Wendy your gift is lovely. Your fiber artist friend will be well pleased. Rita the robins are great. I've always wondered where our robins go in winter. From now on I am going to think of them being in Ireland with your DH, St. Francis, feeding them. As for my original design, not so original. I took inspiration from our own Alex Anderson and her Christmas Tree quilt. So Anne, copy away. I have the basics done for many of my gifts. Eager to create some more variations using Alex's trees.

I think self-portraits would be great fun. I wish we could get tons of TQS's to participate.

Does anybody else have a suggestion for the next theme? If not, I would like to suggest that we do a self-portrait. It could be from a 'selfie' or a fun one like Yvonne Porcella does in Ep.713. Alternatively there is inspiration to be had from Lauren Vicek and Lea McComas in the Classroom. There are probably other areas on TQS for inspiration but I can't think of them right now. If anybody has a better suggestion that's fine too.

Cathy, I hope you are recovering well and following the doctor’s orders.

Wendy, what fun your gift is. I am sure your friend will be very pleased with her gift. You have such a great imagination.

Rita, what a great gift. I love the robins, they are so cute. As usual you come up with beautiful work.

Lois, love your placemat. What great ideas you have and I am sure everyone will love them.

Rita, I love your robins....they are such cheeky little birds we get them in our garden.
Lois I like your placemats...I may copy them, hope that's OK with you.
You are all so clever I wish I could have the ideas but sit at my sewing machine and my mind goes blank.
Hope the weather is being kind wherever you are.
Anne

Wow girls they are fabulous. I wish I'd put some holly on mine now to make it more seasonal. Both of them are so clean and 'modern'.

I'll make an index again on first post.

And we've got a reprieve until Wednesday before we go cold turkey

Love your ideas, Lois. So simple, but thoughtful gifts. Very nice.

The robins are lovely, Rita! You have great imagination and such a good sense of color! Glad your marathon is over too!

Lois, what a great idea the placemats and such beautiful, modern ones--I look forward to seeing the other things you make between now and Christmas. You certainly have me inspired!

Lois I love it! What a really lovely design. I am sure that what you are planning to do for the quilting will work really well and I can't wait to see it finished.

I used this challenge to get myself going making small gifts for friends and family. The first thing on the list was that we are suppose to make a placemat that will be used to set the table for our Capitol Area Modern Quilt Guild, Harrisburg, PA Christmas Party. At the end of the evening each person will go home with a placemat. I decided to make a set of placemats for another friend. I will make mug rugs and small package of cookies for other friends. The first placemat is finished accept for the quilting.



I plan to quilt the white background with diagonal lines slanting toward the trees. Hoping it will give the illusion of snow coming down.

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I have the cutting done and I am ready to stitch on these projects as I get time. The thinking, planning and shopping is done. This represents a bunch of gifts I am often stuggling with trying to figure out something creative and nice way too close to Christmas for it to be any fun. This is how I wanted to use this challenge and it's worked well for me. I'll post more as I get stuff done.

Not likely Terry, that would take too much time. We get a lot of pretty little robins in the garden here in the winter. They become very visible when the weather is bad and they need food - St. Francis(DH) is always ready with the bird seeds. That's what's in the Christmas present for them. Glad you like it.

BTW - love the FMQ over the background fabric. Great idea.

Hooray! Congratulations, Rita.

And I love it! SO cute! Are those the " Three Calling Birds?" of Christmas?

You planning to do all the days of Christmas?

Ahem! Drum Roll, please.......
I Did it. It was finished at 11.55pm GMT. Took until 2 minutes past midnight to upload.

See you Monday girls on the new site, I'll leave you sewing