The day after

We had a quiet Christmas Eve; after church we went to our son's house for a light supper and then yesterday we went out to our daughters house for brunch. This year our whole family couldn't all get together on the same day so we are doing it on different days with different people. We were going to have dinner here today but plans are changed because of a cancelled flight so we are postponing dinner together till Thursday (I think it will be Thursday). Over the years we have learned that being flexible works best.

At our son's and daughters houses there are Christmas quilts and things that I have made over the years. I didn't have my camera at  our son's  house but I took pictures yesterday at our daughters house. This blue quilt was the first of a series of about 8 quilts using a pictorial fabric and birds in the air blocks. They were a challenge with all the triangles but fun to make using all the different prints. After 8 quilts I was all triangled out. I still have a  box of pictorial  fabric that I bought for more quilts. I probably will never use them for the same type again.

The tree quilt is about 48 x 60 and too big for any place I had available to hang it at my house. My sister in law needed a large quilt and I helped her with it and worked out the layout and I  made this one myself so I could see if my design worked. My daughter has a good place for it in her family room. I think that the shelf with the little houses is part of the quilt hanging system.

This one block candle mat was from last year.  I made a bunch of small  things with the 3 inch motifs and left overs from a wall hanging I made for myself.  I gave them to a lot of different people but I had forgotten until I saw them this week here and there.

There were other things at our son's house our daughter in law displays all of the things that have been given to them over the years. Our  kids both had the Christmas log cabin quilts out to use during the holidays.It is nice to see that all of the things I gave to my family are being used.

This quilt below is not a Christmas quilt but it was a Christmas present at least 15 years ago for my daughter. It  was one of the first colorwash quilts I made. I used 2 inch squares and hand quilted it. I quilted with metallic thread in a grid pattern in the center where it is light and then I quilted a pattern of vines and leafs from the back with green thread. Metallic thread is  not easy to use for hand quilting but it added a little bit of sparkle to the center. (Bling was not a word at the time I made this).

 After a  couple years I moved on from 2 inch squares for colorwash to 9 patch blocks for colorwash and still have a stack  of trays with piles of 2 inch squares and another stack with 1 1/4 inch squares. I am going to use the little ones for a  couple of 9 x 12 mini quilts for priority quilt donations to the Alzheimer Art Quilt Initiative.