Pictures---will they make up for the long absence?

Some of the things I made over the fall were for my Secret Sister project at Detroit Area Modern Quilt Guild (DAMQG), or as we fondly refer to it, that DAM guild.  In fact, everything is DAM.  We are DAM girls, we have that DAM Quiltalong, when we demo a tool it is 'What is that DAM thing.'.  Just goes to show you can be silly at any age!

We are a relatively new guild, so our first two autumns now we have done a Secret Sister to get to know one another a little better.  We fill out a card with a little info about ourselves; favorite color, what type of thing we'd like (such as for the kitchen or for organzing or whatever) and then draw names.  We then gift our sister as we'd like from October til the big reveal at our Christmas party in December.  We may send a card, candy, bring a gift to the meeting (sneakily of course), hand-made or not.  We've kind of saved the last for the bigger thing they may want, the last fireworks explosion, if you will.

Here are the things I made my sister:

First, a machine quilted fabric postcard.  I've heard you can actually stamp and put in mail, but I was 'chicken' and put it inside an envelope, to protect it during mailing.  The other side is written on with a Pigma Pen to look just like a post card, with a stamp, name and address and message from 'secret sister'.  I had to omit that picture as it did have her name and address. Ooops!!

 Then I made her couple of things for the kitchen that I thought would be fun to have, a handle for cast iron skillet or other long pan handles that get hot, and a quilted pot pincher.  She said her favorite color was plum.  Funny how when someone says a name like that for a color you think you know exactly what they mean....then the doubt creeps in....what IS plum?  Is it a reddish purple?  A blue-ish purple?  Shaded? tonal??  Then you have to search on the web, but colors on a computer screen are always doubtful.  But I did the best I could!

Lastly, I made her the top item she wanted, a table runner.  I actually put the blocks together at a retreat we were at together.  Quietly.  Stealthily.  Late into the night.  As in, I turned out the lights in the sewing room because everyone else had already gone to bed!!

I can't remember the dimensions, although I'm certain I wrote them down, but I think it was about 16" wide by 48" long.  It was a lot of fun, and besides her favorite color, I used MY favorite color---green, mossy or limey.  And the color wheel LOVES that combo too!  I used some great background creamy-off-white based prints, using texts and others, the purples and greens.  The quilting was a lot fun, nothing like working on a very manageable size.  The loop-de-loops on the background fabrics were the BEST part,

It then occured to me that I absolutely had to make a Christmas stocking for my nephew Eli, youngest family member, and 6 years old at Christmas time this year.  Plus he loves getting packages in the mail.  Helps remind him he has a loving auntie in Michigan!

My other guild, Great Lakes Heritage Quilters (GLHQ) has a WORD quilt challenge this year that I am mentally preparing for, so I did some paper-pieced letters, a skill new to me, for his stocking.  The capital 'E' came out really good, but did not fit on the stocking well, so I saved it it.  Eli loved his stocking and it was proudly displayed when we visited Oregon for the holidays!

So that's all for now, but I have been busy sewing and hope to update you on that soon!