Frosty

WOW! I guess you all liked my little Santa project! 31 comments and I wasn't even giving anything away--that has to be a record! I feel the way I imagine the most popular girl in the 6th grade felt! Thanks so much for leaving me your comments.

Tonight I made another little project that used a similar method. Probably not quite as cute as Santa, but I'm pleased with it, so I thought I'd share again.

I started with two quilted placemats I found at Goodwill awhile back.

Using the snowman block pattern from the Christmas List quilt, I cut all the pieces from wool to build a snowman and pinned them into place on one of the placemats.

I sewed the wool along the edges, just like I did with Santa, and then I added a little quilted detail.

When that was done, I called in my quality control assistant to check to make sure everything was correct. She paid particularly close attention to the quilting--of course! Everyone's a critic!

Using a blanket stitch with some black perle cotton, I sewed the front (snowman) placemat to the plain placemat back and stuffed it. Voila! A Christmas snowman pillow!

A couple drawbacks I wanted to mention. These pre-quilted placemats are seriously difficult to needle. The Juki didn't like sewing through the layers at all, but the Bernina came through for me just fine. Then later, trying to get the needle through the two placemats to blanket stitch them together was a bear! I suspect my fingers are going to feel a little bruised tomorrow, but I'm pleased with the result, and that's all that matters right?! All in all, this project took probably around four hours or so and would have gone much faster if the placemats had been easier to sew.

I hope these two projects--the Santa wallhanging and the Snowman pillow--give you a few ideas for some quick Christmas gifts!