#2016BestNineQuiltFinishes

That hashtag #2016BestNine popped up again on Instagram over the last couple of weeks and I highlighted my favorite best nine quilt finishes for the year, so I thought I'd share them all with you and reminisce about my year in quilting. As always, I surprised myself that I had even completed nine projects with the lack of sewing that I have done in the past few months!

In no particular order.....

1. Spell It With Moda Quilt

I was selected as one of the co-hosts of Moda Bake Shop's ABC Birthday Sew-Along at the beginning of 2016 and I made a few different projects throughout the year using Moda's Spell It With Moda letter patterns. This project ended up being the last project I completed for the year (it's finish was delayed due to my mom's car accident). I changed up the pattern a bit by framing each of the letters and blocks with the background fabric to make 10" x 12" finished blocks, making the quilt finish at 60" x 60". I used a leftover fat quarter bundle of Sunkissed fabric by Sweetwater for Moda and I love the colors combinations.

The remaining fabric was pieced together for the backing along with some Bella Solid white. I quilted it using diagonal lines placed randomly in white, yellow, hot pink and gray.

2. Robots All In A Row Quilt

Absolutely my most favorite quilt of the year because I designed and made this quilt for my grandson! My inspiration came from fabric I found by Makower UK called "Little Monsters Robots" by The Henley Studio. There's just so much to say about this quilt and I kind of already did on my original blog post, so click on the heading "Robots All In A Row" and it will take you to that post for all the details and lots of photos. Actually, this quilt was so epic that I blogged about it more than once, so here's another link. (FYI - you can click on each of the headings to go to the original posts).

3. Modern Gem 4-Patch Quilt

This quilt was a UFO from back in my quilt shop owner days and was a demo on how to make a quick 4-patch block the Me and My Sister way. After the top was finished, I tucked it away thinking it was so blah. I pulled it out at the beginning of the year and finished the quilt up. It was kind of boring and I really needed something to spicy it up. I found it in a quilting pattern called Modern Gem. I just love how the quilting turned out.

4. Have Yourself A Quilty Little Christmas Quilt

If you follow my blog, you know I love Lori Holt of Bee In My Bonnet. So when she had a sew-along a couple of years ago on Instagram for this quilt, I saved each post in a file with hopes of making it someday. Well, that someday came earlier this year. I picked up the Christmas fabrics in this quilt at JoAnn's and then filled in the rest with my stash. I love it and really enjoyed displaying it this year for Christmas.

5. Bonnie & Camille Log Cabin Swap Quilt

This was my first experience with participating in a swap on Instagram and what an epic one it was - with over 200 swappers! Of course this swap was so popular because there are so many Bonnie and Camille fabric fans, and who doesn't love the colors featured in their lines! Lissa Alexander, Director of Marketing at Moda, put together the original log cabin swap with a group of Moda designers and you can get her directions for the block and swap here.

6. Farm Girl Layer Cake Mini Quilt

In June, I was invited to help Lori Holt celebrate the one year anniversary of her Farm Girl Vintage Sew-Along by making this Farm Girl Layer Cake block, which I turned into a mini quilt. It was a fun block to make (you can get the free pattern here) and I framed it with squares from one of Lori Holt's fabric panels. My favorite part of this quilt, though, is the cable quilting pattern!

7. Howdy Y'all Quilt

As I mentioned earlier, I was one of the hosts for Moda Bake Shop's ABC Birthday Sew-Along. As part of that event, each host designed a filler block that could be used with the letter blocks. I designed a cowboy boot and made this quilt to hang on my split rail fence to welcome visitors to the farm. Check out my Moda Bake Shop recipe for my Cowboy Boot block tutorial. I love how the quilting shows up on this quilt too!

8. Quilts For Peace Quilt

My son-in-law is a police officer in Texas so the killing of the five police officers last summer in Dallas hit close to home. I joined in the effort to make blue heart quilts to give to the families of the fallen officers. I made this quilt and donated it to the Dallas Modern Quilt Guild.

And I included a label expressing my gratitude for their ultimate sacrifice.

9. Whirl & Twirl Mini Quilt

I designed this Whirl & Twirl block pattern for the Pat Bravo Mini Quilt Blog Tour last April featuring some of Pat's Art Gallery Fabrics collections. This is probably my most favorite block I've designed thus far. I just love the secondary pattern it creates. The blue pinwheels reminds me of old fashion windmills and the pink blades reminds me of the modern day wind turbine. Click on the link above for the free block tutorial. Again, I just love the quilting on this mini, it really makes the quilt pop.

And there you have it....my Best Nine Quilt Finishes for 2016. I can't wait to see what opportunities 2017 will bring!

Best Wishes For A Happy New Year!

~Sharla

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Noel Word Scramble

A farmer can get a little bored during the winter months on the farm, especially when the temps dip down to -23 and he's cooped up in the house for days. That boredom can lead to some shenanigans once in awhile. Such was the case for the hubby during the past couple of weeks.

My Noel sign made from barn wood and an old wagon wheel that leans against the garage during the holiday season seemed to receive a lot of his attention this year. As I was returning home one evening during the cold snap, I caught a glimpse of this in my car headlights. This simple photo with the text "Nice" was sent to the Hubby in acknowledgement.

Of course, I had to return the challenge and rearranged the letters the next day to spell "Lone". And soon after, the letters magically were rearranged to read "Leno".

After a few more arrangements, the letters returned to their festive "Noel" greeting, just in time to welcome family home for the holidays.

~Sharla

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From Our House To Yours.....

Wishing you the merriest Christmas filled with peace, love and joy!

~Sharla

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TBT: Homemade Chocolate Covered Cherries

It's not Christmas at our house until the Chocolate Covered Cherries are made (which I did on Tuesday), so I thought I'd share our family recipe for them for Throw Back Thursday, just in time for you to make some too!

I shared the recipe a couple of years ago on the blog, so I'm sending you back to that post. Just click on this Chocolate Covered Cherries recipe link. Enjoy!

~Sharla

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Oh {Chippy, Wooden} Christmas Tree

I love decorating for Christmas but there's one place that has had me in a decorating conundrum - my patio pots. I hate seeing them full of dirt and devoid of plants, but what do you put in them in the middle of winter? For a couple of years I have wanted to make some chippy wooden Christmas trees to 'plant' in my patio pots but never found the time - until this week.

And just in time, as the snow is flying today with temps dipping into the sub-zero range....and let's not talk about the wind chill!

I've been picking up chippy painted bead board planks this past year with this project in mind, but I found a little gold mine of boards on a stop while bringing my mom home after her two month stint in Kansas City hospitals following her car accident. What a trooper my mom is! We had to slide those 8 foot long splintery boards between us for the ride home and she never complained. Thanks mom!

These primitive trees were really easy to make. And my miter saw and nail gun made it a quick project too. I just sketched out my ideas for trees on graph paper to determine the length of boards needed.

I picked up these little wooden red signs at a local gift shop this week at half off and immediately knew they'd be perfect on some trees.

And a couple of those rusty bedsprings found their way on top of a tree along with a rusty metal star.

I still have a couple of more tree ideas and a little bit of bead board left, so I hope to make a couple of more trees next week. But the weather will need to warm up just a bit!

What Christmas DIY decorating projects have you been working on?

~Sharla

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Another Finish: Santa Pillow

I finished off another project this past week, although this one I didn't include in my Q4 Finish-A-Long goals - go figure!

Last spring our quilt guild gave a lesson on coloring on fabric for embroidery projects and I picked a Santa pattern to make. I actually finished the coloring and embroidery last summer and set it aside. Last week I decided to finish it off as a pillow to add to my Christmas décor - plus a pillow was a quick and easy way to finish up this UFO and get it off my to-do list!

I think it turned out cute and looks great with my "Have Yourself A Quilty Little Christmas" quilt I finished earlier this year. Wish I could finish off all my UFOs this quickly!

~Sharla

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Bedspring Snowmen

Whenever my daughter and I get together, we always plan more things than we can ever pack into our time together. This Thanksgiving was no different. One of the projects we never got around to making was snowmen made from some rusty bedsprings the hubby helped me rescue. Since I had gathered all the supplies and they were taking up space on my cutting table, I decided to make a couple - then box up the rest of the supplies and send them to my daughter. That's one way to get rid of the clutter!

Except for the bedsprings & old typewriter keys, I found all the supplies to create my bedspring snowmen at that crafters haven known as Hobby Lobby. My supplies included styrofoam balls; snow paint; rusty metal star garlands, snowflakes & bells; small greenery picks; black felt hats; black buttons; a dowel rod to make the wooden carrot noses; and flannel woven ribbon.

They were really easy to make. The hardest part was getting the snow paint to stick to the Styrofoam balls.

This guy looks so cute on my dining room table mixed in with my Royal Ruby and forest green Anchor Hocking dishes atop my scrappy Icicle Stars quilt.

I just love these old typewriter keys on this snowman's scarf!

Stay tuned because I've been doing some other holiday making that I'll be sharing soon!

~Sharla

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Spell It With Moda Quilt: FAL Q4 Finish #1

WooHoo! I actually have done a bit of sewing - a wee bit. But it resulted in a finish for the 4th quarter of the 2016 Finish-A-Long!

I started this Spell It With Moda quilt at the beginning of the year while we were camping in Texas, then put it aside when we returned home in the spring. I picked it back up during down times in our never-ending wheat harvest this summer and finished the top.

I loaded the quilt on the longarm before we left on our girls Row by Row road trip in August and there it sat while I was in Kansas City with my mom following the accident. I finally quilted it last month when mom returned home after 2 1/2 months in the hospital/rehab. Then, I tucked it away again while preparing for our houseful of guests over Thanksgiving week. This past weekend I finally had the chance to put the binding on and finish it up!

Quilt Stats:

• Quilt Pattern: Spell It With Moda. I altered the pattern and framed each letter block with each block's background fabric.
• Fabric: Fat quarter bundle of Sunkissed by Sweetwater for Moda.
• Finished Size: 60" x 60"
• Backing & Binding: I made a scrappy backing and binding using the left over fabric.
• Batting: White Quilter's Dream Cotton.
• Quilting: Quilted on a Gammill Statler longarm using random straight lines set at a -87 degrees, then copying and flipping the lines horizontally to quilt a mirror image of the lines in the opposite direction.
• Thread: Piecing thread was Aurifil 2024 50 wt. Quilting thread was Signature Solids in White, Oyster Shell, Hot Pink and Daisy.
• Photo Assistant: The Birthday Boy, my hubby, who is celebrating his 57th birthday today!

I'll be linking this post up to the FAL Q4 link up when it opens. To see my 4th quarter FAL goals, click here.

I kept my Q4 goals small so maybe I'll be able to accomplish more than one this round! Keeping my fingers crossed....

~Sharla

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A Christmas Decorating DIY: Vintage Santa Mug Arrangement

Wow! Did we really just flip the calendar page to December? Christmas is my favorite time of year and I love to decorate, but this year I'm afraid it will be here and gone before I get my tree up. So to help me get into the decorating spirit, I decided to make a little vintage Christmas ornament project. I found a cute little Santa mug while antiquing this fall and it was just begging for me to take him home and deck him out. And today I did!

I've collected vintage Christmas ornaments for years, so I gathered a few supplies from my stash and made this arrangement in less than 20 minutes. Don't you just love that little bottle brush tree with all the glitter! And I really scored when I found four packages of that vintage tinsel garland this fall!

First I cut down a styrofoam ball to fit inside the mug and hot glued vintage tinsel garland on the top for the base on which to build the arrangement.

I used a wooden skewer to poke holes in the Styrofoam for the ornaments and hot glued them into place, placing the taller ornaments in the back and the smaller ornaments in the front. After placing the larger ornaments, I filled in the gaps with the smallest ornaments. Ta-da! The front....

And the back...

This makes the cutest little arrangement to tuck on a shelf to add a little Christmas cheer.

Ho! Ho! Ho! Just what I needed to get me in the Christmas spirit!

~Sharla

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