Christmas is coming ..

As I was looking in the attic for the quilted advent calender I noticed how tatty my quilted tablemats were. Well they're over 20 years old and looked very sad. I have several Christmas fabrics so I decided to make some new ones - it will also help in my quest to use up some of the fabrics that fill several boxes in my workroom.

Random strips of fabric were sewn together. I used a heat resistant wadding which was lovely to machine. As you can see the quilting is very close together which produces a really firm surface. I have made ten and am in the process of making a larger one for the centre of the table. They measure 30cm x 24cm each.

We have a cat and he has a quilt to sit on in the living room (well, okay he has three as we've had three cats). I noticed that these are a bit worn now - the oldest is about 25 years old and decided that he should have a Christmas one. So that used up more fabric.

As you can see - a very simple design with simple outline hand quilting.

I thought I would also keep you up-to-date with the progress I am making on my machine quilting. The next two pictures show printed and quilted samples which I featured in August but now you can see that I have finished the edges.

Since returning from Portugal I have started work on the larger piece of fabric but got sidetracked by the Christmas goodies and other things. This is as far as it goes .... 

 I have stitched round all the motifs and completed all the text. The vermicelli (the wiggly stitching) is about half completed. Its fun to do but I really need to do it in good daylight.