GO! Ornaments

Sometimes using the GO! is just a small piece of the whole, but I still turn to it for a quick fix. Case in point: wee Christmas stockings.

These are from a Miniature Quilts magazine. Anyone else remember those? I print the pattern onto a leave-in foundation since it adds a nice bit of firmness to the stockings.

How do I use a GO! die? Well, those narrow strips finish at a half inch wide. I just took a bunch of my old Christmas fabric scraps and piled them on the 1 inch die strip. One pass through the GO! and I had all I needed. (By the time I took the photo below though, I had already made a bunch of those stockings, so these are the bits that were left).

One stocking all done, one needing backing and lining. Almost there.

 

I was part of an ornament swap, and that group of six above were the ones that got sent away.  I'm still waiting for one of the ornaments headed my way to get here and then I'll show pictures of what I received in the swap.  (So, so cute!)

And then, because I need a few more ornaments for gifts, I did another set of the AccuQuilt GO! reindeer and dove ornaments. Years ago I made up a tutorial on these that you can find here. Instead of cutting out squares though, this time I cut out paper shapes from the dies and then laid them out on the fabric aiming for as many shapes as I could get.

I roughly cut around the shape leaving just a smidgen of room and then run it through the GO! It takes a little more time than just cutting out 5 1/2" squares, but then I do get more ornaments from one of the 11 inch squares. And I won't lie -- it takes a goodly amount of time to lay out all those snippets and fuse them down. After all that work, I want as much return as I can get!

This is what I got from my weekend ventures: four doves, two reindeer, and a little heart. The color in this photo is really sad: the actual color is a little richer, a little more gold and cream.

These need ribbon and a button added. The ones below are finished.

So pretty and elegant.

I'd be showing pictures of the mini I made for the swap but it hasn't been delivered yet. Uh-oh. Hello, priority mail? The delivery date on the receipt said (last) Thursday, then the website said Friday, but no quiltie arrived. I have my fingers crossed for tomorrow delivery.

Isn't it nerve wracking sending quilts through the mail? I still always worry a bit. I did have a mini quilt get permanently lost in the mail once. That was very, very sad.