Christmas Presents, Round 3: More quilty things

This wallhanging was made for my mother-in-law, because I wanted to make her something, and she has recently redecorated her living room with a loose theme of "old barns and houses". I learned a lot doing this, as it was the first larger-than-a-potholder freehand quilting project I've done. I also used a quilting design out of a book from the library to do the rope quilting on the borders. It turned out well, but would have been INCREDIBLY time consuming to do on anything larger.

Today, after making this wallhanging and a quilt that used a lot of flannel scraps, I checked out a book from the library that would have helped a lot. One tip - if your flannel is floppy and hard to work with because of loose weave, spray it with starch to make it easier to cut and piece. That would have helped me a lot. But at least I know now.

This next thing doesn't look like a quilt at all, but I found the instructions in a quilting book. It was another present for Connor, who as the first grandchild in my family, was spoiled entirely. It is made of twelve pentagons hand-sewn together using the English paper-piecing method. One little ball wasn't that bad, but I can tell you: I ain't gonna be doing a whole quilt that way. Unless, you know, we need to stay warm after the nuclear holocaust, when there are no sewing machines.

I got my instructions partly out of a quilting book from the library (I love the library) and when they were too vague, off of this blog. Brandon got to use his new drill to drill holes in an asprin bottle to put a bell inside. I tied the bell to the inside of the bottle with a twisty tie from a bread bag (so it would only make a "jingle, jingle" noise, instead of "thump, jingle, jingle, thump". Worked like a charm. And Connor liked it. Eight month old babies are a pretty uncritical audience, though. He was pretty thrilled with the wrapping paper, too.