Post-Christmas Slacking

Now that Christmas is over, I can show a couple of the gifts that I managed to find time to make. Most years, I devote more effort to making more presents, but this year I think it all caught up to me, and I just felt like too often they are met with indifference. So to heck with it. This first one is a 55"x65" quilt for my niece, but it is rather "on the simple". I think (except for the binding), it took me all of an hour to put together and not too much more than that to quilt. The panel is really very pretty of the tigers, and it had an accompanying print that I used on the borders. My neice is the animal of the family so it is right up her alley. The panto is called Seaweed. This was the first time I used it (as well the first time for the bright lime green YLI thread). The panto is just right for a kid quilt - fast and easy, and it seemed appropriate for the grass.
A close up... And you can see the cheetah minkie fabric I put on the back. It was ver soft, despite being horrendously messy to work with.

I made my mother 12 Days of Christmas placemats. What a mistake!... Twelve placemats have as much binding as 2 king-sized bed quilts! I quickly learned how to do a machine binding that was acceptable. I located a panel (forgot who it is by, maybe Nancy Halvorson?) of the 12 Days of Christmas, and then cut each same-sized panel to use on individual placemats. I chose 3-4 different greens from my stash to frame the panel, and went from there.

Some of you may recognize the quilting as my "testing" the Glide thread before I quilted one of my quilts recently. The Glide thread is just fantastic to work with and has a wonderful sheen. Here's 2 Turtle Doves...

...and Seven Swans a swimming. This one is my favorite. There is something about snowglobes.

Whichever placemat was under my daughter's plate was promptly stained with beet from dinner. Hope that comes out!

I am off tomorrow with my husband to get a new addition - we have located a kitten to adopt. The shelters are very hard to get kittens at because of everyone looking there. We visited one yesterday, and the paperwork asked who our vet was. Much to my surprise they called the vet as we waited, and learned that our current cat is 4 months behind on her shots! No kitten yesterday! I was so peaved since we'd driven an hour. The kids were pretty upset. It's not like my cat ever goes outside. I spent a couple hours in the afternoon searching before finding one on Craig's list. It's a 2-1/2 hour drive from us, which can only happen tomorrow. My husband and I call it our "getting away", as the kids will go to Nana's. Not sure what we will call the long drive home with a confused meowing kitten!

The first of my quilts that was quilted this summer/fall is currently being blocked. I will bind it once I decide on the fabric (and once it is dry). It will be one of this April's MQX entries.