Projects Recently Finished

I am a slow quilter/embroiderer/seamstress.  Slow, slow, slow! :-)  But I finally get things done.  When our nephew and his wife announced they were headed to the wife's kids for Christmas and New Year and wouldn't be home till Jan 6th, I realized I could send their Christmas gift late.  I hadn't gotten it done in time to mail it before then.  Our nephew used to live in Alaska, and would send me pictures of bears he came across.  I've never met his wife (they live in CA) but had been told she loves owls.  So, this is the set of placemats I made:

The bear and owl are done with my own version of "thread painting"...a combo of applique and thread painting that I am enjoying lately.

Before Christmas also we heard that a dear friend back in Virginia had had another stroke (her third) and was in rehab.  I decided to make her a bed jacket.  It isn't much for someone who has done so much for us, but I wanted to send her something.  She loves Japanese motif since she lived there for several years, and I had some 5" squares with Asian designs on them, plus found some beautiful screen printed panels (the larger rectangle you see below is one) that I bought from etsy and wanted to use: