V-day Table Runner

Its done. Took me about a month when it really shouldn't have. I started quilting it with red thread on the back and white on the front but my machine was having fits with the tension so it looked horrible. So I went and ripped out all of the stitches.
I finally settled on this for the quilting....



It worked out kinda perfect actually.


Here is the back.



And in full disclosure my "Little Goofs" that I made on this quilt
1. The quilting like stated above
2. The binding, I somehow forgot to fold over the fabric before sewing it onto the quilt. It didn't end up being such a big deal because I just folded it over and ironed before sewing it onto the back.
3. I finished the morning after V-day...oops.

But #2 brings me to why I have a really difficult time finishing quilts...the binding. I ALWAYS have some sort of issue with it. This time it ended up looking fine in the end but I held myself up finishing it because I really had a hard time getting over my fear of binding. Something I'm sure I will get over with more practice.

I made Christmas

Yep, that's right, I actually got off my lazy but and actually made stuff for Christmas this year. It's not necessarily that I am lazy (which I am, I won't deny it), but usually when Christmas comes around it is either too late or I'm too busy with school/work. This year the baby quilt I made (here) kicked my butt into action. Admittedly I planned way way too late on one of the gifts (see below) but for the most part it has all worked out.

The first things I made were these drawstring bags inspired by this tutorial. The blue and the purple and green star burst bags were for the girls I work with in the lab. The candy cane bag was for my PI. All the bags had candy and cookies and my PI's bag also had a mug and hot cocoa.

I also made cookie dough truffles for everyone in the lab(recipe can be found here).



Finally, I finished this pillow today and working on a second one right now. This was actually supposed to be a wall hanging with that block repeated but I was having the worst time getting to to work well. Instead I took two of the blocks, hand quilted them and made them into pillows. I think this one turned out pretty well, just need to finish the second one tonight before I leave tomorrow.At some point I would like to finish the wall hanging quilt with these blocks but I think I need to figure out the pattern better before I waste anymore time and fabric on it.

Of course if I had time, all my gifts would have been hand made this year, but alas I have almost been living at the lab for the past few weeks.