Monday works in progress!

This weekend I worked on the latest free BOM from Buttermilk Basin. They are really fun to do and work up quickly, I can't wait for the next one, it will be a double, so I can't wait to see what she has planned for the extra longer block.

The original calls for a female cardinal but I saw a lot of Blue Jays being done and since my letters are red and we do get a lot of Blue Jays in the winter, I made mine into a Blue Jay.

This is what I have so far, I love how they look together and it will be nice to have a beautiful quilt, I can hang for next Christmas.

Another project that I started is, a freebie from Cheri's Facebook Group. I am doing mine with scraps and homespuns and will decide if I want to make changes, after I sew the blocks together. There are flowers and a chicken that will be going on, so I will sew them together next and add those and see how it looks.

This is what I have so far, can't wait to finish and hang it on the wall. The pattern is called Jane's Baskets.

I wanted to thank you all for your good wishes. I am always sick or in pain, but when you live with it as long as I have,  you get used to living with it. It has just been a tough year and this is a tough month, and having the support and love from my online friends, means a lot to me.

Primitive Blessings Pillow!

When I was going through my paper patterns, I found this one and decided it would make a nice pillow. I scanned it in, but have no idea from where. It might have been from an old issue of Create and Decorate. If it looks familiar to you, please let me know so I can give the designer credit.

I kept it simple and I think it looks nice on my new mail desk. It is fun to just make things for fun and no stress to finish them. This week I am also working on a candle mat and I will be cutting out the appliques for Jan Patek's bible quilt. The pattern was a gift from a friend for my last birthday and I thought it was time I made it. A nice project to work on during the holidays and the cold winter days.

I gave it a heavy stain, but the flash washed it out. We had snow all day, so no outdoor photos.

I can't put up breakable decorations, my kitties are way too obnoxious. I put up 3 small trees and greenery with a sled on a cabinet. As you can see, nothing is safe and this is Moki looking innocent after he tried to chew off the pine from the boughs.

Christmas Pillows!

This week I worked on some pillows. I wanted to try some stenciled pillows and these are the result. I got stencils on a sale and used acrylic paints. I mixed the paint with fabric medium to make them waterproof and it also keeps them from being too stiff.

I made the pillows to fit the size of the stencils, so you can do them in any size that you want. After I stenciled them, I put them in the dryer for 25 minutes and heat set them. Then I sprayed the lighter pillows with walnut spray. For those I used a stark white fabric and you can see it ages it nicely. The snowflakes were done on coffee stained fabric from moda. With the snowflakes, I added a little sparkle paint, but it doesn't show in the photo.

Once they were dry, I cut them to size and added a piece of batting to each side and sewed them, right sides together. I use the batting so when I fill them, the balsam sits in between the batting. You can leave an opening at the bottom for turning, or you can make a slit on the backside. I used a slit and covered it, after they were stuffed.

I added the border stitching, after they were stuffed. I hide the stitches by pulling them into the edges.

I stenciled them with a stencil brush and used a smaller brush to get into the smaller areas.

The snowflakes were done with white, then a glitter paint over that, so it has a light sparkle to it. The white is not as bold in person, the camera tends to heighten paint colors.

For my backs, I sewed the slit up with a basic slip stitch and then added a penny to cover the area. My camera was acting up today and the flash wasn't working right, so the colors are way off. This is tea stained cotton ticking, a great way to finish christmas pillows. I used green on the others.