Happpy New Year

Before the grand kids left for home they fit in one more very important winter activity and that was build Frosty! What a wonderful Christmas we had.

I had to show you my 5 week old nephew, "Santa after Christmas Eve".

These are some of the Christmas presents I made for my girlfriends this year. Little wool mats, I hand sewed some with holly sprigs, snowmen and Christmas trees. Then finished them with rick-rack. They were fun to make.

A few other designs.

A few more. I made 14 altogether.

One of my bees challenges this year was to use natural dyed wool in a project. This is Deb C., she's working on a crazy quilt wall hanging. All the seasons will be represented.

Mary hand stitched twelve ornaments for this great metal tree, this is one side.

And these are the ornaments on the other.

She also made this friendship ring mat.

This is the beginning of Kay's "Friendship Mitten" wall hanging. The boarders still have to be put on.

She also made this cute little purse.

And this is Martha on the "wall of shame" with her not quite finished (or started) wool challenge piece. In all fairness to Martha she did not feel well this year.

For my piece I decided to use the wool to start on my lattice strips for my "family tree" quilt. The lattice strips will show the hobby's of the family. This is my childhood home with some of our favorite past times. My mom and I were sun-worshipers, and we love to read. Our family always had a big vegetable garden, went camping, fishing and picked mushrooms.
I covered the "grass" in all the pictures with pieces of wool as I already embroidered in all the birth, death and important dates, they should probably be kept off the big world wide blogger web.

The lattice for my grandmothers store goes with the Christmas theme. We went there every Christmas Eve and have many wonderful memories for me. We always sang "Up on the Housetop" in the bedroom as Santa put gifts under the tree.

This was my husband's grandmothers house (I haven't yet embroidered in the births, deaths etc). On this lattice I put in a ball of yarn and a crochet hook as grandmother loved to crochet and made everyone lots of wonderful gifts. A pickle vine circles around as they raised pickles on their farm.

With the family gone I spent yesterday taking down Christmas, no more red. This is my little Happy New Year table display. The pin behind the snowman was my mothers she wore in the late 40's or early 50s. I love it and now enjoy wearing it.

This pair of earrings were her sisters, my favorite Aunt.

A picture of the pin up close.

Have a beautiful New Years Eve, my husband and I will be home recouperating from Christmas! A quiet evening with good food, movie and a little stitching sounds perfect.
New Years Day I love to watch the Rose Parade and I want to start on this years resolution: sort and put our children's pictures into acid free albums!

See you next year!

My Florida kids have arrived!

My daughter and her family came for the holidays, the kids have never seen snow, it's so much fun seeing winter through their eyes. They arrived at 1:00 and by 2:00 they were outside playing. The first thing the twins did was get some icicles off the house. One of the twins later asked me if they came in different flavors.

Of course they had to make snow angels.

One of the twins who "lives" football, got his out of his back pack and tried it in the snow.

We took a walk behind our house to the creek.

They loved sliding on the ice in the wet lands. Actually I love it too.

Next day we were off to the hills sledding. Oh my gosh they loved it and we spent hours there.

First big brother took little brother with him.

But then he wanted to go alone. There is no fear in any of them.

And here's the 4 yr. old the next day, laughing all the way down.

We started our cookie baking, first were sugar cookies decorated like Rodolph the red nose reindeer (you might have to use your imagination to see it).

When the little one became bored, big brother finished up.

I hope you all have a blessed and beautiful Christmas.

Getting ready of Christmas

This year our kids from Florida are coming home for Christmas. The grand kids have never seen snow and are so excited. We have lots of sledding and hot chocolate days planned. I've been busy sewing and decorating the house. Of course to start with they need flannel Christmas pillow cases to sleep on.

I made my daughter a chenille snowman pillow with a wool nose, vintage buttons and little snowball trim around the outside. This is a commercial pattern from one of the Christmas magazines this year. (I don't remember which one)

And I made my self one.

It was fun pulling out the trees and decorations, I haven't put up a tree in 7 years and there are so many wonderful memories in them. This is my "winter white" tree. The ornaments are all white, and silver nature inspired.

I made my tree topper using sheer ribbon with snowflakes on it, frosty white branches with pine cones and clear glass beads. Also, on the tree are some wonderful hand-made tatted snowflakes made by a talented elderly women.

For my tree skirt I used a old quilt for a puffy base, covered it with a vintage linen table cloth then a sheer fabric with white snowflakes. A icy white bear sits on it all.

In my bathroom I put up a little tree on a tall stand with porcelain sea shell angels and little blue lights, (set up next to my Florida sea shell wall hanging).

And in the kids room I put up a snowman tree with colored lights and peppermint ribbon topper. The snowmen were all hand made by my girlfriends and myself and exchanged over the years.

Close up of some of them.
Well, the house is decorated, the gifts bought, all the holdiay preparations are done, now lets just hope the snow continues to come.

Christmas bee parties

Last night was one of my bee Christmas parties, they are the best. I thought I'd share with you some of the hand-made gifts I received. This first picture is a set of Christmas napkins, folded in the shape of a tree.

This is one opened up. How clever is that. This is a commercial pattern but I don't remember the name.

A wonderful wallet, done in batiks.

The inside with a zipper pocket.

Everyone loved my candle holders, they were a gift from my daughter a few years ago. Their hand-blown glass.

Friendship quilts

This month seems to be a big month for making and giving friendship quilts. This is another "exquisite star" wall hanging done in white, with black and red star points. Our girlfriend Cathy turned 60 and her husband threw a surprise party for her. My quilt bee members each made her a block, signed it and wrote happy birthday messages for her. What better gift could a quilter ask for? I took a picture of her with it also, but for some reason my computer would not upload it. Well, here's the cute quilt anyway.

A couple of weeks ago we presented Lillian with her friendship quilt, she was so surprised and loved it.

I have been stitching up a storm but not able to show anything because their Christmas presents. I am able to show the flannel pillow case I made for my niece, she's in the Navy on a aircraft carrier, in a ocean on the other side of the world. I don't know if she's able to use the pillow case (and bright pink slippers I sent) but I thought it made a great Christmas card and she can save them for her home. The pillow case is full size I have it folded for the picture.

Pumpkins, squash, family and football

Last weekend I cooked down my pumpkins, measured the correct amounts, packaged and froze it for pumpkin pies. I also roasted 3 buttercup squash and froze that for muffins. There's nothing better this time of year than pumpkin pies and muffins with all the cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves.

I made this quilt for my new little nephew. The mommy and daddy love football, so it's made from flannel football fabric, silk binding with "minkie dot" fabric on the back. What baby can resist that!

And this is the new 3 day old baby sound asleep in his quilt.
I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

A little bit of everything

I went to a lecture last week, the guest speaker was Sue Spargo http://suespargo.blogspot.com . I love her work and am very inspired by it. She works with wool (dyed by her sister), velvets, cottons, beads, and trims etc. She does all her applique by hand, with a lot of layering and bead work. Please check out her blog. The following are just a few of her pieces. A winter table runner.

One of her wall hangings. She has patterns for sales for all these pieces.

Another wall hanging.

I especially like this piece, this was one of her childhood homes in S. Africa, with her story appliqued around it.

I also went to a fund raising dinner last weekend. It was titled Potters for Peace, Nicaragua. This non-profit group has developed a water filtration system to help people have drinkable water. This is a small sample piece of what the pottery filter looks like. The potters from the different villages make the filters. To help raise money to buy kilns for the potters to fire the pottery filters in they had a pottery sale, the pottery was made in Nicaragua by the potters. (I hope this rambling makes sense).

This is how the filter system works, you pour the water into this cup like insert, the water filters through and come out the hole that has a spout attached. Such a simple system that could save thousands of lives around the world. And since it's usually the young girls that walk and haul the water home for the families, this may free some up so they can go to school.

This is some of the pottery that was for sale.

And a few hand-woven baskets.

There also was a "Taste of Nicaragua" dinner, with traditional Nicaragua foods. This old Nicaraguan water picture was on the buffet table.

This was the piece I bought. Doesn't this look like me?

Back to Laura's cottage where my girlfriends and I wrapped leaves in silk scarves and steamed them. This is Laura's printed with white birch leaves she picked on her walk. She added on a beaded edge along the bottom. Beautiful.

This is a quilt in progress, when ever we go to Laura's cottage we all make her an Exquisite Star block with the fabrics that we were working with while there. Then write a message on one of the squares. It's always fun to look back at the top and read it, what memories it brings.