The Polka Dot Debutante

I went shopping at my friend Susan's house today and we came up with some new fabrics for the border. Got them home and did some rearranging as well. See what you think.

I haven't talked about it on the blog, but my day job is really long-arm quilting. I've been long-arming for about 6 years now and most of the time I enjoy it. It's felt very creative lately and so I thought I'd post a couple of pictures. The quilting shows the best on the back so that's what I photograph. I'm sorry you won't be able to see what these quilts look like on the front because my clients do beautiful work. Anyway, here are a few.

Every year I try and do the Christmas decorations a little differently. I like mixing things up. This year I decided that gold paper cranes would be a great idea. Of course after folding about 40 of them, I started to think maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all. But I persevered and now there are about 80 of them in my dining room. I love the way they look; festive but subtle. And I like the symbolism. I also had fun in the living room this year and changed things up there as well. See for yourself.

Well, the art school daughter is home for the holidays and vetoed the border on the Route 66 quilt. She thinks that having the stata around the edges muddies the value too much and you don't see the continuation of the round pieces. I agree with her and so am trying other things. Here is what's on the wall right now. The fabric in the upper right hand corner looks lighter in the photo than it does in person. I think it's probably too light. And I've added a little bit of strata in the lower right corner and I might have to take that out as well. Boy, this border is making me work!

Now that Christmas has passed, I can post pictures of some of the gifts I made this year. I made a bunch of heavy duty tote bags for people to take to the grocery store. They are made of bark cloth or upholstery fabric with interfacing added for more durability. They have fake leather corners and are lined as well. I just wish I had kept one for myself. The other big project this year was making fabric trivets and luggage tags. There is a new book out there called "Floorcloths! Fabric Decoupaged Floorcloths - No - Sew - Fun" by Ellen Highsmith Silver and you use the same method for trivets and luggage tags as you do for the floorcloths. My friend Tamara was making a bunch for a boutique and so we decided to do it together. It was a lot of fun, just time consuming as there are many steps. Here are some pix.