Deck the Halls: Dotty Garland Tutorial and Giveaway!

Dotty Garland Tutorial

Hi, welcome to day FOUR of the Deck the Halls blog hop! Jennifer from Ellison Lane Quilts has put together a fun group of  bloggers who are each sharing a project you can make and decorate your home with this holiday season. Today it's my turn and I'm sharing how to make this fun Dotty Garland.

Funny story, I made the garland for our mantel, but I put it in my daughter's room for cute pictures. She saw it, loved it, and insisted on keeping it there. Now I need to make a second garland for our mantel.  : D

CLICK HERE FOR THE DOTTY GARLAND TUTORIAL

SCHEDULE:
Here is a list of the entire blog hop. Each day has a different tutorial and a giveaway. Make sure to visit each blogger. The more the merrier!!!  : )

11/26: S.O.T.A.K. Handmade / Giveaway from Sew Me a Song

11/27: Live A Colorful Life / Giveaway from Zipit!

11/28: Petit Lyons /Giveaway from Zipit!

11/29: Little Bluebell / Giveaway from Mountain of the Dragon

12/3: Between Quilts / Giveaway from Six Munchkins Stitching

12/4: Jednoiglec / Giveaway from Sew Fresh Fabric

12/5: Owen's Olivia / Giveaway from Sew Fresh Fabric

12/6: Stitchery Dickory Dock / Giveaway from Pink Castle Fabric

12/7: Ellison Lane Quilts / Giveaway from Contemporary Cloth

COUPON CODE:  Hey fellow fabric shoppers! Save 15% when you shop at Mountain of the Dragon now through Christmas with the code DECKTHEHALLS15. This fat quarter stack of Echino is on my wishlist.

GIVEAWAY:

This giveaway is now closed.  Congratulations to Wendy from The Crafter's Apprentice!!

Enter to WIN a $20 gift certificate from Mountain of the Dragon by leaving one comment below.  I will randomly select a winner December 6th, 2012. International entries are welcome. Winner will be announced in this post and contacted via email. Good luck everyone!!

Thank you Jennifer for inviting me to play along! And a super big thanks to YOU for visiting today!!!

Happy Making,
Adrianne

Cross Stitch: Kawaii Winter Wonderland

It's so freaking cute, I'm teaching myself how to cross stitch! The pattern is by the Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery and it comes with a cross stitch guide, diagrams, color charts and 25 super cute patterns to make up a wintery, holiday countdown.

My four weeks of progress.  It's slow, but fun!

The weather is finally cooling off in California and the nights are dark. It's a perfect time of year to cozy up for a few minutes at the end of the day and stitch.

      Beige Aida                                              Light Oatmeal Aida

I started out with a natural colored Aida (above right) called Light Oatmeal. By the time I got the second square I could see it was too light. There was not enough contrast with the white numbers and borders. So I started again with a color called Beige (above left). It didn't look that pretty in the package, but I really like how it looks with the thread colors.

My kids are obsessed with this project. They keep asking about it and checking in on my progress, "still working on the square, Mom?". Yes. They can't wait to hang it up. It might be awhile kids. My daughter likes to sit next to me and run her fingers over the bumpy stitches.

Scenes from my kitchen table

I wanted to find a way to get the kids involved. One afternoon my daughter and I wound the floss while we snacked and chatted at the kitchen table. Her favorite part was labeling the floss bobbins with the color numbers. Excellent number practice for preschool.

Fun for kids!

I also picked up yarn needles and coaster blanks for the kids to play around with. They were a big hit! Then the dog chewed it. Daisy!!! Many tears were shed. I keep it under my coffee cup anyway.

Secret code coloring page

Both kids love to color, so I printed out over-sized copies of their favorite squares from the pattern and a copy of the color key. I set out some markers for them and I explained how each color has a symbol. They were excited to be coloring detectives and decode the picture. It's actually a lot like the color-by-number worksheets they do.

SUPPLIES:
Pattern
Cosmo Floss
Floss Bobbins
Aida Cloth
11"x11" Q-Snap Frame

Come and join us!! It's more fun stitching with friends. There is lots of stitching action on instagram (#kawaiiwinterwonderland) and flickr.

Constellations by Lizzy House

Is that some serious eye candy or what? It's a new line called Constellations by Lizzy House for Andover. New pearl bracelets too! Eeek! My super sweet friend Julie brought me some from quilt market. I know! I'm totally spoiled.  : )  She'll be stocking the whole collection plus the new pearl bracelet colors in her shop. The grey pearl bracelets are so perfect and don't even get me started on the new blues and greens. My super-super favorite print is that last one with all of the peeps in the stars. I feel like I'm sharing an inside joke with Miss Lizzy herself and it makes me smile... BIG.

There are even more colors and more prints that aren't shown here. Preview both collections at The Intrepid Thread: Constellations and Pearl Bracelets

My first plan was to make something similar to my love quilt using circles. Lizzy House designed something similar and it's a free pattern available on the Andover site. Isn't that cool? It looks like phases of the moon.  Another choice might be asterisk blocks, with white asterisks, or stars depending on how you look at it.

Spinning Stars, A Quilt Top

I made huge progress on this quilt at my last sew day. In just under eight hours of sewing and chatting, I finished up most of the twelve blocks. Yipee!! Then I slowly worked on piecing the top this last week during the evenings. I'm so happy to finally have the top completed! Now to figure out how to quilt it. Maybe something simple and squishy.

Fabric: Chicopee by Denyse Schmidt (mostly, I added a few others)
Pattern: Spinning Stars by Anna Maria Horner
Previously Blogged: here and here

Pillow Talk Swap 9: Modern Butterflies

Modern Butterfly Pillow

Wrapped and ready for my partner

From Instagram: Test Block, Fabric Pull, Butterflies in the Wild

Wow, another fantastic round of the Pillow Talk Swap!  I had so much fun stalking my secret partner.  Darci made a great inspiration mosaic to get me started.  When I was thinking about what to make for her, I knew I wanted it to be not only scrappy and colorful, but also crisp with a touch of whimsy.  Butterflies are whimsical, right?  Well, this is my spin on butterflies.  It's a nod to a traditional quilt block with a twist of my own.  I loved making it so much, I'm already working on a butterfly quilt.

Does anyone else want to try it?  I'd be happy to write a tutorial.