I Like Thursday #60 - Festive Things

Happy Thursday, friends!  I hope you're having a great week.  I'm joining in with LeeAnna at Not Afraid of Color to celebrate all things positive!

I liked the temperature that showed up on our weather station yesterday!  64 degrees,  in Colorado, in mid-December!

You are probably wondering why I'm including this in my festive things.  It's because Christmas is happening at our house this weekend, and my kids have to drive home (about a 4 hour drive for each of them across the eastern plains of Colorado) so good weather is hoped and prayed for on both ends.  Keep your fingers crossed it will stay this way.  :)  I keep telling everyone who is wishing for snow that it can snow on Dec 19 when my guys are back home again!

I liked finishing up this little wool stocking and hanging it on my Christmas tree last night!

A favorite thing about decorating the tree each year is looking through all the ornaments from all the years and enjoying the memories of where they came from or when they were made.

I used to do a lot of cross-stitch, and these were made for my kids when they weren't very old.

I like finding old Christmas cards, and cutting them up to use for bookmarks!

Yes, I read another Debbie Macomber holiday romance this week!

What's not to like about a sweet little book you can read in a day?!  :)

I like this rope bowl made by a friend in my quilt group.  Have you tried making one of these yet?  I haven't, but I'm kind of interested to try.

I like trying a new recipe now and then!  I've been curious about desserts in a mug recently, so I tried this one.  It's called "The 'One' Chocolate Mug Cake."

I have to say that is just okay.  It is definitely simple to make, fills the desire for something sweet without making too much or a big mess, but it's a bit dry.  It really needed a scoop of vanilla ice cream to melt into it!

Here's a link to the recipe if you're curious about it.  Have you tried any of these?  I saw a "Cinnamon Roll in a Mug" recipe the other day that I might try next.  I would love to know if you've had success with something similar!

Time for me to get busy on preparations for our family weekend, but first I'll enjoy finding out what everyone else liked this week over at Not Afraid of Color!

Slow Stitching

I was hunting around in a basket in my sewing room earlier this week, looking for a pattern, and came across this old kit that had been hidden away for a few years!

I had made most of the ornaments when I first got it for a Christmas gift exchange with my local quilt group, but there were enough supplies in it to make two more of the stocking ornaments.

This week I stitched on the cat, and did some of the ornamental stitches.  All that are needed are blanket stitch, lazy daisy, and French knots, and that's good because that's pretty much the extent of my embroidery skills!

This will be fun to work on this afternoon during the football games - or at least for as long as I can stand to watch the pitiful Denver Broncos with my hubby!  :)  I do always enjoy having some slow stitching to do while watching TV.

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

An Experiment!

An idea has been percolating in the back of my mind for awhile, and this week I decided to finally try it.

Several years ago, I made this large, rectangular table topper out of a bunch of Christmas fabrics I had collected.  It measures about 22 x 17.  Very simple patchwork squares, quilted with a diagonal grid.

Here's a peek at the back - of course, I love these little penguins, and the peppermint binding!

I used it on my dining room table,  and even have napkins that match it.  But because I keep finding more fun Christmas fabric lines and sewing more things, the last couple of years I haven't used it as much.

So, my question to myself was, could I turn this into a fabric basket?  I've seen lots of tutorials for fabric baskets recently, and I knew I basically needed a quilted panel with an outer fabric, batting, and a lining.  I just needed to cut this into a size that I thought would work.

I cut a 5 1/4 x 17 inch piece off of each side of the table topper,  leaving me with about a 12 x 17 piece that was still bound on each short end.  I folded it in half, and stitched up each cut side.  (The above picture shows the center piece after I sewed the side seams up.)

Although I didn't take a picture of the next step, it's the same thing you do to make a flat bottom in many basket or pouch tutorials.  I cut a 2.5 inch square out of each corner of the flat-sewn piece, matched up the sides and the bottom, and sewed them back together.

And as simple as that, I had a little basket!  It's 6 inches tall, and the bottom is about 6 x 6 inches square.  A useful size!  :)

And the inside - 

Although I hadn't figured out at that point what to do with the raw edges left on the inside of the basket, I did stitch around the top edge (through the original binding) which holds those inside edges down.  If I were to do this again, I could zigzag those raw edges as a first step before sewing the side seams of the basket.

I'm not sure yet what I will do with this basket, but it was definitely fun to see if I could make it!   

Sharing at Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

Return of the String Star

I last posted about my String Star project in early September, after I finished up the eight orange blocks I needed for my design idea.

This week I was ready to get these blocks out and start sewing the rows together.  In September I took this photo of all the blocks laid out.

Looking at this picture again reminded how easy it would be to lay a couple blocks out wrong, and never notice until rows were sewn together!  I definitely don't want to do that, so my plan for finishing this quilt top up is to take it slowly and carefully!

Using my sketched out plan, I started laying out one row of blocks at a time, sewing a seam and checking again before I added another block.

It wasn't long before I had three rows completed and sewn together!  

It won't take long to get this quilt top stitched up!  I'm getting excited!  

Sharing this scrappy rainbow project at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

I Like Thursday #59 - It's the Holiday Season!

It's "I Like Thursday" here at Little Penguin Quilts!  Thanks, as always, go to LeeAnna at Not Afraid of Color for hosting the party!

I found lots of things to like this week!  I like that we have Christmas lights decorating our house again this year.

I think the lights are my favorite part of the Christmas holidays.  Our neighborhood is fun to walk through this time of year - our after dinner walks are definitely more entertaining as we discover new displays each night!

My hubby and I had the chance to go "out" twice last week!  I love going to the movies, and we hadn't been to one in awhile.  So we went to "Wonder" and really enjoyed it!

I've posted about this book before - I discovered it when I taught 5th grade and read it aloud to my classes.  It's such a good story about kids in school, diversity, and how their families handle it.  And the best part is that the movie-makers did a great job turning the book into a movie!

For our Christmas gift to each other this year, Mike and I got tickets to see the show "Jersey Boys" at the big theater up in Ft. Collins, the city just to the north of us.

It was so good - one of our favorite shows!  We also enjoyed dinner out and a walk through downtown Ft. Collins, which is just magical this time of year.

I enjoyed this book this week.  Merry and Bright, by Debbie Macomber - an entertaining story and a quick read.

And one more thing to share - something I will enjoy all month, or at least until December 25!  A friend always sends me the Jacquie Lawson Advent calendar.  

It's an "e-calendar" I guess you could say.  Each day you go to the icon on your computer or tablet and click on that day's ornament.  There are activities to do and little videos to watch.  It's very sweet and festive, and I really enjoy it!  Here's a link to the Jacquie Lawson website, if you want to find out more.

Happy Thursday, friends!  Hope you're enjoying your holiday season!

Playing Around

After finishing two pretty major (for me!) projects, Stars on Autumn Lane and Dancing Monkeys, I decided it was time to just play a little bit!

I found this Charm Pack of Eat, Drink, and Be Ugly by Sandy Gervais for Moda while on our Thanksgiving road trip, and bought it knowing I would enjoy making something new for our house for this holiday season. 

It's full of lots of pretty colors and fun prints!  

I made a couple sizes of HSTs, cut some other pieces into 2 x 4 inch strips, and played around with a layout, ending up with this little table topper which measures about 11 x 18.

The back is pieced from more of the charm squares, and the binding is even made from the trimmings of the back after the quilting was finished!

This little topper is perfect for a small chest I have that sits by my front door.

That's not all, though - the last few pieces that were leftover have turned into a little mug rug. 

I just love playing in my sewing room!

Sharing at Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

Monkeys Upon Monkeys!

Okay... it's a gorilla... but it works!

 Dancing Monkeys is finished, and I love it.

The rainbow variegated thread turned out to be okay!  I especially like the crisscross design that I ended up with in the borders.  The backing and binding are a navy blue with white polka dots, which makes a nice frame for the quilt, and coordinates with the narrow navy blue inner border, too.

Because the "dancing-ness" of the monkeys sets them a little off-kilter in the quilt top, my diagonal grid quilting, although straight with the quilt top, has an off-kilter look when you see it with the blocks.  I like how that highlights different parts of the monkeys and the sashing!

Although the rainbow variegated thread showed every little bobble of my straight-ish lines when I was quilting, which worried me, I was pretty sure it would all scrunch together after a wash and dry.  And it did!

Such a fun little project!  Dancing Monkeys measures about 52.5 inches square, and is perfect to cuddle up with in my easy chair for an afternoon with a good book.  (I've already tested it out!)  

Thanks to all my friends in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge who inspired this one!  Sharing at ScrapHappy Saturday and Finish it up Friday.