Barely coming up for air...

I'm *still* in the throes of holiday crafting.  Yes, the holiday was yesterday, but I don't see my family until next weekend---so their gifts aren't done yet.  I can tell you that if I manage to finish them all, it would be a post-holiday miracle.

Anyway, I have tons of photos to share and projects to write about, but I'm just popping in to show off one thing, my advent calendar:

This is from a tutorial by Elizabeth of Oh, Fransson! on the Sew, Mama, Sew! blog.



I used a variety of fabrics and highlighted more prints than the tutorial suggested.

I also changed the seam allowance for the pockets so more of the background fabric would be seen.  I chose a loopy quilting pattern rather than the meandering stitch.  This is the first time that I've ever used a free-motion quilting presser foot. 

There is a lot of room for improvement in my quilting technique, but I'm still pleased with how it turned out.






I used Kei honeycomb dots for the binding.  Don't you just love a good dot fabric?

This was the first time that I ever hand stitched the binding to the back of the quilt.  It really does look invisible.

I hope your holidays were delightful.  We've been busy reading books, playing with trains, dancing to Bing and doing "dishes!"  Henry would rather roll up his sleeves and drag a chair up to the sink than play with his toys.  Silly guy :)

The most satisfying craft project EVER!

I am drowning in craft projects for the holidays.  Are you?  Just in case you are like me, I thought I'd share one of my recent projects that went really smoothly.

I dyed some playsilks for Henry.  These are 35x35" hemmed pure silk (from here), and kids use them for imaginative play.  They make lovely land or sea or snow playscapes.  They can be used for capes or scarves or blankets or for peek-a-boo. 

I used the procedure listed in this tutorial.  The tutorial calls for packets of unsweetened Kool-aid for the dye.  My kitchen smelled like piping hot Kool-aid with a tinge of vinegar for the night, but that was the only drawback.  Two sets of silks were dyed and drying in my basement and the kitchen was cleaned up within an hour and a half of starting the project.

The flavors and number of packets I used are listed below.
blue: 2-3 packets blue raspberry
green: 3 packets lemon lime and 1/2 packet of blue raspberry
red: 1 packet black cherry, 1 packet tropical punch
purple: 2 packets grape
orange: 2 packets orange (I'd use 3 next time.)

.....

Have you done any satisfying (and quick?) crafting lately?  Do tell.