June Goal Complete {ALYOF}

 I've completed my June Goal! 

I finished attaching the binding to this Christmas Tree Skirt which is destined to become a wedding present for one of my best friends.

Since I've had so many wedding and graduation presents to make for this summer, I had a local long-armer quilt two of the skirts. She did this fun holly leaves and berries pattern with a variegated thread.

After having it quilted, I cut (gasp!) out the circle (and did a lot of zigzags and tight stitching to prevent unraveling). Whenever I do this, I can just imagine finding an old vintage quilt and making it into a Christmas tree skirt... wouldn't that be fun?!

But, in case I can never find the perfect (perfect looking and perfect price!) vintage quilt, I'll look forward to making a scrappy skirt for myself someday :)

ALYOF Details

Goal Post
I was number 87 on the goal linky.

June Goal {ALYOF}

Tired of these yet? Ha. 

June Goal: Finish attaching the binding by hand to the back of this Christmas tree skirt. 

Don't worry, this is the last tree skirt for awhile!!!

Wedding Present Complete {ALYOF}

For my May goal, I finished binding this Christmas tree skirt. 

It is already wrapped up and ready for this Wednesday's wedding. 

(ALYOF Goal Post... Goal Linky #72 )

While talking weddings, I happily finished binding another tree skirt for the wedding we'll attend on Saturday (yup, two weddings in two states in one week! I'm considering this wedding week to be my vacation, ha!). However, I forgot to take a picture of the final product... I was too excited to have it finished that I hurriedly wrapped it before remembering to take a picture.

Anyways, if you want more details of the other finished skirt, here's the quilt top (the non-scrappy one)... and I decided on a red fabric/white pin dot fabric for the binding... and I'll be sure to post another tree skirt (July wedding) with similar quilting done to it. Remember, I sent off those two tree skirts to be quilted by a local long-armer because I was afraid with my long to-do list of baby quilts and other gifts that I wouldn't have time to quilt them myself!


Anyways, so there's the update... I'm off to help decorate! Yay for Weddings!

May Goal {ALYOF}

My official ALYOF May goal is to finishing binding this Christmas tree skirt. The binding is already attached and just waiting for me to finish hand-stitching it to the back. 

This will be a gift for a wedding at the end of the month!

The binding roll in the picture is actually for another tree skirt that I need done by the end of May (yup, two weddings at the end of May - one on a Wednesday and the other on the following Saturday!). However, it is not a part of my official goal, since I'm still waiting for the skirt to return from the quilters. I hope she finishes it soon!!! I know, I know, I can always mail the gift afterwards, but it would be so nice to have it ready for the wedding...

 I also have a baby shower gift to prepare (the baby quilt is done... I'll share it soon, but I need to make a few burp rags to go with it!). The shower is the Saturday before the wedding week. Just call me the crazy schedule lady for the month of May!

And... I'll leave you with a quick shot of the Big E :)

November Goal... Squeaking By!

I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving! 

...but now, it's on to the next Holiday...

Merry Early Christmas 

(Advent starts tomorrow!)

 My November goal was to get this pieced - it's the beginnings of a Christmas tree skirt for a wedding gift. The wedding is July 5th!

 I keep experimenting with the old-faithful pattern that my mom has used for tree skirts since the 80s. This time I went down from a 7" block to a 6.5" and added a few 4-patches to spice it up. I also went with a planned-scrappy layout, instead of diagonal lines. I've had the Believe fabric for years, waiting for this friend to get married. The others are all leftovers from past tree skirts, both ones that I made and ones that Mom made.

 I brought it up to my parents' house on Thanksgiving, so Mom can bring it to the lady who always does Mom's long-arm machine quilting. This will also be a new change. In the past, this project would have been tied with yarn. Then we upgraded to embroidery floss. The last skirt I finished, I quilted it along the seams with my home machine. Now, it's time to have someone else do some FMQ on it! (Mom, thanks for having the nativity set up already to help set the mood for these pictures, ha!).

 I also need this tree skirt quilted. I've had this top done for over a year, just waiting for the right wedding announcement. I have another friend's wedding on May 31st! (Evelyn thought she needed to be a part of the photo shoot!)

 You can see the old-way layout of diagonal lines. Four of these fabrics were from Connecting Threads while two are from JoAnns.

While we're on the topic of Christmas projects. Mom's making one of these for all her girls (my two sister-in-laws and me). I found her the pattern in a thrift store - it matched a wreath wall-hanging also made out of log cabin blocks that she made years ago.

November Goal

My November goal is to get a Christmas tree skirt pieced for a friend's wedding this summer. I'll baste, quilt and bind it another month (there's a good chance that we will be switching houses sometime this month, so my goal is to simply piece!)

I decided to switch up my normal Christmas tree skirt pattern by going with scrappy 6.5" blocks instead of a diagonal pattern with 7" blocks of only 5-7 fabrics. I also made 10-ish 4-patch blocks to add to the scrappiness. This friend has always loved the word "Believe," so I have been saving this fabric for this exact purpose :)

A Lovely Year of Finishes

September Goal. Finished.

It's hard to grasp how much has happened this month! Just the fact that I posted about my September goal back there on "Grizz 'n' Dove" (goal post here) and now I get to post about reaching my goal here, "On the Banks of Frog Creek." Such excitement. 

My goal for September was to piece this Christmas Tree skirt (pattern found here at A Bright Corner) that will eventually be a wedding gift for a really good friend. I hope to quilt and bind it soon, although I have a lot on my to-do-list first (like getting my sewing machine from my parents' place this weekend...). 

I did go one more step past my goal and prepared the binding. One less thing to do later, and one thing that was easy to do during the time in Monana when most of our stuff had already been moved. 

 Some close-ups of the fabric. I did use one directional print, but I used it on the edge - so it's going the right direction on the outside, and there's just a little part by the hole where it's upside down. Mom won't approve, but my friend probably won't even notice. She'll be too thrilled with the cute bears, deer and moose that was the "must-have" fabric for this friend. She loves cute animals!


 Linking up with A Lovely Year of Finishes, WIP Wednesday and Fabric Tuesday. Links are on the sidebar!