Quilts of last year (2011)

So this past year I kept myself very busy, for at least the last few months.  I was out of work and limited to my movement around town so it was a year of hand sewn Christmas gifts.  Prior to that I made a couple gifts for a friend.  They had a little girl, born June 30.
I knitted her a small, stroller sized blanket and made her a small crib sized quilt.

I also did some knitting of hats.  One for me and one for my nephew.  During that time of lots of knitting, I made my own double pointed needles with a dowel stick.  I cut the dowel into 5 short pieces and then sharpened the ends with a pencil sharpener.  A quick sanding with some super fine sand paper and I had cheap great knitting needles.  The pink hat has a ribbed brim with a seed stitch crown.  The hat for my nephew I casted on 63 stitches to knit on the round.  I then knit 6 and purled 2 to make the swirl up the hat.  He is 6 and told me that this is the best hat because there is no tag so you an wear it any way you want.

Once I was able to do a little more, I began to do some sewing.  My first project was a quilt for my other nephew.  He turned 2 this year so I wanted to make him a quilt for his big boy bed.  I had super cute duck patterned flannel so I based the quilt on that.  Lots of work and quilting later I had this super cute quilt for the little guy.  It is just a simple patchwork quilt.  The back has a little special touch, too.  He loved it so much he had to lay on it in the box.

I then came across in my stash so pieces of a quilt that I had cut and cut began to piece (I would guess) at least 6 or 8 years ago.  It was a Christmas quilt so I pulled together all the pieces that I had for the quilt and began to lay it out.  I found just enough to make the main part of the top and had to go to the local fabric store (Quilting Possibilities) to hopefully find some matching fabrics for the borders.  I knew that I had bought enough fabric when I started it years ago, but had no idea what happened to it until I started unpacking Christmas decorations.  Oops, it was made into different Christmas crafts.  It was ok, though, because they had great fabrics that matched.  I was very happy that I still had a piece large enough (almost) for the back.
The center blocks are a 9 patch where each square is 3 inches, then bordered by a check pattern.  The top and bottom are small 4 patch blocks where each square ends up being 1.25 inches.  The back even has a sashing on it (it was just inches too small so I really lucked out).  I zig-zag stitched around the blocks and the borders.  This was for my Mom.

I then saw some super cute clutch purses and decided to try and make a couple for my sister.  They were super simple and super cute.  They too only just over a quarter of a yard of fabric to make and maybe just over an hour.  I love that I have so many things in my stash that I don't even need to go out to buy zippers.

For my Dad, I decided to make him a kindle case since he bought himself a kindle but never bought a case.  I made it out of a canvas that I had laying around.  I used fuse-able fleece on the inside to give some cushion to the screen and kindle.  The clasp is a cute sailor button with an elastic that loops around the button.

I then realized that I needed to make something for my other sister because she couldn't be left out of the whole homemade Christmas gifts.  Thinking about what I could make her and looking at pictures I realized that she always wears the same vegetable apron so I decided to make her a new one.  This apron is a reversible one based on the one she already has.  It is made out of a decorator canvas (that I originally used on a book-bag).  Each side has pockets, just opposite in colors.

So after I made all of these things I decided I needed to make something for a friend.  She had been super supportive with the rough time so I pulled out all the scraps I had left form the Christmas quilt and came up with this table runner.  And after it was seen by my Mom, she wanted one too (since she had no idea of her gift) so I made her one too.  My friend loved it, she was so surprised that I took the time to make her something.

And the last project of 2011 were 2 super simple quick mug rugs for my friend as a hostess gift for new years.  Literally 10 min each and done.  I just pulled what I could out of my scrap box and came up with this. I loved the colors!