Life is a Highway

I didn't mean to take such a long break from blogging but that long stretch from (Canadian) Thanksgiving to Christmas has been extra busy this year both at work and at home, and blogging fell to the bottom to the "To Do" list. It also doesn't help that this time of year there is essentially zero hours of light where I'm not a work so taking pictures has been impossible.

I have been doing little bits of sewing, including getting Christmas gifts done. The one I wanted to share was this Matchbox Cars holder that my sister-in-law pinned on Pinterest and then sent my way with a nudge and a wink. My two-and-a-half-year-old nephew loves cars and has them all over their basement so I can totally see why she wanted something like this.

I used some fabric from my stash for the strips- they have road signs all over them. I bought iron-on lettering instead of stencilling the letters like in the tutorial because I thought this was much more practical in terms of time and skill level. I finished off the bottom with some car ribbon because the tutorial had very strange measurements and nothing quite worked out properly.

My nephew will receive this gift today so I hope his mom is excited. I really like one detail that you can't see here which is that I made the inside of each pocket the colours of a stop light- two strips each of red, green and yellow tone-on-tone Pearl Bracelets by Lizzy House. It delights me, even if they never notice! The solid is Kona Steel which I did have to order, but I did it at the same time as picking up the Kona Poppy for my friend's shower quilt so it wasn't too bad.

In other news, I recently listed all the baby quilts I need to make in time for March. I found out at the end of December that a male co-worker whom I adore is expecting his second little boy in January. Ack! Move that up the priority list! Below is the pull I made to complete the quilt. I have a very, very simple pattern in mind so I hope it whips up quickly!

Those Ann Keele owls are the foundation of the whole thing. Too cure, right? And see what I mean about lighting? Bah. It is all under lightbulbs lately since there is no natural light to be found these days! I can't wait for spring...

I am still hoping to get that shower quilt done before the end of the year, but I'm not holding my breath. And I have a small gift to make a co-worker for January that I want to get done before I'm back at work on the fifth. I also want to do my annual quilt planning for the year blog as well as my year-end wrap-up blog, so I'll have to make a point of spending some time to write! I feel particularly embarrassed when bloggers whom I follow- like Jenn from A Quarter Inch from the Edge- are blogging regularly even with small babies (or twin newborns in Jenn's case!) and here I am not blogging at all!

Here's to more posts and more sewing time in the near future!

Lynn