The holiday season is upon us, and in my little world, that means it’s time to sew some gifts! As I mentioned last time, I finished a skirt for my niece Stella using some shark fabric. The next gift to be sewn was for the Cincinnati Modern Quilt Guild’s gift exchange. In November we were given the name of a guild member to make a gift for.  I was given the name of Jessica Rider. That’s when the panic set in.

Jessica is a very talented sewist and blogger, whose blog, A Little Gray, is one of my favorites. And it’s the only sewing blog that I read and then find myself saying to Greg, “Honey, you’ve got to see this!” Jessica draws some of her sewing inspiration from the movies and television shows she loves. In fact, this holiday season she did a whole series of projects inspired by Christmas shows and movies. And the scorpion jacket she made for her son inspired by the movie Drive is simply one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.

On the slip of paper with the guild member’s name, we also wrote hints as to the types of things we like. Jessica wrote, “Gray paired with bright colors.” A very helpful hint, really. Except, as it turns out, I’m no good working with grays. I actually have to take my hat off to those quilters who do use a lot of gray. Maybe it’s the type of gray fabric I buy, but the gray always seems too red. Or too yellow. Or too blue for what I’m making.

After a few attempts at projects that just didn’t work out, I finally got an idea on the Sunday night before the Wednesday meeting.

I was trolling Jessica’s blog, looking for ideas, when I noticed her blog header. It looked a lot like flying geese. Extended a bit further, like the circle of geese paper-piecing pattern I recently had fun with.

So I made a circle of geese for Jessica, picking up the colors of triangles on her blog header. It was a lot of fun going through my stash and matching up prints to the solid colors in her header. And it wasn’t until I was about to start sewing, that I noticed the tiny gray triangle at the very end of the lineup on Jessica’s blog. After a few adjustments, the lineup of fabrics was set.

I did use one of my troublesome grays on the back—no matching required. And I went with a light gray binding to mimic the words in her header.

I hit my scrapbook stash ribbon and tag, and the gift was done with 3 hours to spare before the meeting. No worries.

I received a gift in the exchange, too, of course. As my hint, I said that I liked Amy Butler and Joel Dewberry fabrics.

The lovely Christy Meyer took that to heart and give me this coin purse she’d made and a cut of fabric.

A perfect gift for me! And now I’m even more intrigued by the coin purse and purse hardware I’ve been seeing around. But for now, back to the holiday sewing!