What I Made Before Christmas

 

I managed to make some pot holders and a couple microwave bowl pads for my co-workers before the holiday break. 

 

 

I made homemade marshmallows for the first time!  

This picture looks horrible because we had no sunshine for DAYS around here. I'm talking like a week and a half. Anyway, the marshmallows were a fun experiment to try and actually, they ended up tasting pretty good! Here is the recipe if you are interested.

 

 

This sewing project had been stewing in the back of my mind since August. 

Pastor Jamie and her husband, John, had traveled to Scotland earlier in the year. They brought back this piece of plaid, which I suppose has some family significance. John and I were talking at choir practice one night and he asked me if I could do something with this piece of fabric. I said "Sure!".

 Of course I did. 

I immediately thought, oh boy. What did I do!

 

When he brought me the fabric, I was surprised to see it measured only 5"x 30". 

Hmmm. 

What to do. What to do.

 

 

I did not want to mess this up! 

After I thought about lots of options, we decided on a table runner. They told me to go for it. 

 

 

I finally got up the courage to cut into the plaid and make it the center piece of these blocks. I didn't want to cut the fabric down very much, otherwise the pattern would be lost. For the rest of the block, I chose solid fabrics that matched the colors in the plaid itself. The black fabric is something I have never tried before, but since the plaid already had black in it, I thought it would match and would hopefully make the solid colors pop.

  

 

For the quilting, I stitched in the ditch around all of the seams. The plaid, being a different fabric from the cotton, was popping up in the center, so I quilted it down with some squares. 

 

 

The finished table runner measures 12.25" x 59".

I gave it to Pastor Jamie and John on Christmas Eve and am happy to say they really like it!

Hooray!! 

I like how it turned out, too.