Fleece soccer ball

This fleece soccer ball was a kit. The instructions said it could be sewn by machine, but that just wasn't working for me, so I sewed all the pieces together by hand, leaving the last two seams open so that Julia could help me stuff it. We had a fun time stuffing it and wrapping it up as a surprise Christmas gift for her Papa (a soccer fan). She was pretty good at keeping the secret. I wish someone had been available to take pictures of us stuffing it.

Flannel blankets and pee pee teepees

Here are a couple of flannel blankets for baby, with pee pee teepees made with the scraps from the blankets. I hear they are handy for baby boys.

The next project Emelie had for me was to make cushion/pillows for the dinette in her newly remodeled kitchen. I made the pillow forms as well as the zipper covers. She's pleased with them.

Emelie had this fabric that she purchased for some other project but decided they would make nice placemats for more formal entertaining. The fabric wanted to fray, so I serged the edges of each piece, then layered it with batting, stitched the edges with an opening for turning, turned and then top stitched the quilting at 2" apart. The placemats are approximately 18x13".

Here are my 2018 Christmas exchange cards for my forum friends, plus a few extra for other special friends. The cross stitch Rudolphs are charts from Lucie Heaton. The machine embroidery designs are "Christmas Mylar Ornaments" from Designs by Sick. I used mylar purchased from the dollar store with a layer of organza over the top to keep the mylar from flaking. Dollar store mylar is inexpensive, but I've found it doesn't really hold up for stitching on.

These machine embroidery snowflakes will be tuck-ins with the cards.

I had this cross stitch chart from Cross Stitch Collection nearly done, so just finished it off for my friend Shirley's birthday which is just a few days before Christmas.

I don't remember where I found this towel set, but I thought it would make a perfect hooded towel for Julia's baby brother. 

 

These socks knit up quickly for Iris. Unlike the last pair of socks I knit, the heels didn't give me fits. I purposely wound the yarn so that the stripes would be mis-matched. Now I hope they fit her.

Yarn: Cascade Sock Yarn
Color: Circus
Needle Size 2
Cast on 8 stitches
Used Toe-Up Magic Loop sock pattern with Eye of Partridge heel. 
Primary stitch count 56