December 26, 2021
These lined tissue holders went into the 12-Days of Christmas packages for the kids. The pattern was very simple but I had to start three times on my first one before I got it right. They all got an extra supply of tissues so they are refillable.
Although Stacia, Deloise and I sewed for three calendar days some of our days were shorter than others as we each had commitments at some point over a couple of the days. Nevertheless it was a wonderful three days.
First up was our lesson in freezer-paper paper piecing, a technique I’ve tried before but had no luck with. It must have been the teacher because with Deloise’s guidance I had no trouble at all. It is certainly going to be my go-to technique for any future paper piecing projects; I know my Splendid Sampler blocks will go a lot quicker from now on.
The centre star was as far as the class went, but Deloise had finished hers so I just copied what she had done. I added a border and somewhat copied her quilting design. It took me until the third day of sewing to get it all finished.
Our November miniature was the second project. Stacia and Deloise were finished, of course, long before I was. I changed the pattern somewhat so mine is a bit larger than the pattern. The binding on this one took me until the third day as well.
This month’s miniature involved a lot of flying geese. Lucky for me many years ago I started a project (Wild Goose Wednesday) from the same company. That project needed 264 wild geese; needless to say I quit long before I got close to that amount. I was able to trim some of the ones I had and ended up with almost as many as I needed for this project.
Stacia and Deloise were starting from scratch that morning and we were all in about the same place by noon. I was sure this was going to be the month that I finished ahead of them!
On our recent trip to Saskatoon Kathryn pulled out a tablecloth that would fit her table when all the leaves were in place. Then she decided it reminded her of Christmas so she took it off again. I got the idea that maybe I could make her a tablecloth; we ended up deciding to make the tablecloth the size to fit the table as they most often use it – without the leaves.
We went shopping and picked fabric for two reversible tablecloths. The size we needed fit, almost perfectly, the width of the fabric but when I was sandwiching the pieces I didn’t get them lined up exactly as they should have and I was afraid the size would be off a lot. As it turned out it was pretty good size-wise.
I used a 2-colour binding on the project – not something I’d do unless I had to. I followed an online tutorial and made a few notes for the next one that I make.