Yesterday I finished appliquéing all of the jewel tone hearts to their backgrounds. I need to ripe the paper stabilizers from the back then I can cut out and start piecing the alternate friendship star blocks.I have my preop doctor visit this afternoon so I am going to try to do some of the paper ripping this morning.

I thought I would show you some pictures of past Christmas presents. Every year we pick names on my husbands side of the family and in 2001 I took quilting classes and became obsessed with it. I started that year giving the person a quilt (actually that year I made two, one for the name I had picked and one for the name my husband had picked- won't do that again HA!) Any way I do this every year, so I thought I would show you some pics. This one I made for one of my brother-in-laws. Sorry I can't remember right now exactly where the pattern was from. I do know it was a magazine from last year (Christmas issue). It was a fast quilt to put together because of the squares and strips. I liked the overall effect and I love Christmas fabric and have a large (understatement) stash of it. I don't know why I don't use it more often, oh well another day another story.

Here is a close up of the 2006 Christmas quilt gift. You can see I did a holly berry and leaves freehand quilting. I thought it was appropriate. It went fast. (Sometimes that is good at the holidays, don't know why I don't start and make these quilts earlier in the year, but I don't. Always last minute) They are not all the same but I think it just adds to the charm, right?

Here is the quilt I made in 2005 for my husband's aunt and godmother. It is logcabin courthouse step block with an alternate Ohio star block. Again it was a quilt from a Christmas issue magazine from that year. (It looks like I'm not very creative when it comes to patterns. It is easier when the work is already done for me and there are so many wonderful quilts planned out there already). Love the red and green and gold on this one. She absolutely loved it. The only thing is, she wants another one. One she can put out and keep out all year long instead of just at Christmas. Maybe a long time later down the road (did I mention my husband has a large family, I'm trying to get each one a quilt, eventually).

Here is a close-up of the quilt. I freehand quilted stars and loops on this one. An allover design. Again very fast and I think it came out good.

Well that's all for today. I will try to find pictures of some of the others I made and post them.

Quilt til your arm falls off...