A few quilted gifts were given in the past week.
I call this quilt "Flurry" since it was made from Kate Spain's line of Christmas fabrics with the same name. I gifted it to my next-door neighbors in Mississippi; they're all-round great folks and have been tremendously helpful this year with hurricane prep.
I'm not sure if there's a specific name for this pattern, but it was quick and easy to make using a jelly roll and some background fabric (Moda Grunge, which I happened to have in my stash).
Diane Knott of Butterfly Threads Quilting did the long-arm quilting for me, using a pattern of old-fashioned Christmas tree lights. The quilt finished up at 58" x 75", perfect for snuggling under on the sofa on a chilly, damp Mississippi afternoon!
Another gift I finished recently was for my youngest son, the football fan.
Several years ago, we collaborated on a quilt in honor of the football history of his alma mater, Louisiana State University. Last year, LSU added a new national title to their history, and we discussed the idea of another quilt, but nothing was decided.
In the meantime, I made him a pillow for his upcoming birthday.
The pattern is from Amy Sinabaldi at the Nana Pattern Company. Her version is for a Christmas pillow (aka the Merry and Bright Cushion Cover).
I used purple and gold fabrics from my stash, along with some snippets of tiger fabric. The embroidered words refer to an LSU chant beloved by students but banned by the school administration. I knew my son would appreciate the humor of it.
BTW, I learned something useful while making the pillow: Google has a huge free font library.
The pillow calls for using a font called "Sacramento" to do the embroidery. Amy provided a full-size pattern for the phrases she used on her pillow, but directs users to the free font library in case they want to use their own phrases.
If you're like me and enjoy using different fonts for quilt labels or whatever, it's easy to download and install the fonts on your computer.
And, if you want to add different fonts to your Blogger posts, you can also download and install the fonts using the Blogger toolbar.
- Look for the letter "A" in a dark box on the left side of the toolbar - aka "Font Type". When you click on the box, you'll get a drop-down of choices - choose Add More Fonts.
- A screen of font choices will open; scroll through the fonts to choose one you like, then click the Select button at the bottom of the screen. The font will be installed for you to use in Blogger.
- You can install numerous fonts using the same process for each font.
- When you're ready to use the font, highlight the text you want to appear in the new font, open the Font Type drop-down box, and select the font you want to use. Your text will change to the new font.
I hope I'm not the last one to discover this feature in Blogger. I never noticed it as an option before the recent "improvements" to the blogging interface. Now that I know it's there, I'll be having fun playing with different fonts in my blog posts!