A very important page in my Christmas Notebook (and probably the reason for the notebook in the first place) is the gift list.

If I am going to make gifts for most of both sides of our very large family, I need to keep everything documented.  There is a history of when I haven’t had everything written down and some gifts were forgotten.

So that it doesn’t happen, I have learned that I need lists.  My problem with lists is that they tend to migrate to places regions unknown.  Is a list still a list when no one is there to follow it?

Since there are many steps to presenting Christmas presents, I have tried to give myself as much information as possible, including where I have the gifts hidden beforehand.

Of any of the Christmas Notebook pages, these are the ones that keep me the sanest.  As long as I am filling in the chart, I know that my Christmas gift sewing is on track and nobody is forgotten.

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The first section in my Christmas Notebook is the calendar.  The calendar that works best for me has a week per page format.  That way as the days get filled, especially in the latter week of December, I have more available time slots.  This is much more convenient than having one box per day.

My Christmas Notebook calendar starts when I start my Christmas preparations.  That probably means that it starts in August.

Most of those early pages are blank because it isn’t a to do calendar.  It is simply a calendar to keep the Christmas less crazy.  Only Christmas stuff is included until December.  Then it does become an all-encompassing reference for my schedule.

I do include a page for the week after Christmas.  There is a lot of afterwards activities and subsequent get togethers.

With this calendar I can start scheduling my gift preparations.  The sewing starts early, and because there is so much of it, I can feel more organized and less out of control.

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I know, I know I know.  But there it is!

The beginning of the Christmas sewing season snuck up and past me this year.  To try to catch up, I start with a thorough evaluation of my situation.

A couple of years ago I put together a Christmas Notebook.  I went to Office Depot and purchased a notebook.  It completely encloses all of the paper, so I can throw in extra stuff that can’t be hole punched and incorporated into a regular notebook.

My Christmas Notebook is supposed to be the go to reference for all things holiday.  It has several sections to organize me.

The key is to have an easily accessible reference guide that is not making more work for me.  It was designed to make my life easier, and when I am diligent about using my notebook, it does just that.

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According to Good Morning America (and who knows where they got their information) the average age for a quilter is 55 year old.  However, a large percentage started when they were pregnant and wanted to make a quilt for the new arrival only to revisit the craft later in life.

It is, therefore, no surprise that the Grandma Quilt received such a large amount of attention.  Many women started a quilt for their own babies, but Grandmas usually have more time, money and interest in their progeny receiving their own workmanship.

Grandma quotes fill Facebook newsfeeds.  I found that I couldn’t resist incorporating them into a project.

It is all too true and too much fun.

I know that I was told about the joys of being a grandma, but, no one could have truly made me understand the reality,  I have to experience it myself.

And expressing those feelings through my art is even more fun!

Quilt blocks that express sentiments or remembrances do double duty.  They are warm, snuggly pieces of bedding.  They can provide a special link to the maker of the quilt.  They are great additions to the décor of a room.

But, the ones that specifically refer to events, people or stages in our lives become a unique connection to those parts of our history, present and future.  Each of my daughters has a quilt made by members of a service organization they were involved in.  Those quilts are very well loved and the girls have spent hours and hours over the years revisiting the individual blocks and their messages.

The last such quilt I made was for a very good friend of mine who was expecting her first granddaughter.  I wanted to make sure that she fully experienced the “grandma-ness” of the situation, so I created a quilt to do just that.

It could have been the normal baby quilt, filled with ducks and bunnies, or baby dolls and flowers.  But, since this baby would reside on the other side of the country, I wanted to provide a constant reminder of the very wonderful relationship between grandchildren and grandparents.

That was the motivation and inspiration behind the Grandma Quilt.  I loved the way it turned out and I loved that I could offer it to others.

Coming soon!

I loved the many “Grandma Quotes” that kept popping up on my wall on Facebook.  They were very cute, sometimes provocative, often irreverent and really pretty funny.  Then I visited a quilt shop with some Grandma quotes printed on muslin.

When a very good friend of mine announced that she was expecting her first granddaughter, I knew just what to make for her.  The problem was figuring out how to mix the muslin in with the beautiful pinks and browns in the nursery decorations.

It didn’t hit me until very much later that with my embroidery machine, I didn’t need to use the muslin.  I could embroider directly on to the cream cotton fabric I really wanted to use.

Sometimes we don’t remember all of our options.  Keeping an open mind and paying attention to our available choices can show us possibilities that far surpass our expectations.

Manufacturers are not the only ones with the ability to produce photographic images on quilt blocks.  By using photo transfer fabric sheets, a personal picture can be printed onto a cotton quilt block.  Memory quilts, capturing important events, people or places are perfect for personally printed squares.  These blocks can be interspersed with other meaningful fabrics to increase the memorialization in the entire quilt.

Painting on fabric is another option.  Painting technologies improve constantly and the development of new and better tools and materials make fabric painting more and more durable and easier to accomplish.   The painting can be of images or can be made of written words.  Write names, titles or events.  Writing can be of every day script or fancy calligraphy.  Painting can be done with inks, acrylics or metallics.

Another way to personalize plain fabric quilt blocks is to embroider on it.  My first embroideries on quilt squares were done by hand.  Later quilt blocks were machine embroidered.  Adding embroideries that personalized a quilt meant for someone special is an easy, beautiful way of creating a one of a kind gift or memorial.

Images, embroideries or designs can be further embellished by including lace, ribbon, crystals, leather or whatever else can be sewn on to further impart the message being created in the quilt.

Plain fabric blocks are an easy, quick and beautiful addition to any quilt top.  With all of the amazing fabric patterns available, plain square quilt blocks combine into wonderful creations.  More often, they are used as fill space between more intricately pieced blocks.  Like the knitted blocks, very few of us who learned these skills as a child don’t have small starter quilts made of plain fabric squares.  Those quilt blocks can be made of patterned fabric or a solid color.

Fabric manufacturers also offer large images printed right on the material.  Pictures of solar systems or tea pots or African wildlife are all motifs that require quilt top patterns with ample area to display the images.  Plain quilt blocks made up of the beautiful large pictures can be such an interesting addition to a themed quilt top.

The most fundamental quilt block design is the plain square. It actually doesn’t even have to be square, rectangles work just as well (even octogons).

Just sewing together different square blocks of various fabrics can result in wonderful color patterns. But to start the conversation about plain square blocks we have to talk about the ultimate plain quilt block, whole cloth quilts.

These are very easy to create, but not so easy to complete. Because of the lack of other design, more focus is on the quilting. When done well, whole cloth quilts are spectacular.

Because they are made of one piece of fabric, I am including them in my category of plain quilt blocks. They are, however, a very special type of plain block.

Sewing a well executed quilt top is so satisfying.  For that to happen, a lot of care must be taken in the preparation and stitching of the quilt pattern.  Very small variations in cutting or sewing can end up making large variances in the final product.

I was once asked to help figure out the problem in sewing a high school drama production costume. It just could be made to fit properly or look like it was supposed to.  When the participants came to me, the problem became immediately apparent.   The pieces were not cut closely enough along the pattern lines.  Small deviations in cutting were resulting in the garment not fitting well.  The same is even more true, of quilt tops.

A variation of less than a quarter of an inch makes the difference of an entire size in a dress.  In garments those difference may only involve two seams.  Just imagine the size difference only an eighth of an inch makes over a width of ten or twenty seams common in quilt top piecing.  Because there are so many more seams in quilt piecing than on garment sewing, even more care must be taken in the cutting.