Presents for the lil' boys

Mateo's baby quilt

I finally finished the mitered quilt.  This is my first true quilt where I followed a particular design.  I've made crazy quilts before, but I found this was actually easier/faster because it was basically a series of blocks that I sewed together.  When I first saw this design in a book, I had no reason to make a baby quilt, aside from just "for the fun of it."  But then I saw the perfect fabric, and it just so happens that my coworker was expecting a baby any day and it hit me.  I'd make her a baby gift.  Well I began cutting it out Monday, November 21st and coincidentally, Baby Mateo was born the next day, Tuesday, November 22nd. 

The quilt turned out lovely, and I ended up using some cotton batting so it's not only soft for baby, but  a little more eco friendly too.  I tied off the centers with some yarn that I happened to have that luckily matched pretty closely to the colors.  An excellent benefit of having a multi-colored motif.  The only problem is that I am going to have a hard time giving this one away!  I want to snuggle with my blankie on this cold December night!

I mostly finished (depends if I want to make 3 more name tags to include "aunt," "uncle" and "cousin") Charles mailman set for his Christmas present.  I will explain how it was created in a future post, but want to show of tonight's hard work.  I was so involved in these projects that I kind of forgot about eating.  Peanut M&Ms got me through the evening. . . but now that it's almost midnight I think that I'll just head to bed.  Have to go to my real job in the morn.

Mail bag, hat, and sample postcards & envelope

Thanksgiving and quilt block update

For Thanksgiving I brought this platter of goodies:

To the left are homemade wheat thin crackers. To the right are sugar cookies.  I used my mini fall themed cookie cutters.  There are 3 versions of leaves, an acorn, pumpkin and apple shapes.  These are way too fun and I felt very "Martha Stewart" cutting these out and arranging them on the plate.  The filling is actually cooked pumpkin pie filling!

And here's an update on the quilt I'm making:

I included a sample of what the backing will look like.  According to the directions I'm supposed to use flannel.  I didn't realize that when I bought the fabric, so I will have to hold off in putting it together until I buy some batting to put between the layers.  The inspiration for this blanket came from this one yard fabric book:

Stay tuned for future updates on my mitered receiving blanket!