Stockings Were Hung...

It is a tradition at my house to hang a stocking representative of the owner's personality. Hubby has wrangler jeans with a pocket, son has camo style hunting boot, etc. I needed to add one suitable for that "techy" guy that always, even at his young age, seemed older than his age. 

The perfect solution was to recycle one of my husband's dress shirts that was headed for the discard pile.  A little embroidery on the collar, a new "bow tie" from my stash of Christmas fabric 

, recycling the cuff for a loop and a pen in the pocket suited his personality perfectly!

What are some of your Christmas traditions? 

Homemade stockings? Pj's?

Now to contact Santa to make sure he knows to fill ALL these stockings hanging from my mantle!

Merry Christmas!

Renee 

Wedding Wishes Quilt

Have you ever wondered how long it would take to complete a king sized quilt on a regular sewing machine?  My husband jokingly would ask every week ,"just another week and you'll be through?".  I was determined to make an heirloom wedding quilt for my son and daughter-in-law as a wedding gift.  I didn't expect they would receive it 3 months after the wedding!

Newlyweds with their "Wedding Wishes"Quilt

I honestly have to say I didn't start it until one month prior to the wedding.  I spent hours planning, making practice blocks and hating what it looked like.  Scouring the internet for what was left of Joel Dewberry's Deer Valley in the Terra Cotta Palette took some time as well.  ( In addition to us moving from one state to another and being cook at Bible Camp)

It all started with the Antler Damask pattern I saw, pinned on Pinterest and sent to the future DIL since it fit both their personalities.  I didn't realize at the time it had been discontinued AND very popular!  The only fabric I found had already been made into a purse, but I bought it to recycle into a pillow.

First up in decision making was what quilt pattern?  I had SO many I liked!! What would suit their personalities?  Was is masculine enough for my "man-child"?  Would my new DIL like it? Was it modern enough for twenty somethings but yet still traditional? (or what they call "vintage")

  As I tried several blocks with varying fabric choices in the line I didn't "feel it".  So I did what all artists do...stepped away from it until I could feel invested in the design.  I ran across a "string" quilt pattern by Moda one morning while cruising through pinterest.  I printed the directions and modified the size and wrote all the adjustments in my trusty quilting journal while hurrying to the machine to do a couple of test blocks.  Viola!!! This was it!!! Modern enough fabrics, masculine enough and traditional looking.

Choices had to be made and the "Quilt As You Go" method was a no-brainer for a king sized quilt that was going to be done on a domestic, regular old sewing machine! I kept two machines humming while I stitched the "strings" and then embroidered my quilting pattern on another.

The couple only received a ROW of the quilt at a shower in July prior to the August wedding!

I was able to steadily work (this is when the hubby would walk by my sewing room and tease me about how LONG it was taking to do this quilt) and finally completed the top!

Maggie approved the top (after this photo more blocks were added with 81 total!)

My daughter-in-law and daughter helped consult with me on how to do the "drop" off the mattress.  We decided to use the leftover jellyroll strips to make this drop around 3 sides of the quilt.  It would be more of a comforter and no fold down.  Shams would be made to match (still working on those!)

The HARDEST part was to quilt using a stitch in the ditch after securing my backing using lots of curved basting pins!  Since it was VERY heavy, I could only work in little spurts before my arms and fingers were worn out from the weight of such a LARGE quilt.

I made a bias binding in a fabric I hadn't used in the quilt but was part of the collection. 

The best part of all was giving them the quilt.....

and seeing it on their bed!

Now to tackle some other quilts!!!!

Happy Quilting!

Renee

P.S.All tutorials, information and images are the property of Renee Galloway at Ney Ney's Nest and are intended for personal use only.  Feel free to re-blog, pin, share with attribution to Ney Ney's Nest.  For all other purposes, please contact me at reneegalloway@me.com.  Thanks!