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!