Christmas in July / QAYG Update

I have already shown two of my Christmas in July items that I sent for the swap as I made them. I can tell you now that my partner was Kaye from Kitten Stitching. Doesn't Kaye & her blog sound like just the most purrfect match for Hun-Bun & I. Kaye has two delicious kitties called Milo and Furio, more about those pretty kitties later.

 

My first parcel was the Christmas bon-bon filled with toffees.

 

Next was my star garland in it's little bag.

The next present was an added bonus - Darrell Lea Chocolate Bites, Blueberry and Pomegranite Licorice. This was a new product to me so I had to buy a pack to test for quality control before I could confidently send one to Kaye. I'm please to say it passed the test and scored very highly on the Yummo scale so was added to the parcel.

 

 

Earlier this month I did a post here about the fun I had at a WAQA Quilt As You Go workshop. This is one of the few classes I have done where I put what I learnt straight in to practice. I knew for my main Christmas in July present I wanted to make something for Kaye commemorating her beautiful furbabies Milo & Furio. Finally I decided on a free stitchery by Red Brolly of her famous cat Brutus (or my famous cat Brutus (Brunnie) - opinions differ but he always thought those patterns were all about him) opening Christmas presents. I personalised them by making the cats the correct colour and adding their names on their presents.

 

For Milo I used a variegated black and grey thread. For Furio it looks like I used Hun-bun fur but who knew DMC would have a variegated thread in the colour Ginger Ninja???

 

 

I was very happy with the finished stitcheries and I took a few weeks to ponder what sort of table runner I would design to show them off best. In the mean time I did the quilt as you go workshop and thought that would work perfectly. I broke out some of my favourite red and grey Christmas fabrics and a table runner was born. I am very happy with the front but the back could be a little neater. I warned Kaye that her gift was my first full QAYG project but of course she was very kind about it and aren't we all harder on ourselves than is sometimes necessary. Whose going to be looking at the back when there are kitty stitcheries to admire?

 

 

I did some basic line quilting through the layers and watched a YouTube video a few times to get the 90 degree and 135 degree corners bound correctly. I also machine sewed the binding and find it gets a much flatter result that my usual masses of tinsy wincy hand stitches.

 

 

Kaye said she loved all her pressies especially her kitty runner so my mission is completed!

 

Another great swap - thanks again to our beautiful swap mama Cheryl from Gone Stitchin. If you go to Cherll's latest post there is a link to all the blogs of the Christmas in July swappers - so many great Christmas gifts to look at. I can see my to-do list growing longer & longer....

 

It's all wet & stormy tonight in Perth but at least our 2 degree lows are now up to 8 for a few days. If this rain keeps up I won't have to mow the lawns, more time for sewing....

 

Happy stitching

Tracee xx