'Twas the Night/ Blogathon Canada

Yay! It's blog hop time again! Welcome all hoppers, especially those who are visiting my blog for the first time! This post is doing double duty as today is my day for two different blog hops.

Blogathon Canada is a fun hop organized by Sew Sisters Quilt Shop as a way for Canadian quilting bloggers to get to know each other a little better and introduce ourselves to new friends. There are giveaways on the Sew Sisters blog every day this week, so be sure to pop over, check it out and find the list of all the participating blogs.

And I'm so excited to finally get to share my projects for the 'Twas the Night hop hosted by Mme. Samm of Sew We Quilt, with Marlene of Stitchin By the Lake as our cheerleader/head elf. Mme. Samm's blog hops are always fun and inspiring, but this one has an extra special element. Since the theme of the hop is last minute gifts, we were all asked to make a little something for the person after us in the schedule. It was a lot of fun to plan out what I would send (mine went to Bente, of I Like to QuiltBlog in Germany), and then I couldn't wait for my package from Carolyn, of Sew. Darn. Quilt, to arrive.

What wonderful goodies she sent me! Even the packaging was fun since she had little notes written on each of the parcels. And mmmmmm, Werther's!

The pincushion is fantastic, and has been getting a lot of use already. I'm using the notebook to keep track of my daily to-do list and you can never have too many measuring tapes, right? I've never had a scissors fob before, but it sure is pretty.

 As for this cross-stitched Christmas tree ornament...wow! Absolutely beautiful, and personalized too!

 Thank you so much, Carolyn! I love it all!

As soon as I signed up for this hop, I knew I wanted to make ornaments. I love to give ornaments to lots of the people on my list, so it was fun trying to come up with something I could sew quickly. Except the process was anything but quick! My first attempt didn't work out at all.

 

I used batting, but I found that made it too stiff. I had an opening left from turning the ornament right side out and I stitched it closed by machine, but I didn't like that the red thread showed on the white fabric. I also found the stitching made the whole ornament look really messy. The fact that I caught the ribbon in the stitching only made it worse.

So, on to attempts number two and three. I was pleased with both of those, so I sent them to Bente. She is sharing them on her blog today.

After that I kept playing around with different ornament ideas, since I knew I wouldn't be sharing the ones I sent to Bente. That's when I found these fantastic free-motion Christmas trees. After a little more trial and error, these are my ornaments.

There's no batting, and because the front is all one colour, the thread I used for the topstitching doesn't stand out and take attention away from the trees. I turned the ornaments and stitched the opening closed by machine, then quilted the trees. The one on the far right distorted a little because of all the stitching, so when I make more I'll try adding a thin stabilizer of some sort. My favourite design is the pebble tree.

My next idea came to me when I was trying to think of what to make for the kids I babysit this year. Eventually, I settled on a bean bag toss game. The bean bags are made of scrap fabric, while the targets and the pouch are made of recycled denim. I have a couple of shelves stuffed full of old jeans that I've been keeping for 'someday' and this seemed like a good project to actually use some of it.

I made four sets of the game, including one for a family with three kids. Rather than make three sets of everything, I made each of them their own bean bags and then one set of targets and one pouch to hold it all.

If you have kids who would enjoy the game, my Bean Bag Toss tutorial will show you how to make your own. I'm working on a separate tutorial for the Denim Pouch because one tutorial for all of it would have been too long, but I ran out of time to get it finished before today. I'll get it finished up and posted in the next couple of days, then I'll add the link here and to the Bean Bag Toss tutorial.

If you're finding yourself really short on time this year, I will be making some ornaments and some bean bag toss games available in my Etsy shop.

Don't forget to go to the Sew Sisters blog so you can see the list of Canadian bloggers, and here is the list of today's 'Twas the Night participants:

Devoted Quilter (You are here!)

I Like To QuiltBlog

Geta’s Quilting Studio

How Art You?

Hill Valley Quilter

Sew Many Yarns

Thimblemouse & Spouse

Thanks for hopping by!