mug rug with the same deliberation I do other art projects... this with that, lines, colors, angles, giggles, metallic threads, couched gold cording, iron on crystals... and surprise backings for some people. These will hopefully fit in Christmas cards so I don't have to go to a post office. 

I reorganized all my copies of recipes into two notebooks now, making finding ones we like easier. That meant getting rid of some we didn't like as much, and not one to waste paper, I painted another lady over an apple crumb muffin printout. (The muffins were dry and we found a better recipe)

I really like her, and learn from each drawing. Again I used the stabilo black crayon then pulled the black lines with water brush to form shadows. It's not easy to control but fun to see what happens!

some close ups....click on images to enlarge them further

I am quilting last year's Christmas quilt in large sections, then planning to put it together.... but it's a challenge to get through my small harp on the Bernina 1630

the center will be the hardest, 9 blocks already together, sandwiched with batting and backing and hard to manipulate through the machine. I start with the easiest bits, the top three, bottom three, the side 6, and next to quilt is the right side 6. 

time to safety pin baste! then quilt!

I will sew the quilted tops together pulling backing away to make a solid seam cover after the sections are sewn. I'll do the final stitching by hand to make sure it's nearly invisible. I've done many bed quilts this way.

For RSC, all the white/cream/beige fabrics are neutral scraps, the colored pieces are my kind of neutral scraps. Each octagon center is a special fun fabric collected over the years. 

okay so I collect a half yard and use just this much.... heh heh.... I'm a collector!

wish me luck quilting this!

and now some things you didn't know you wanted...

gifts quilters want this year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O07J_q9UFEU

happy arting y'all 

https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/

https://myblog-lunchbreak.blogspot.com/ 

patchwork Sunday    

 slow stitching Sundays                

oh Scrap Sundays

design wall Mondays at smallquiltsanddollquilts
lovelaughquilt.mondays 

http://www.inquiringquilter.com/ Wednesday wait loss

Midweek makers wednesdays  

http://www.myquiltinfatuation.com/ 

https://confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com/ 

off the wall Fridays   

peacock party

tgiffriday

finished or not

face off!