I Actually Finished Something!

I'm easily distracted. It's all your fault. All of you out there blogging wonderful projects with the most up to date designer fabrics. You know who you are. Making beautiful things and flaunting them right there on my monitor day in and day out (sometimes during the middle of the night, even).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not actually blaming you. I know I'm the master of my own sewing room. Its just that willpower is not my strong suit. That, and I've memorized my Visa number (so I don't even have to leave my office chair in search of my wallet) which makes resistance futile when those emails come in announcing NEW FABRIC AVAILABLE just a few clicks away here, here or here. Despite your best efforts to distract me I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I did actually finish a few things. Some of them are pictured here:

Fifteen swaps (wow!) and lots of small projects. Just a few quilts (truth be told, the tops were done long before the year began, but they are now quilted and bound, so I'm counting them as 2010 finishes!). Several quilts were pieced or started. I hope they'll be on the 2011 finishes mosaic in 12 month's time, but I'm not putting any pressure on myself - I'm not good at scheduling creativity and tend to gravitate to what inspires me at the moment, not what's been laying around unfinished for x number of months.

I've got plans, of course, for the coming year. First things first, my side of the bargain in a couple of private swaps need attention (Tracey & Carol, I haven't forgotten!). I joined my first online quilting Bee, which is very exciting. Then I'm super stoked about a plan I have for B & my bed - I showed you some fabric last spring that was intended for a Dresden Plate quilt, but inspiration struck recently when I saw this amazing quilt. Dresden's are OUT, Proverbs are IN. Only I won't be using Proverbs, of course. You'll see.

It will be really, really hard, but I am going to attempt a swap diet. Look at all this stuff I gave away in 2010:

Pretend that the repeat red tea cup pot holder is a blue tea cup, kay? I don't have the hutzpah to go back and make the mosaic all over again!

I loved participating and am thrilled with the fun and friendships I've had and made over the year, (not to mention the incredible gifts that came to me!) but I think my own work needs more attention in the coming months. Please note I said 'attempt a swap diet'. That means responsible swapping, not full-on deprivation. There may be a few I simply cannot refuse - just puttin' that out there in case you are keeping an eye on me.

With that, I say bring on 2011! I hope you'll continue to hang here with me (I do so love your company).

Pssst, wanna see a swap summary of 2010?

You'll have to visit me over here, where I'm guest posting today. You can see all 15 swaps I made over the past 12 months and find out where most of them ended up!

C'mon, it's only one more click.

♥ Krista

I Gave Them the Runaround

Happy holidays! I hope everyone is in full relaxation mode, enjoying their new Christmas mags and goodies. I'm here for a quick gift post today.

My SIL and her Saturday morning walking buddy received these pretty bags for Christmas (from me).

They are made from Lazy Girl Designs #111 pattern, the 'Runaround Bag'. They are the perfect size (about 7" x 10") for an across-the-body small bag for walking necessities like lip balm, cell phone and debit card. There is one main zippered pouch, and an extra pocket on the back which is a great place for a decorative stitch.

Although the pattern calls for a 12" zipper, I got away easily with 7" ones.

The purple bag is made from Martha Negley plums and Michael Miller mirror ball dots. The blue one is a Japanese indigo print paired with Denyse Schmidt Hope Valley.

I wrapped them up in plain dollar store gift bags decorated with some wrapping paper scraps. I also included a little jar of Peppermint Sugar Foot Scrub that I was able to mix up on the spot after seeing this post (not sure why I have mineral oil in the house, but it was great to be able to use some up!).

I've got a guest post all lined up on Stash Manicure tomorrow. Check out "Swap Your Stash" complete with photos of everything I swapped in 2010. It was a lot!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Final preparations are in full swing, and as luck would have it, I've come down the dreaded Christmas cold. Euw. I'm making every effort to maintain seasonal spirit, but I am sort of losing steam. Several gifts have materialized in the last few days, none of which I can share for several reasons.

1. Winter solstice + torrential rain = dark, dark days unsuited to photography

2. Several gift recipients actually hang out here regularly and I don't want to spoil any surprises. I even walked in on D reading my blog the other day (that's my almost-12-year-old-daughter).

3. I really don't have time!

So, I'll take this opportunity to wish you all a wondrous holiday and thank you for visiting me here at Poppyprint this year. The next several days will be family-focussed, as they should be, so no blogging for a bit until I return with a guest post here on the 30th. It'll be all about swapping, so if you've ever wondered about how, why or where to get involved in a swap then check it out!

In the meantime, keep your ears open for this guy, coming soon to a roof near you!

.....................If you've been good, that is.

Yours in gift making/giving/wrapping/enjoying,

Krista

Candy Cottage

Last Saturday we had our special friends visit from out of town for dinner. This family is a pleasure to spend time with for many reasons; the Mom and I have TONS in common (we quilt, bake, travel, read & value friendship, family and learning), the Dads both love beer, coffee and technology, and their 2 kids get along swimmingly with our 2 kids. We hang out, laugh, play games and relax together. It's never work.

In addition to their fun visit, they brought us a very sweet gift. Take note: if you want to make a busy mom happy, then bring her the gift of time that looks like the pieces of a gingerbread house wrapped up in wax paper accompanied by a Christmas take-out box filled with candy. Isn't that just a brilliant idea? Man, that gift made me HAPPY! D and I had talked about making our annual gingerbread house several times, but to be honest, after baking for my cookie exchange and a few other recent events, my baking mojo had seriously worn off and I just couldn't face it.

Yesterday was the first official day of kid Christmas holidays. We put our gift to good use and this is what we made.

It's as cozy as our real life cottage! Thanks L3. You're the best.

Tomorrow D and I are going to another friend's house where I'll be teaching 3 girls how to make meringue mushrooms and buche de noel! Woohoo - baking mojo is back!

Sew Mama Sew Give Away Winner

Note to self: figure out how to number comments BEFORE next Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day. I am rather shocked at the amount of comments - thanks everyone for stopping by to play.

Although 401 comments were left, one person snuck 2 comments in, so I did the count as 400 and just pretended her second comment wasn't there, kay?

The Random Number Generator has spoken and the fabulous Poppyprint zippity pouch, marking tools and hunk of hilarious Alexander Henry fabric goes to:

Result:

338Chiska! Congratulations. I've sent you an email and once I know your mailing address I will pop your prize into the holiday mail and we'll all just have to wait and see what happens after that!

On my Christmas table

If you're cruising give aways, you can read two posts down or get there faster by clicking here.

For several years I have put fabric aside in my stash for a Christmas table runner. This particular Martha Negley print (that I think is GORGEOUS) has been patiently curing on my shelf for at least 4 years. Gasp. Finally, I decided to just make something simple and get it on the table already!

I took two lengths of the cotton print and sewed a hunk of natural linen/cotton blend in between them with 3/8" seam allowance. Not really wanting a quilt on the table, I chose to sew the whole works right sides together with a brushed cotton (sort of like a one-sided flannel). I turned it right sides out, topstitched the edges and each seam and then got busy tracing 3 different sized lids onto the linen. I embroidered a running stitch with 3 strands of burgundy, ivory and green DMC floss.

Sorta like a quickie version of my Crop Circles Table runner tutorial over there on

in my sidebar.

Seriously, you can whip one of these up in an afternoon.

I'm excited to head over town to the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild meeting tonight. We'll be having a handmade ornament exchange and goodies, plus members can sign up for the day retreat I'm running in February. It's going to be a great evening!

Real Estate Investment

If you are visiting in search of fabulous give away prizes, just keep reading. It's the next post down.

We got a new house! Look what arrived today:

Poor Nannette, she had to wait ages for me to receive it. It took 15 days to come from Salt Lake City to me, while the Birdhouse Fence I sent off to her only took about a week. There's no rhyme or reason to the post at Christmas time!

Nannette sent along some sweet extras - a scrap bag of Lizzie Dish (that I think will go immediately into a potholder for an urgent Christmas gift required on Saturday night!) as well as a card featuring one of her trademark beautiful 'frilly' birds. I'm going to frame it for my sewing room. The package also included a chenille pin cushion!

So, that's the last swap of 2010 all wrapped up. I still owe a doll quilt and a mini or two in some casual (thanks for keepin' it real girls) private swaps.

I managed to finally make myself a table runner for the holiday dining table. It's not too Christmassy, so it will get lots of use. It's a modern and slightly minimalist version of my Crop Circles Table Runner (tutorial in my sidebar). I'll show it to you tomorrow. It's really hard to get a good photo of a long skinny table runner on a grey, rainy day.....

Welcome to Poppyprint!

It is so much fun when Sew Mama Sew announces a give away day. This time I had a vision of crafters world wide dressed in little elf outfits, busily working away on their sewing machines, or with a hot glue gun, preparing special treats for the give away. My elf suit is a wee bit tight-fitting these days, what with all of the holiday parties and cookie exchanges, however I do have a little something for one lucky visitor. See how nice we are here at Poppyprint? You don't even have to be good, just lucky.

I will gladly stuff any stocking, anywhere in the world, with one of my linen zippity pouches, my two favorite quilting marking tools (a Clover white wax pen for marking quilting designs and an Identi-pen for writing labels), PLUS a hunky cut of Alexander Henry's FABULOUS "Home Sewing is Easy" fabric.

This fabric was on the back of the little quilt I gave away in the spring SMS give away day and people seemed to really like it, so I'm gonna share this yardage with you!

When you whip out your new zippy pouch (featuring the classic skull and knitting needle crossbones!) at stitch or knit group and your friend gasps and says "that is the cutest zippy pouch I've ever seen!", I won't even mind if you reply:

It'll be our little secret (until you turn it over and they see the Poppyprint label that I carefully sewed on, right after I superglued it).

This give away will remain open until 6 p.m. PST on Friday, December 17th. Please leave a comment for your entry. No need to follow (but if you want to see my just-debuted, new fav finish, have a look one post down, kay?). Everyone is welcome to enter, I'll ship anywhere, right after the Random Number Generator picks a winner. Good luck! Be sure to visit all of the other giveaways that you'll find listed here.

Comments are now closed - thanks for stopping by Poppyprint and have a wonderful Christmas!

Woolly Mini Full Frontal

I don't think I've ever been so excited to share my work as I am today. Nannette received her Birdhouse Fence woolly mini today, so that means I can share it with you, too! It brought me great joy to make this - after waiting way too long to start my swap project, suddenly it all came to me in a great rush (perhaps fueled by the guilt of procrastination?). Actually, I think I knew that one day my photos of the real life birdhouse fence would end up in fibre. Nannette is well-known on Flickr for her love of birds and using them in her work, so it was really a case of fate that she ended up being my partner on this one!

Ok, I'll stop blabbing on. Here it is, as we printed it on our family Christmas cards this year (we ramped up the colour saturation a bit for printing):

Here is the mini with it's 1/2" binding:

I made this felted wool 'picture' by fusing the background sections onto a piece of cotton canvas using Steam-a-Seam Lite. Each section of field and sky is butted up to the next, so no overlaps. I was able to tighten up the seams between two sections when I zigzagged across each one. Things got a little thick where the two layers of jaggedy-cut grass are overlapped, but I was able to free motion the grass blades with a lovely 30wt. variegated Aurofil thread without much difficulty.

I am particularly happy about the farmer's fence wire, which is 2 strands of DMC floss attached to the quilt only at the fence posts and where each 'wire' overlaps another one. I also really like how the Queen Anne's lace turned out with the white french knots. The mama sparrow checking out her real estate options is stitched freehand with 3 different colours of single-strands of DMC (light brown, grey and dark brown).

I can't tell you how great it made me feel when B asked if we could turn it into our Christmas card. He always silk-screens our cards, so it was a real pleasure for me to be able to share my original work with our family and friends this year (a few of them read this blog, but most don't really know what I do 'with all my spare time' hehe).

Okay, while I'm feeling all aglow, I would just like to send a shout out to Carolyn S. of Surrey, B.C. just in case she reads this blog. Carolyn wrote the sweetest letter to the editor about my Autumn Jewel Box pattern in Quilter's Connection fall magazine that made me blush, actually. Thank you so much for taking the time, Carolyn. When a friend emailed to ask if I'd seen the nice letter about me, at first I panicked thinking that maybe my mom wrote it! It was a relief to see a name I didn't recognize at the bottom of the letter!

Be sure to stop in tomorrow....it's Sew Mama Sew giveaway day!!

Spinning

That's what my Christmas head is doing, as are my wheels. I need to slow down a bit and enjoy the season!

Last night I returned home post-cookie-exchange and just sat for a few minutes watching my German Christmas pyramid spin 'round and 'round. It is just the most beautiful thing to watch.

This little guy is out for a ski, enjoying the evening light...

This man and his puppy are bringing the firelogs home on the sleigh...

And you can't see them because they are whizzing around the tannenbaum, but there's a little boy putting the finishing touches on his snowman while another one rests on his sled nearby.

My family brought the tree in while I was collecting cookies; hopefully we'll decorate it later today. Have you been able to stop and smell the Christmas tree yet?

Stuff you need to know....

There's this sweet person who has become an even sweeter cyber-friend to me over the past year. Her name is Tracey and she blogs over at TraceyJay Quilts. If you are a peruser of blogs off my sidebar, then you may have visited her at some point. We are in the midst of a private doll quilt swap, Tracey and I. If truth be told, it's mostly Tracey in it at the moment. She got all inspired and finished my quilt already! I can't wait to see it in real life.

photo by Traceyjay

Tracey has had several gorgeous projects featured on the Moda Bake Shop and is a supremely thoughtful swap partner. She makes the prettiest things! I plan to make her something pretty in return once Christmas and my two kids' birthdays are past (who has 2 kids in the week after new year's? Crazy people, that's who).

OKAAAAAY!

What you need to know is this:

(1) Tracey is giving away an Accuquilt GO! cutter on her blog RIGHT NOW. I don't really want you to enter and potentially win my GO! cutter, but in the event you really want one too, I suppose you could enter the give away here.

(2) Tracey founded an online charity initiative called Quilt Hope In (and, in this sense, the word quilt is a verb. I know that because I asked. I wasn't getting it!). If you are a quilter and would like to do something to help orphans in Haiti, you can donate a quilt to this Etsy charity shop. If you are an admirer of quilts, then soon you will be able to visit the shop and buy a quilt! 100% of proceeds go to Heartline Ministries , who are working tirelessly in Haiti.

Congratulations Tracey, on your inspiration and commitment to do something about it! Thanks for giving all of us the opportunity to help.

A Busy Blogger

That's me! And probably 99% of you (even if you're not bloggers). I am knee deep in Christmas card production. We decided to forgo silk-screening this year. B is crazy busy at work...I know he's missing the annual tradition of designing, preparing the screens and turning our living room/dining room into a printing house. Silk-screening is his father's legacy and it is B's one major creative outlet every year.

After I completed this project, he suggested that it would make a nice card and we agreed it would definitely take the pressure off. Before posting the woolly mini to it's new home, I took many photos hoping for that perfect, card-worthy image. After we chose one, I acquired specially treated Inkjet Fine Art paper made from bamboo fibres (!) and am doing print runs, writing, addressing and mailing in batches on our little home inkjet. The results aren't bad! We send over 100 cards and hand out about another 30. It's a big project.

Once the holiday correspondence is wrapped up, I'll be heading to my sewing room and hopefully will have a few things to show you soon. Sew Mama Sew Give Away Day is coming up next week and you can be sure there will be a chance to win something right here!

In the meantime, since many of you were not here reading Poppyprint a year ago, have a look at my favorite Christmas fella here. He's been rescued from his cotton wrapping and is presiding over our living room now.

Happy holiday preps to you!

Scrappy Greetings

Confession: I used to chuck my scraps.

Then I discovered quilting blogs and about a gazillion ideas for projects I could use my scraps for. I have done several small scrap projects, including fabric baskets, coffee cozies, zippy pouches, mug rugs and a very funky wrist cuff. Nothing that really makes much of a dent in the scrap pile, though.

The strippy scraps from my two tree skirt projects were just too pretty to throw away, so I turned them into scrappy Christmas cards. Easy!

For all the moaning I've done over issues with thread tension on my 'new' machine, I must say, it sews through cardstock like a hot dam! After trimming my strippy scraps into tree shapes that fit onto the blank cards, I sprayed the wrong side of the fabric with 505 temporary adhesive (probably overkill, 404 or 202 would do the job, but I didn't have any). The fabric adhered very well to the paper and allowed me to sew a line around each shape, no problem.

Now I have a set of pretty holiday cards to send to my crafty friends!

Cake Walk

There was a fundraising event at D's elementary school today ~ Christmas in Whoville ~ that included a cake walk, photos with the Grinch in his sled, costume contest, surprise jar wheel, beanbag toss, 50/50 draw, popcorn & candy floss, carol singing and crafts. The volunteer parents really got into it and there were great costumes. D rocked her purple wig!

I made two cakes for the ever-popular cake walk. Man, what kids will endure for a free cake!

I just didn't have the energy to create a Whoville cake, so went with a peppermint candy design instead. I traced my 8" cake pan onto paper and drew out the swirly design. Then I cut a template out of a plastic page-protector sleeve (the kind you put in a 3-ring binder) with an x-acto knife and laid it on top of the iced cake. Sprinkled red sugar over the cut out part and then carefully peeled back the template (some icing repair was required in places). There was red sugar all over the kitchen, but it swept up well!

I was tempted to flavour the butter cream icing with peppermint extract, but was advised that "kids think that's gross", so just went with vanilla.

If you're into making a low-cal version peppermint ornament, check out pinksuedeshoe's post!

Big Day at the Post Office

Three hand made gifts went in the mail today, with plenty of time for regular postage to get them to their new homes in time for Christmas. Phew.

Nannette's "house" themed mini is on it's way. I cannot wait to show you the whole sweet thing. Very hard to part with that one.

The first tree skirt I made ages ago (the white one) is winging it's way clear across the country to my sister and her family.

The second tree skirt I made (starry night version) was completed last night when I sewed the beautiful handmade ceramic buttons on. You've seen it before in it's pre-quilted state. Here's the finished version.

O Joyful Tree Skirt pattern by mamacjt

This time I did some simple garland quilting in the trees with a shiny rayon thread by Aurofil.

This one is headed state-side to my brother's family in Michigan. I made sure that they liked them before sending - one can't impose Christmas decorating willynilly upon family members, now can they?

Luckily, my family is very appreciative of my handmade efforts, and thank goodness, because I LOVE sharing my handmade work with them!

Blogland is flush with fabulous handcrafted gift ideas at the moment. Every time I scroll through my reader I get another idea. It is a shock that I've only got 21 days left to work with. Yikes. I'm afraid there won't be too much more I can show you due to lurking gift recipients. January will be a flood of post-Christmas gift posts!

What are you making?

A Woolly Mini

Because I haven't got enough wool for a mammoth.

For my last group swap of 2010 on Flickr, I was to make my partner a mini quilt with a theme of houses. Participants had the option of a holiday house, or a regular house. My partner and I chose regular houses. Even though I've had 2 months to get this together, like a lot of other swappers, I prefer to let my ideas percolate for a good long time. My plans changed radically over the course of the 2 months and I must say, I couldn't be happier.

My partner is very fond of birds. She includes them in most of her swap quilts and blocks. It was a given that I'd find a way to incorporate this into her house mini. Since she hasn't yet received the quilt, I don't want to spoil her surprise with a full reveal, but I'll show you my inspiration.

These are photos I took in August while on vacation at my parent's cottage. Apparently the local realtor's wife is a bird lover and has been installing birdhouses along their country farm fence for many years.

I noticed in my partner's Flickr favorites that she has chosen a lot of felt projects. I thought this small 8" x 10" quilt was perfect for a sweet wool felt picture. I do have a pretty great selection of hand dyed wool thanks to Paulette and Uschi. Turns out, it was all perfect for this project! It reminds me of children's books that are illustrated with fibre pictures, or those felt boards pre-school teachers use to tell stories.

Here is a couple of sneaky peeks of tiny portions of the quilt. I made Queen Anne's Lace with french knots - I think they are my favourite bit. Most of the quilt is machine stitched, but I did a little bit of hand work, too.

I can't wait to get this off to Nannette! You'll get the full frontal after she receives it.