Gifts – Page 42 – Artquiltmaker Blog

Gift Post #6

I didn’t do any massive gift making, but it turns out that I did make a fair number of gifts. I wanted to test the journal cover tutorial and use the fabulous bas relief fabric I talked about a few weeks ago for someone who would enjoy and appreciate it. My pile of gifts for Friend Julie looked a bit pathetic, so I rushed out and bought a journal and made her the journal cover with this fabric.

I had a fat quarter of the fabric and I wanted a journal that would show off as much of it as possible. Flax had a huge pile of black sketchbooks on sale, so I rummaged through them and finally came up with a 10×10″ size. I thought it would be a useful size and show off the fabric nicely.

It turned out to be a bit too big for the fabric, because, of course, of the requirement that book has to open. As a result the pockets for the covers are a bit small – only about 2.5″, but I hope they will stay on when she is drawing.

I had some trouble with the measurements. This is a different journal than the Miquelrius journal and I needed different measurements, so I adjusted the instructions in the tutorial and have, hopefully, made it more clear for future.

I think I centered the fabric nicely and it is shown off well. I thought of a lot of different ways of wrapping it and ended up with just a ribbon. I salvaged the ribbon from somewhere, but pressed it and it is of nice quality, so it looked nice.

Hopefully, the gift will spur on a plethora of creativity at Julie’s house.

Gift Post #5

DH’s family has a tradition of his siblings and cousins giving each other’s families small handmade gifts at our big Christmas Eve celebration. People make bread. One SIL makes tea and other hot drink mixes. There is a lot of food that I can’t eat, but it is all in good fun.

We have fallen into the habit of making ornaments. Last New Year’s we were thinking ahead to another year of strained finances and we bought kits for ornaments from the revered craft company, Herrschners when they were on sale. We planned to be very organized and have them done in a timely manner well before Christmas. No last minute beading for us.

You know where this story is going and know that our plan didn’t happen. We were beading and poking pins into styrofoam balls a few days before Christmas.

Each family received three ornaments. One seems so meager, though I know everyone would have been happy with one.

DH was the primary maker in this endeavor and he did a great job directing me after I was able to get away from the pies and help him.

Some of the ornaments, especially the round one called for many more sequins and much more beading, but DH decided they were sparkly enough and we passed on some of the beading. The round ornaments required a lot of pins to keep beads on.

I found it fun to work with DH on a craft project. In general, I enjoy working with people on projects, as long as we are companionable.

Gift Post #4

See? I really did go on a jag making these wallets. It was a great project that I could make quickly. After making the first one, I was able to make one in about half an hour, not including the bit of hand sewing required.

The version above uses that great Philip Jacobs fabric I bought at Always Quilting after PIQF.

One issue I am having with this project is the selection of fabrics. As you can see from the various choices I have made, I have tried different things. I like this combination, mostly. I like that the Philip Jacob fabric has different areas that I could select from. The ‘foil’ fabric was a challenge. I don’t mind the solid, but I would have liked something a little more active (a tone-on-tone, perhaps?) since it shows quite a bit on the bottom, especially when the wallet is open.

I love the Philip Jacobs print! It is so fun. This particular colorway is quite loud, but it works. It works for my mom, the giftee, as well. I made it with the intention of putting a gift card in it and the young man ended up getting her a gift card and I gave this to him as the wrapping.

Gift Post #3

Julie, over at High Fiber Content, has been making Halloween Houses for some time. You can see her most recent post about the project. I found some cool skeleton fabric few months ago with the intent of making her some houses. I didn’t do it right away, because I was busy and also because I started to doubt whether it was a good idea or not. I am not sure if it is a friendship block project or just a project she is working on herself. In the end, as you can see, I made the blocks. After 25+ years of giving gifts to someone, a person has to get creative. If she doesn’t like them, she can put them the back.

The above block uses some Dia de los Muertos fabric I found somewhere as well as some Jay McCarroll fabric for the walls and roof of the house. I intended to use the same Liberated Quiltmaking technique I used for the Women’s Work 1 quilt to build the houses. That was a fun technique when I was in the class.

During the process of making WW1, I really got into a groove doing the red houses for Women’s Work 1. I thought it would be easy to get back into the groove, but it wasn’t. I had to rip and redo, because my ratio of roof to walls were off and looked strange.

I had a little scrap of the Dia de los Muertos fabric so I made the above house, too.

This is the last block I made and, as you can see, the skeleton fabric is different. It was a much larger print and a little hard to work with. I could have made a really large block, but didn’t want a block I made to dominate her quilt.

I included the leftover fabric in the gift bag, so she can make some others. I hope she has already received the package before she reads this!

Gift Post #2

I didn’t make as many gifts this year as I did last year, but I did make a few. This is a Valori Wells Little Wallet project. Terri promised that it was an easy project and she was absolutely correct. The hardest part of this project was the turning it! The part that took the longest was the cutting. This is a great project.

This is a present for my SIL. She wanted some gift cards and I thought it would be cute to put the gift cards in this little wallet.

Gift Post #1

This is the first of a few gifts that I made this season. I really missed making the quantity of gifts I made last year. It was fun, but I was way too busy this year. I’ll have to think about it and plan better for next year.

I made this Little Wallet as a hostess gift for a friend who hosted a CQFA meeting on Sunday. We went to her house and just did handwork and chatted. It was very pleasant and relaxing. She has some beautiful trees in her backyard that were sending showers of leaves down as I looked out the window. Gorgeous.

The afternoon made me think that I need to spend more time just sitting and stitching. Anyone need right of first refusal for artworks in exchange for a salary each year?

Chronicle Books Giveaway

I talked about some giveaways I was planning. This isn’t one of them and I don’t have the stuff in my hand, but Chronicle Books is giving away stuff. Thanks to Cool2Craft on Creating the Hive for her post!

Here’s how it works:

I was supposed to make a post on here on the blog (check!) listing Chronicle Books valued at up to $500 that would be nice gifts under my tree. Check! They are:

Amy Butler’s Little Stitches for Little Ones Autographed Copy: 20 Keepsake Sewing Projects for Baby and More By Amy Butler, Colin McGuire (there is one project in this book I like and I haven’t found it cheap enough to buy. Free is cheap enough! 😉 )

Amy Butler’s Style Stitches (I know, I know! I just can’t stay away from the gorgeous fabrics!)

Embroidered Effects: Projects and Patterns to Inspire Your Stitching By Jenny Hart, Aimée Herring

French General: Home Sewn: 30 Projects for Every Room in the House By Kaari Meng, Jon Zabala

Paper Cutting: Contemporary Artists, Timeless Craft by Laura Heyenga, Rob Ryan, Natalie Avella

Reprodepot Pattern Book: Flora: 225 Vintage-Inspired Textile Designs By Djerba Goldfinger, Grace Bonney, Mollie Green

Reprodepot Pattern Book: Folk: 225 Vintage-Inspired Textile Designs By Djerba Goldfinger, Grace Bonney, Mollie Green

Sublime Stitching Craft Pad By Jenny Hart

Sublime Stitching: Hundreds of Hip Embroidery Patterns and How-To By Jenny Hart, Alexandra Grablewski

Then I had to go to this Chronicle Books link and complete the form (Check!) and, theoretically, I was automatically entered into a drawing to WIN my list of books! And, one of YOU, dear readers, who comments on your post on your blog will win the list too! The rules don’t say a substantial comment, but you know how I am. While you are hanging around, go and take a look at the other posts. The scrap post was nice. the Modern Quilt Guild Meeting was fun. etc.

You can put up a post on your blog as well. Last day to submit entries is December 10th! Read all about it at Chronicle Books! Official Rules!

Leave your substantial comment here to be entered to win!

Blue Janus FINISHED!!!!

Another quilt is finished. This one didn’t take very long, aside from the cutting, but it was a monster to deal with. The binding took me a long time. I probably spent 10 hours on the binding alone.

This is a gift for one of the nephews. Hope he likes it.

Blue Janus Quilt

I decided to name this quilt the Blue Janus quilt, because Janus is the Greek God of doorways, gateways and transitions. This quilt is going to someone who is embarking on a huge transition. More on that later!

I started out with 6.5″ patches. Each one of those squares is 6.5″, which makes the block about 24′. I needed 16 of the 6.5′ patches across and down to make the desired sized quilt. Yet another monster!

These are the first of several blocks this size.

I cannot spread the whole thing out in my workroom, so you get a little piece of the action. It took me about a day plus a couple of hours to sew the whole thing together. Since I want the edges to be straight I added a quilting border that will get cut off later.

You can see a little of the quilting border in this picture.

I am almost finished with the back. It is causing me a few headaches so I wasn’t able to finished before I had to be away from my sewing machine for a week. I plan to quilt this baby at my next longarm appointment at the end of the month so I need to get it done. I am sure I can since I have only a few more seams to get a back that is large enough.

Blue Quilt

This is the first part of a quilt I am making as a gift. I will tell you for whom it is intended once it is delivered.

I have been cutting blue 6.5″ squares, in a delusatory way, for the past year. I was sure I would get it done. Suddenly, it was April and I didn’t have nearly enough squares. I really wanted the quilt done by the beginning of June and was, thus, in a pickle. My deadline isn’t going to happen.

TFQ helped with my dilemna by cutting about 100 squares for me. That really, REALLY helped. I cut the rest and began sewing. I hope to have this top and back done in time to quilt it at my longarm appointment on July 30.

Finished: Knitting Box

Yes, the Knitting Box, which seemed like such a failure, is finished. It took me much longer than I thought it would. Even though I should be done with this project, I am tempted to make another just because I would like to perfect the process as well as make a few modifications.

SIL likes it and I hope she will find it useful. I was nearly finished when she dropped off her child and requested a wrist band instead of the belt loop she originally requested.

No dice. I did not want to rip out the seam and insert a longer loop. I didn’t have it in me. Fortunately, SIL is very thin and the belt loop was generous enough to fit over her hand. It is tight enough not to slip off as she is in transit.

The above photo shows that I added some snaps. I had some large black snaps on hand, which SIL said would be fine to use. I decided I wanted something to match the piece. I looked for pink snaps in several local shops with no success. I am sure I have seen colored snaps before, but I couldn’t find any. I must have seen them online. I finally bought clear snaps and they work well to keep the box closed. I was able to finish it while she was out.

Part of what I wanted to do was secure the corners into a small box shape. I did that with beads and Laura Wasilowski hand dyed Perl Cotton. I hope it holds up. If not, I can fix it.

Above you can see the snaps and unfolding action as well as a bit of the corner detail.

I put two snaps on the edge covering the section where the yarn will come out. I thought that SIL could only snap one in order to allow the yarn to flow out more smoothly.

You can see how the yarn would come out with one snap open.

I will be really interested in how this project actually works in practice and if SIL uses it. I like the way the box looks in this picture and wonder if it will stay like that while she is on the go and knitting.

One of the things I really ended up liking about this project is how it became a group effort. I appreciate my SIL and my niece helping me figure out the solution to my challenges and to all of my readers who gave me resources. I also appreciate the opportunity to do something a little different and to Ruthann Logsdon Zarroff of Mirkwood Designs for posting the original Truffle Box pattern.

Thanks!

JayeL on Working on ChaosThursday, May 14, 2026
OMG! You are right! Maybe I will call it Good & Plenty!! ?
JayeL on Working on ChaosThursday, May 14, 2026
It amazes me how different it looks from the EQ project! I really like it.
Sherri D on Working on ChaosThursday, May 14, 2026
I love this quilt. It reminds me of the colors of Good N Plenty licorice candy. :) It looks amazing…
Julie Stiller on Working on ChaosThursday, May 14, 2026
Ahhh, this is fantastic! I love seeing how it goes together.
JayeL on New Sewing MachineTuesday, May 12, 2026
Yes. It was an adventure. I am excited about it. I think it takes the same feet as your new…

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