Finally Finished Christmas

I was late in getting all my Christmas items finished for the ladies of the family, but now I am done. Quilting was something I wanted to try, but know now that I will continue to tie my quilts in the future rather than do actual quilting stitching.  My fingers have lost their dexterity to work such fine stitching and it is much too painful to do. I am quite happy with the look of the fronts of these wall quilts, but I'm glad they actually hang on a wall so as not to have to see the backs.  The stitches are much too large and uneven.  Some are too tiny and barely pierce the material, while others are very long. I guess it is the final results that count and the part that can be seen looks nice to me.

I showed this before in pieces, but this is how the Portuguese rooster quilt turned out.

This one is for my daughter, Cheryl. It is called Ham and Eggs. I could not get the quilting frame on this one because the animals are cut from felt and they simply were too thick to get the frame to hold.  That explains why there are puckers in the material. The checkered border was very difficult on this one because each square had to be sewed into place. It was very time consuming.

This Wooly Sheep one is for my daughter-in-law, Kim. The hardest part of this one was doing the applique around all those flowers on the border. Each stem and leaf needed to be cut, heat bonded, and then appliqued onto the quilt. The sheep were the easy part.

This was my first wood burning project. I made it for my friend, Nancy, who lives in Utah, but did not show it until now because she reads my blog and I didn't want her to see it until she got it for Christmas.  It certainly isn't perfect, but I did learn to do a lot of things with the wood burning tool while making it.  The first thing I learned is that you use black, not red, for tracing the picture onto the wood.  I thought the red would come off in the sanding, but it didn't.  With this picture, it kind of looked better anyway because it added color to the fruity arrangement in the basket. Sometimes mistakes turn out to improve your intended outcome and with this one, I call it a "happy accident."

I am now working on doing the shirts for my husband.  I made one for him, but it was too small.  I bought more material and wrapped it and told him I would finish the other shirts when I saw how the other one fit.  I have cut out two and will get them sewed for now.  I may not do the third but I bought the material so he could choose which he wanted. Once these are done, I may need to take a break until my hands heal.  I see a specialist in two weeks to see why my fingers are so numb.  Hopefully, I will be able to continue to do my crafting.  For now, knitting does not seem to affect them as much as does the needle work, so I will need to stick to that if I feel the need to work with my hands, and I am sure that will be the case.  I can never stay idle for too long.