Pillowcases

 

In 2025 I made some pillowcases in anticipation of needing some 'big sister' and 'big brother' gifts for some older siblings of new babies that were due to be born during the year. And two of the pillowcases were sent my little cousins in Australia as Happy New Year presents.

I do love these owls that have been in my stash for a while!

And this boat fabric has also been waiting to be used...

And I know a couple of boys who will adore these monster trucks!

This woodlands flora print is sweet...

I make the pilllowcases by using the Roll It Up method, as shared by American Patchwork & Quilting on their website (for their One Million Pillowcases Challenge).

It involves French seams, and makes a nice big pillowcase.

First you layer the two fabrics, and roll up the main part so it is sitting inside the end-band.

Then you unroll the case and line up the side hems, to sew as a French seam.

The French seam helps prevent fraying as there are no exposed seams.

'Jenny' doll

My sixth finish for this year is a rag doll for my wee cousin, Florence McGowan.

Her big sister, Lucia, received this version in 2020, so it was only fitting that I make one for Florence too.

I've insisted that this one is called Jenny, due to the first one being named Dana (my sister-in-law's name -see the post for the first version) - so I think it is only fair that we have one doll each!

I used a pattern called 'Pip', ripped out from Australian Patchwork and Stitching magazine, Vol 11 No 1 2010, and she is about 21" tall.

Sharing with my quilting and crafting friends via Kelly's Needle and Thread Thursday linky party!

Christmas Stocking for Harrison

 

Made this a couple of days before Christmas to gift to my cousin's new wee grandson, Harrison McGowan.

Went with my tried and true pattern for a stocking, as used for all the previous ones I have made (click on 'stocking' or 'Christmas' in the labels on the right of this page to see the others).

Hand-stitched felt, with added embellishments as pictured. Rudolph has a little bit of stuffing to make him more 3d. The ears and antlers also stick out a little. So much fun to make!

Foxy Friends

 

Yet another catch-up of some earlier projects (I'm about to do my annual tally-up of all my projects and have a few that didn't get shared this year). 

These two bassinet quilts were donated to the Southland Hospital Neonatal Unit before Christmas - I took along fourteen in total (quite a bit less than the thirty I made in 2022, but that's due to our big change in moving house this year and me losing some crafting time to travel-to-work time).

Again, made with some leftovers from other projects - I kept the patchwork and the quilting really simple. They each have a spotted flannel for backing.

Forest Friends 21.5" sq

Fox and Friends 21.5" x 23"

I think these might have been one of the last projects completed before we shifted from Edendale to Otatara.

So This Is Christmas

 Still catching up on 'old' projects - I finished this one during the New Year holidays at the start of 2023, using it as long arm practice on my 'Heidi' - a Bernina Q20 on a studio frame.

It was a good project to use, and show-case, the cute Christmas prints in a bundle of fat quarters that I had in my stash (purchased from Spotlight), supplemented by some other stash fabrics.

The quilting is a mix of free-motion and ruler work - I totally love being able to get a quilt finished so quickly on the longarm!

If finished at 42" x 52" (a twin quilt) and the pattern is from the book 'Simply Modern Christmas' by Cindy Lammon (published by Martingale), and is called 'Snowball Games'.

My intention was to gift it to Ronald McDonald House at Southland Hospital for them to perhaps use as a Christmas raffle prize, but I left it too late for 2023, so I got it to them in mid-2024 and it was used for a Christmas raffle at the Hideaway market day.

Best Friends (Pooh and Piglet)

Last January I updated my hardcopy 'maker's journal' with my completed craft projects and was cross-referencing with photos and blog posts; I discovered a few projects from the past couple of years that hadn't been shared yet, so planned to get them here on record! It turned out to be a busy year, with shifting house in the middle of it and now I have about 90 minutes a day lost on travelling to work, but now that I've got all the photos taken, I can get back to the updates!

This is a printed panel cot quilt that I used as a practice project on my new Bernina Q20 longarm machine at the end of 2022 - and is there anyone who doesn't adore Pooh Bear and his friends from the Hundred Acre Wood?

I did some large stippling in the background, smaller stippling inside Pooh and Piglet, and some echo quilting on or around the motifs or other objects, matching colours on the illustrations. 

I love being able to stretch the quilt sandwich out on the longarm frame, without having to do all that basting with pins, and this was a good exercise in threading the machine, using stop/start stitches and bringing the thread to the top, along with (of course) practising the action of using the handles to move the needle to do the free-motion quilting - the Bernina Q20 moves so beautifully and the stitch regulator is fantastic!

Th quilt finished at 33.5" square and I used some Pooh Bear fabric from my stash for the backing.

Gizmo came to give cat-approval while I was taking photos; I had to do indoor shots as the weather wasn't great and I needed to gift this (to ex-neighbour Megan Macbeth's new baby son, Patrick Wyatt).

I used some leftovers of the backing fabric to fussy cut the images and made a bassinet quilt as well with some square in square blocks (approx 20" x 24" finished) for the Southland Neonatal Unit - no photos though, as I forgot to get photos of it before donating the pile of quilts to the unit the week before Christmas!