Happy Thanksgiving!

Here are my mom and (step) dad with Contessa Many Kisses enjoying Thanksgiving dinner outside at Suli and Diegos' place. He is a chef and here are the FOUR turkeys he made for the 22 people that came to dinner--smoked, buried, oven, and deep fried.

Finished off the border of the this Christmas tablerunner today, yay.
Created a backing a la Bonnie Hunter style with leftover strips and hst's from Carolina Christmas. I also added a scrappy border to the front of Hannah's quilt (this is the back) and forgot to take a picture of it with the regular camera. So little puttering was done. I can't seem to get fired up to continue clue one since I don't think I have the right size triangulations paper printed. I did drag out an old phone book to start on clue two just so I can say I did. It might not happen tonight though because we have plans to watch Water for Elephants! **Edit: got the picture! I think I should have done a one color thin border in one fabric before adding the scrappy border. It needs a bit of an eye rest, but I think this is done anyway. I enjoyed using up those pieces from Carolina Christmas that I had left over!

Saturday Sewing :)

I finished piecing my Christmas tree skirt...you can see Hannah's too. I ordered some stripy fabric from this collection to do the binding with so hoping to get at least hers bound next weekend.
I worked this morning (after a late night out with DJ, first at Pink Spot and then at Charlies' Bar) and then had no energy to do anything. Eventually I went in and did some sewing. I added a border to this little quilt.

Then I cut it with that wicked Lil' Twister ruler and put it up on my wall. I have one more to add a border to and do. One of these is for a quilt swap I signed up for (what was I thinking!) it really stresses me out because I worry I am not sending the same quality work as I am getting. But time to bite the bullet and just do it! I thought this little quilt would be nice and I most likely will tie it because I don't want to ruin it with my quilting! I may do the other one is either green, brown or the light aqua fabric since I have chunks of each of those. The best one will be heading off (or the one that is done by mail date!).

I quilted another tablerunner for DJ's family. Of course the dogs took turns posing on it. This is Bug.

And this is Zoe.

I finally machine bound Christopher's Quilt of Valor. Not bad from that galloping horse I hope you are on!
Once again this was from Amy's Passions BOM last year. I added a Navy block to it since Christopher is in the Navy and I am really proud to give this one to him and his fiance this Christmas!

I did do some cutting and sewing of Orca Bay units, but didn't get any more assembled. Feels like a tiny drop in a big bucket, but I wanted to get some of that Christmas stuff going. I am SO looking forward to next week...I will be off work for four whole days! I plan to really be getting some stuff done, but of course Bonnie will give us a new clue on Friday so I will be lucky to be caught up on that. I still love it though!

Staycation in Prescott

Sorry ahead of time..I can't get the info to line up with the pictures which drives me nuts, but just giving up on it tonight!

DJ and I needed a weekend getaway that didn't break the budget so we planned going camping. Then last week we were talking about how cold it will be camping this late in the year and about all the stuff we needed to get to sewing for Christmas...my parents had previously mentioned that we could stay at their mostly empty house in Prescott any weekend we wanted, so the next thing you know we were camping and sewing indoors!

We accomplished far more sewing that I would have thought possible and I watched several movies and listened to two audiobooks! But before I get to all of that...check out my huge stack of Secret Santa Swap 2 gifts from Shannon! Two more gifts arrived and it was all I could do not to peak in there!

Have I mentioned I am not good at waiting? And I finally took a picture of my civil war swap strips from the last quiltvilleswap. Some of these fabrics are just GORGEOUS! I can hardly wait to do something with them.




I love the variety I have now.

So back to our sort of Staycation! I started out Friday with DJ cutting and me whipping up several doll baby buntings for Christmas gifts. I decided to break into the Mark Lipinski fabric I had to have a few years ago which has just been hanging out getting no love.

So here is the view I was looking at while sewing. The sun sets over that mountain and it takes your breath away. It is my favorite moment of the day!

We made the binding and got these two Christmas table runners bound.

Of course in and around it all I made more cheddar bow ties!

I sewed a bunch of squares together (two tops) and need to get some borders on them before I take that lil twister ruler to them!

Here is the first of the baby doll buntings.

This is Saturday's breakfast (more like lunch time by the time DJ got up and made it, but I had been sewing for hours by then!)

Of course Bug came along and had a blast.

Five of the six baby doll buntings I made. Four of them are for Randy's granddaughters for Christmas.

This quick and easy quilt is for DJ's nephew for Christmas. Really like how it turned out and since it is strips it went together so quickly!

Blurry for some reason, but this is Hannah's tree skirt. I quilted it and trimmed it.

It just needs me to cut the center out and get the binding made and attached. I also made myself one but forgot to bring the setting triangle red fabric for all of it, so it is mostly pieced together.

Here is the second one that I will use the Lil Twister on.

So today I decide to have my own little parade of stuff! DJ was still sleeping and I artfully arranged everything on the pool table (that doesn't fit at Mom and Dad's new house).

There are two of these Peter Cottontail tops. One is quilted and bound, the other one awaits.

See here it is.

DJ did do a teeny bit of sewing today. She is still trying to master curves while quilting..she isn't particularly liking it!

Sewing with Ros' Machine! (Thanks Ros!)

I had an extremely productive day in all things, laundry, cleaning, cooking, CEU earning, chatting with Christine, watching the Packers go 8-0 (GO PACK GO!), prepping for ASL class and even managed to get in some sewing at the end of the day!

First I quilted a Christmas tablerunner in the ditch...two down, one to go. I need to make the binding and get it on and two more gifts will be ready. Next I whipped up the last row of this Auntie's Anvil Mini Top. I think this is the size it is going to be. It makes me smile and that was the point of it. I haven't even started Bonnie's next mini and the third one just came out too! This one is my favorite, the second one is okay and I like the third one better so may skip right to that for my next fun mini.

Meanwhile, DJ eyed some leftover pieces I had unearthed while cleaning recently and so we decided to turn them into blocks and see if there were enough of them for her Gma Letha's southwest looking quilt. This is about what we have to work with...looks kind of crazy busy to me. Any suggestions on ways to subdue it or to make it larger or should be just go for it? I didn't pick out these fabrics for the last recipient either, so maybe it just isn't my thing. I will be HAPPY to get them out of my quilting studio anyway.

DJ and I were planning on going camping next weekend so I took Saturday off work...the temperatures have finally fallen and we were thinking we might be freezing to death to go camping...suddenly tonight DJ decided she wants to make her sister's three kids a little quilt, and this one for Letha and the tablerunners we are doing for her family...so she thought we should have a mini quilt camp ourselves instead of camping! What a fab idea! My parents' house in Prescott is free all weekend (there isn't much left in it....bedroom set, loveseat, chair, tv, dvd, and pool table, lol!) and my mom said we were welcome to have a getaway weekend up there...so that is the plan. We already started packing up a ton of stuff we can cut and sew up there in between sitting by the fire, going for a few walks and watching some movies. I am really happy to get ahead on my Christmas sewing again....I hope Ros doesn't mind her machine going on another field trip (if I don't have mine back) but I promise to take extra good care of it!

Christmas Tablerunners

Here are three Christmas tablerunner tops. We did get them all pinned for quilting too, but I didn't get pictures of that. The two from 12 Days of Christmas (all leftover fabric from the BOM by Fat Quarter Shop--man they were generous!) will go to DJ's two Deaf grandmothers. The Merry and Bright I am not sure who will wind up with. I am a happy camper to be working on the Christmas list!



Other than that we managed to get the majority of the baseboard and such down today--finally! Also did laundry (does that ever end?) and got some cleaning done. I did manage to write a few tests and get semi organized for my classes too. Back to work tomorrow!

Working on Some Christmas Gifts!

DJ and I decided to makeeach of her two grandmothers a Christmassy tablerunner

with fabric I already have here at home. Since we are doing that I decided we should make a few extras because I always find them homes. I had leftover Merry and Bright and 12 Days of Christmas so that is what we got going on. DJ did the cutting (what wasn't already a charm) and I got to sewing. Listened to Lady Gaga and tried to bear the heat. Sal the AC guy is going to come tomorrow. Can't wait! Here is the first top sans a border.

And here is a stack of strips all ready to be turned into a few more tablerunners. We did these ones with a half charm square on each side so I won't have to add another border. So far nine strips made.




And I only added one little bow tie with the scissor fabric (bottom right) which is fabric leftover from the quilt I made my Grandma Nan which eventually covered her casket and now my cousin Lindy has! I love all the memories in these bow ties!

It all comes together...

Threw a few of the blocks from Carolina Christmas on the design wall while they await being sewn together...I like it!

These little hexagons are not sewn yet, but I spent some time glueing the edges to the paper pieces cards so that I can work on it over the holidays while hanging out with my family...the idea came from a tutorial I saw and I am copying the gal right down to the fabrics...I will dig out the info to post with an update of it too in case any of you feel the need to handpiece!

Kathy finally whipped me up a huge top to my ironing board last night! I need to staple batting and such to it, the blue fabric is just laying over the board for now. You can also see I got the binding machine stitched to the edge of the second NYE Circus quilt from last year.

This is a little doggie quilt for Divot the Dog (my Dad's partner's dog). She is in love with flamingos and has a matching quilt so I thought her dog would like a little quilt too. That dog was by my dad's side til the end, and after he passed away Margie gave me a bunch of his clothes for quilting...so I loaded them in my suitcase. When I came home from the service I found Divot the Dog laying on top of the clothes in my suitcase...she had never even gone in the room I was in before that. She could still smell Dad on those cloths and wanted to be near him. She has a special place in my heart now and she is Margie's pride and joy.

Last night I did a quick large tablerunner for my antique table to protect it from the laptops. Today I bound it on the way to get my seventeen year old son Mac from the airport. He flew in from Wisconsin and was amazed at the sunny weather here!

My not so crafty sister made this for our brother who is a HUGE Sun's fan and has a Sun's room. The clothes were his son Ben's so even more special! I can't wait for him to see it!

Kathy and I got everything cut and situated for the NYE Mystery 2009 by Ann B. Smith. These are her fabrics..the crazy purple is the backing and the rest are for the top..but wait, we decided on a different cream at the last minute, but close you get the idea. Merry Christmas Everyone. May this coming year be easier for us than the last. Thanks for reading my blog my friends!