Christmas in August

Oh, there's been a lot of sewing around here lately! Mostly gifts, which I'm just itching to share with you, but can't quite yet. I did manage to whip out a tiered skirt for my daughter before our impending trip, but it was so quickly packed up into the luggage I didn't get to snap a pic for you!

And should you think Christmas is too far away to think about yet - not so!! I wrapped 2 Christmas gifts today! Plus I got some long-awaited Christmas fabric in the mail this afternoon.
It will be the backing fabric to match this hexagon quilt I started waaay back in March. It's "Glace" by Three Sisters/Moda. I'm still deciding how to finish off the top of this quilt....it's quite small, about 36" x 30". I have just a few strips of the Glace left, along with a bunch of a sand colored Kona which is most of the quilt top already. Perhaps this will become a Christmas wall hanging! I'm envisioning hand-quilted snowflakes between the hex's, done in a deep red to really stand out against the background color.

Hopefully I'll have a finished quilt top to show you soon! Until then, I'm signing off for some much needed R&R for a couple weeks.

Angelic stitches

The next generation of crafters is rising! My 8 yr old daughter stitched this.... the only help from mom was tying off a few threads! It is part of a kit to make 6 mini Christmas stockings. This is the second one she's stitched.

Hot Rods, Wheat Sheaves, and rolling in the hay

My fifth pair of socks for the 20/10 sock challenge is complete! Half way! For July, the solid sock knit-a-long group over at Ravelry challenged us to knit a solid colored sock inspired by our flag's colors. I found a sport weight yarn called "Hot Rod Red" - what could be more American than hopped up muscle cars? Then I saw this pattern by Gina House and knew I had a good match.

The textured diamonds and ribbing reminded me of the star field and stripes on the US flag. The stitch pattern is called "Wheat sheaves," another icon of midwestern America. Even the title of the pattern, "A Roll in the Hay" reminded me of some twangy country songs I've heard.