Well I wish it could be Christmas everyday

Think Christmas Blog Hop - Day 6 - this means it's my turn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   Whoo Hoo

Well I have been a busy little bee recently - hosting my own papercrafting blog hop and then preparing quilts for this one!  Honestly there is a trail of destruction behind me all over the house! Oh well.

Here is my first quilt:

It has honestly taken me ages to master yoyos - so much so I had to buy one of those plastic template things to get me started - when I worked it out (it took a while - getting old now that or the children pestering me ....) I used my sizzix circles to cut various sizes and made this tree.  This isn't an original idea - I think I have seen this done before a few times with yoyos or buttons but loved it so was determined to make my own one day! The clouds are white material stamped with a script stamp and padded to make them stand out.

The second quilt I had to add blue to to make it work:

but I am really pleased with it - I had to use a stamp for the Santa and reindeers as I didn't think I would be able to sew something that small!  Arrow is pointing right to our house in England!

My third:

again I used lots of circles - this time I sewed two circles together then snipped the wrong side and turned them out.  Finished him with buttons, machine sewed arms and a handsewn mouth - isn't he cute!
Then my fourth:

Went to town a bit on this one - nearly did a big faux par as I was about to iron it all on black material when I realised that Santa boots wouldn't show up!  Didn't have enough blue (can you believe?) so I took a piece of calico and dyed it blue using a distress ink pad.  Then I cut out all the pieces and using bonda web (it's the English form of fusible webbing) ironed them all into place and machine stitched round them - is this called free applique?? not sure but I just went round all the pieces with wonky straight stitches (if you know what I mean!).  The snowman is made up with two yoyos sewn right side down, his brown broom is three pieces of plaited wool (yarn).  I hand sewed the letters on the presents (using all our initials - I usually spell out BORN but decided to use ROBN as it's 1 away from Rob1n! (thought that was quite quirky!).  I used seed beeds for the wreath and tree decorations, the star is a button and I did free machine quilting letters for the sign.  The reindeer is hand drawn and has a little bell on his collar too!  The Zzzz's are hand sewn.
I hope you like my designs for this fabulous blog hop which has been hosted by Lesley and also to Mdm Samm for the inspiration.  Have been following the hop all week so to try and cool some of you down (I can't believe the temperatures you are having over the pond there in the States) - here is a picture of the view from my bedroom window in winter:

and here are my two munchkins having a snowball fight:

we can't have had snow this year as these were taken 18 months ago!

The rest of the schedule for today is:

August 4
Creations On The Island
Meloree at That Other Blog
Sunshine Girl - tis me!
Hallbrook Designs
The Recipe Bunny
Sisca at That Other Blog
Polkadot Classic
Ariane's Crafts
Katie's Salt Marsh Path
The Cuddle Quilter

and if you want a schedule for the full blog hop and also to see who came in the top two of the day then go to http://www.sewwequilt.com/.

Thank you so much for looking and please leave me a comment so that I know you have passed by! - Listening for sleigh bells from Solihull