Happy New Year

To all of my dear friends in blogland (and close at hand also) I wish a happy and healthy 2010! To those of you in the New Year already, hope you had a good Eve! For the rest of us, have a safe and fun New Year's Eve.....see you next year for lots of quilty and crafty ideas to share and have fun with!

Virtual Sew-In

Heidi is having a Sew In over at her blog on Friday, January 15th. A good time to work on those UFO's and to get motivated for 2010! Fun times in the winter!

Kids and Sewing

My granddaughter, Mia, loves to sew and was treated to a 3 day school from Grandma (me) this week at our local quilt shop, Little Red Quilt House. It ran for 3 hours each day....just enough time to enjoy sewing before you get "antsy"! She is starting to work on her tote bag in the above picture and the picture below is what she finished first, Maggie by Lazy Girl Designs.

Here is Mia running her bias tape straps through the top casing. First time she has put anything through a casing with a safety pin....got a little frustrated at the seams...don't we all!

I love it Grandma!

This group of girls was a lot of fun....Mia has taken classes with the 2 girls on either side of her before, but the other two, sisters, were new to her and they all became fast friends. Our future quilters/sewers....how wonderful!

More classes planned for times they are off school.....it will help the winter blahs!!

Don't you just love the big, fluffy slippers?

A Great Christmas

We had a really great Christmas at dd Laura's house. Picture above is 7 of our 9 grandkids with Grandma and Grandpa. The other 2 boys live in OKC and it wasn't our year for them to be with us at Christmas. Everyone is getting so big....even little Oliver! We had a great meal that was supposed to include turkey and ham. Well, they thought the refrigerator was defrosting the "bird" for a week, but when sil took it out, it was still VERY much frozen. So today we are going back to enjoy that same "bird" which will be deep fried!! Yummo!
Below are pictures of daughters with their crocheted dishcloths from me! I have quite a few of those.....I was on a roll the last few months!

Notice Ralphie's mom on the TV in background.....love that movie!

Merry Christmas

My first year of blogging has been an amazing ride. I have learned so much and acquired so many ideas from so many of you near and far. I consider myself friends with people from all over the world.
I want to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas. In Australia it is after 8:00 A.M. on Christmas and you are celebrating already....especially if you have young children!
I hope everyone has a fun day whether you are alone and sewing and watching old movies or you are with lots of family....a Blessed day to all.
Peace and Hugs, Sandy

ps. I finished this table topper1/2 hour ago from Julie's great tutorial....so easy and some of the family will get theirs AFTER Christmas! ;o)

Friends

Every year at Christmas time 10 of us from the "old neighborhood" get together for a dinner out and a lot of talking and catching up. (4 of us still live in that neighborhood) This year it was decided to go to Cheryl and Bill's for dinner in....bring a dish to share and lots of other goodies provided by them. First let me introduce their dog, Hana, a wire-haired dachshund. She is the sweetest 12 lbs of fur and cuteness. Having an animal or small child around can keep conversation going for hours!

They have a beautiful home complete with 7 decorated trees. Here are 4 of them in rooms that I felt comfortable "sneeking" into. The pictures don't show how pretty the lights are....wish there was a way to capture that. Maybe a better camera??

Wrapping presents, sewing and going to see Trans Siberian Orchestra this evening are on the agenda for today. More on the concert, which is a gift from our son and his family, in another post.

Love Delivered

I was asked by Tudy, the mother of Terry, to help deliver the first finished quilt to her from the generosity of wonderful quilters in blogland. This great endeavor was organized by Laurie and we thank her very much. It looked like this when the box was opened.

Emily, her daughter, was right there by Mom's side. This is the embroidered label on the back of the quilt.

What a wonderful quilt this is.....gorgeous blocks and equally gorgeous quilting. Terry with her husband, John.

This is the extent of my tree this year. It is only about 4 feet tall and I have it on a small stool. I really love it and have a few of my favorite ornaments decorating it. Wish the light showed up better....they are soft and pretty!

Done and Hanging

I finished quilting and binding my Gail Pan Designs free Christmas BOM for 2009 and it is now hanging in my upstairs hall. This was so much fun and now I finally have a Christmas wallhanging completed.

Decorating.....

I read somewhere recently (blogs are starting to run together in my head) about taking bunches of the same kind of decoration/ornament and putting them in Christmas containers or any pretty container for that matter. Freebie decorations from items in your home already....here is my version. I think Santa looks even jollier now!

My nativity and "Inn"......

This nativity is very special to me. My FIL made ceramics for years. He was very good in art and free hand drawing. I had had nativity sets before, but mostly made of plastic and our dogs "chewed" quite a few of the characters! The Christmas I received this set I was blown away. I had no idea he was doing this for the months before and was totally surprised and overcome! I treasure the many things from him that I use and decorate with. I hope he looks down sometimes and is pleased!

And this is my "Barney" tree. It sits on my kitchen table with all of my beagle ornaments on it. After I took this picture I saw that Barney's photo is on the bulletin board right behind it....couldn't have planned that better if I had tried!

Decorating with my Win

I am finally able to decorate with the wonderful win I got from Jodi when she did her Moda Bake Shop tutorial back in July. I won the pillow and tablerunner....I love both.

Another giveaway(s)

Cathy is having a giveaway that includes 6 groupings of wonderful goodies that would appeal to any crafter/sewer/quilter. This is just one of the groups! Good luck.

My Saturday.

I worked on this Saturday afternoon before we went to DD Laura's house for our second Thanksgiving dinner. (she had to work on the holiday)

DD Laura is holding Oliver....DD #2, Amy's youngest. Amy posed also! This was before we consumed way too much food!
SIL, Dave did a swell job on frying the turkey.....it was yummy! 77 minutes for a 22 pound bird!

Dave and Graham taking praises for a job well done. Graham is 12 and loves to cook....I see the Culinary Institute in his future!

And bless their hearts, hubby and SIL cleaned and cleaned after we all finished eating! Love when the girls don't have to do cleanup!

Giveaway

Corrie over at Retromummy is giving away 12 Fat Quarters of this gorgeous line of fabrics...Grandmother's Flower Garden....luscious!

Thanksgiving Blessings

We have many blessings to be grateful for. This past month I was challenged by a friend to list something that I was grateful for each day until Thanksgiving. At first it was relatively easy, then I actually had to think a few of the days for something. That is sad....I have many blessings in my life. I think I just take a lot for granted most of the time. I have always had a home, food and clothing....a lot of people don't or have struggled for these bare necessities.
I want to wish all of my blogging friends that celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow a blessed day with family, friends or pets! Eat a lot and enjoy each other.....I will!
I also was blessed with finally finishing my tablerunner...now on to finish my Christmas wallhanging, maybe by this weekend!

A Must See....

Hubby and I just returned from seeing the new movie that was released today...The Blind Side with Sandra Bullock. What a great movie...you laugh, you cry.....a must see holiday/end of the year movie!!

Christmas is coming....

In yesterday's mail, I received this cute card and lovely fabric, ribbons and buttons from Marj. Thank you Marj! It was a quicky Christmas swap hosted by Jenny and it was meant to get us in the mood, I think! I can't believe that Thanksgiving is only 2 weeks away and Christmas will be about 4 weeks after that! Whoa....time to get that machine humming!

Early presents!

Last night we had our Christmas Party for our local quilt guild. We don't meet in December, so we have it early. It was a really nice dinner and get together at a local restaurant, The River Styx Grille at Blue Heron. I came away with a lot of goodies. First I won one of five door prizes. Very cool.
Next we revealed to each other who our secret sister was for the last year. Here is my sweet gift from my secret sister, Peggy....another cute project for Christmas and lots of chocolate!
We each brought a gift, a nice one, for each other. You didn't have to sign your name to it and we played a game where we passed it right or left as our leader read a story with the words right and left in it. The gifts traveled around the circle until the story was done and whatever gift you had at the end was yours to keep. This is what I received.....wow, what a great evening!

Thank You!

A great big thank you to all of the men and women that have or are serving our country in all branches of our military! My husband is a veteran of the Army during the Vietnam War. Right now he is attending a program at our granddaughter, Mia's school. The school does this every year for the relatives of the kids. They have been practicing since the first week of school. They announce each veteran's name and branch of the service and they have to stand and be recognized. Thank you for our Freedoms!

Almost finished.

I really enjoyed working on Gail Pan's free BOM for 2009. It was a 9 month freebie. I loved the simplicity of the embroidery and it helped me get back my stitch skills. I finally got it stitched together. I knew I wanted something simple with no sashing or borders because my colors, especially the green, are quite busy! I did buy a yard of a Christmas fabric I fell in love with at Nautical Needle this past weekend. I took swatches of the red and green and thought it would go with this new fabric. Now I don't know. I am just using it for the backing and the binding....

I layed it out with a thin "binding" strip along the edge of the top just to see if I liked it. I really do like it....it is very different.

The gold/cheddar color matches the gold stitches in all of the blocks...I think it accentuates them.
It is different and I think I am going for it. Finished photos to follow!

A stinky end to a great day!

My hubby and I went to vote and then had a relaxing afternoon shopping. I even got a few small gifts for Christmas...Kohl's had 50% off some items and then we got our "senior discount" of 15% on top of that. We ate out at Applebee's and then headed home....relaxed and happy. When we let our dogs outside, our standard poodle, Jack, encountered this....and it has been downhill ever since!!
P.S. I do have this great recipe for getting skunk odor out of dog fur though. I am sure there are numerous such recipes, but this is what has worked for us. 1 quart hydrogen peroxide, 1/4 cup baking soda and 2 tbls. dish soap. Hubby is bathing him as I type!!

Bags, bags, and more bags!

For the life of me I can not remember where I saw this link when I was reading blogs yesterday. I wrote down the link for frugal and thriving because I thought I could pass it along to all of my followers/readers. If you want to make a bag, this is the place for you. Enjoy!

Giveaway

I love, love, love these new samplers that Moda will be having! Jackie is having a wonderful giveaway that includes this and many more things. Head on over and take a look.....I'm winning this one though!!

Learning needleturn.......

I have really wanted to learn needleturn applique for quite a while. I even went online and tryed to find tutorials, but I am a person that needs to see it "up close and personal". Last night I finished a two part class at our LQS (which by the way just closed this week except for classes...so very sad!). Our teacher, Mary, is the best. I really love handwork and this is no exception! This is our practice piece from last week....didn't get mine done.

This is the fabric and the pattern all cut out and the actual square for the project with the overlay flipped up. The overlay has the pattern drawn on it and you use it to position your fabric pieces onto your base fabric.

This is the overlay flipped over onto your square....you can see the pattern drawn on it. This overlay that Mary teaches is a very fine "red dot tracer"....you baste it to the top and just flip it over when stitching....it does not get in the way and is so light, you don't even know it's there.

And this is what the finished item should look like....I'm glad it is in Spring colors, because that is when it probably will be finished! ;o)