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and that means showing you my latest projects, as promised.  When I agreed on Sunday to participate in the blog hop party that the Quilting Gallery is hosting, I wrote that I wanted to try my hand at making a couple of quilted Christmas stockings and that I’d give one as my prize.

Well, here’s the first of those stockings.  I had a pretty green Christmas fabric with festive gingerbread men and cute little decorations.  So, I decided to follow the gingerbread men's lead and appliqué a man on the front of the stocking. 

To create his face, I used a simple zigzag stitch, but to replicate his buttons, I chose one of the fancy machine stitches.  I had fun going through my rickrack stash for this tiny trim at his hands and feet.

The winner of the giveaway will receive a stocking like this one, although I'm hoping to make another one, elf stocking style, with the curled-up toe.  If that one works out, the winner may choose either style.  I'm hoping to design and make that stocking this weekend.

I worked on another small project this week--this cute little holiday quilt.  I really intended to make a table runner, but somehow this one ended up being only about place mat size!

Too bad it's too big to go to AAQI, but it is.  I haven't decided exactly what to do with it, but I think it may end up on the coffee table: it's just too small for the dining table.  

It was a fun, easy project and I made in an improvisational style...flying by the seat of my britches, which is a fun way to work, if you don't mind ending up with different size projects than planned.

I chose to use several plaid fabrics in the same line or color family and tossed in a solid for a calming effect.  I cut the trees by hand with no particular size in mind, but once I liked the size and shape of the triangle, I cut them all to match.  I chose to use the hot pink solid for the tree trunks for a little unexpected surprise.

As I appliqued the trees down, I added some batting for a  trapunto effect.  Then I quilted with my usual stipple design and threw in some stars, swirls and scrolls.  Finally, I stitched a couple of plastic star-shaped beads to the top of each tree.  

I had planned to couch down some gold beads, but that didn't pan out as I'd hoped, so I took them all off.  That's all there is to this little quilty piece.  It was fun, easy and all complete in a few hours.