December 2015

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!  We had a warm one this year.  I loved it.  We saw most of the kids and grand kids on Christmas day and will see the rest of them today.  Our family is growing and we had two little ones celebrating their first Christmas this year.  Of course they had to get Christmas stockings.  I used Kate Spain's fabric again and made mini tumbler stockings for them.

This is going to be another hodge podge type post.  Trying to get one more in before the end of the year.  These are two market type  bags I made for quilt club.  They were very easy to make and roll up very small for shopping until they are needed.  I am using one of them now for knitting.

While I love working from home, I do miss out on the socialization at the office.  I found out they were having a baby shower for a lady who works at the office.  I don't know her and didn't even know anyone was pregnant.  I love making baby quilts and thought this one would be easy and quick.  I was wrong on both fronts!  It took me a while to figure out the angles and the layout for this.  It is hard to see, but I used a variety of floral prints.  I was pretty happy with how it turned out.

 My husband and I went fabric shopping last spring.  He bought more fabric than I did and he doesn't sew or quilt.  I struggled with this quilt because I wasn't crazy about the fabric and my husband just wanted the quilt to be the panel with borders of the different ford fabrics.  It just wasn't working for me.  I ended up having to use pinwheels for the one fabric because it just didn't work as a border.  My husband loves it.  That is all that matters.

Here are our two babies.  I knit three sweaters for Christmas presents this year.  I am working on a fourth one because I just didn't like the way the third one turned out.  It just was too big and didn't look proportionate to me.  That one was for Josiah, my two year old grandson.  This is AJ in his sweater.  It is actually a pea coat.  He wasn't very happy with the hood on and it was too warm for the coat in the house.

And this is Micah in his.  He is a little bit happier in it.  You can't really tell what they look like since neither of these guys stands yet.  Hopefully when Josiah gets his I will be able to get a nicer picture.Nicer picture of the pea coat.  I think the baby is adorable!

This was another Christmas present that I was working on.  I was amazed that I finished it and it arrived at its destination before Christmas.  This is for my aunt who visited us this fall.  She showed me a fabric in my stash that was the color of her bedroom.  I ordered this fabric to match that fabric and when it arrived it wasn't even close.  I worried about that and thought I should get a different fabric.  This is a king size quilt, so I had to buy a lot of fabric and didn't want this in my stash, so I decided to go ahead and hope that it wouldn't clash with the room.  I was told that it matched the color of their tray ceiling and looks beautiful in the room.  What a relief!

I think this panto is Drunken Feathers.  It looked pretty nice on the quilt-more noticeable in the white of the quilt and helps make the quilting look a little bit more traditional.

I am way behind in Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt, Allietare.  I am only part way done with part 4 and part 5 came out last night.  I am making my quilt larger than hers, so I am making 25% more pieces than she tells us to make.  I did something like this for another one of her mystery quilts that was smaller than I would like and it turned out almost perfect.  I am hoping for the same this time.  I also stepped out of my box and changed up my colors.  The only one that is the same is the neutral.  I love seeing other peoples' quilts when they do this and hope I am happy with the end quilt.

Then I decided that I really like the original colors of the mystery quilt.  I am also making a smaller version in the original red, gray, black and gold.  This one won't be scrappy though.  I just didn't have the time to do two scrappy mystery quilts.  It is amazing how much quicker it is so use yardage to make a quilt.  I didn't get to part 4 for this quilt yet.  I was hoping to get caught up this weekend.  That may not happen though with baby sitting.  I think I am on the maybe list for this weekend.  My daughter's mother in law was scheduled to babysit Sunday, but she may not be able to.  I am still waiting to hear about that.

I hope that everyone has a wonderful New Year!

What I have been up to

I have not blogged for months.  I have another blog for my quilt club that I do monthly, but I have really been neglecting my personal blog.  So here is just a brief recap of the last few months.

I finally finished my Grand Illusion quilt.  I wanted to finish this before the next mystery begins.  I am gifting this and hope the recipient likes it as much as I do.

I am working on a quilt for my hubby too.  I want to finish that and make one more quilt before the mystery begins.  

I probably shouldn't include this picture-sorry.  I made this little table topper for my neighbor who had surgery.  She was gracious and allowed me to take a picture of her with it.

 I knit my grandson Brady a Sack Boy.  I never heard of him before, so Brady drew a picture of him and I found a pattern to make him.  Brady picked out the blue eyes for him.  My first knit doll.

My aunt visited my mother (her sister) after not seeing each other for 25 years.  I just love this picture of them and want to print it out for my mother.

My newest addition to my herd.  A coral sewing machine.  I want to put it somewhere, but I am not sure where yet.  It sews ok-it's not like a vintage singer though.  I don't know if it needs a little more work or not.  It was just too pretty not to buy.  I also got a treadle this summer.  I got a Singer Red Eye.  Treadling isn't as easy as it looks!  I need to find time to practice that.

My quilt club makes a quilt for Special Olympics to raffle off every year.  This year we made a bargello-our first bargello.

Make a Wish threw a princess birthday party for my grandson Oliver.  He was so excited and delighted with the party.  There were princesses, clowns and a magician with rabbits.

This is Micah.  He is the newest addition to the family.  He was born in August, so will celebrate an August birthday with two of his cousins and two of his siblings.  I shouldn't put this picture in either-sorry to me.

I got to sew outside a little bit this past summer.  What a wonderfully relaxing way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Sarah wanted matching quilts for Micah and Josiah since they will be sharing a room.  The theme of their bedroom is pirates.  I found these really cute panels by Riley Blake and designed a border for them.

One of Sarah's friends lost her mother to breast cancer and asked me to make her a memory quilt with some of her shirts.  This is what I came up with.

Lucy got a sister for her birthday this year.  This is Chin.  They love each other.

In quilt club we are working on a round robin quilt.  This is mine.  Everyone has designed one of the rounds.  My round is the triangles that set the quilt on angle.  The 5th round is going to be applique, I was told.

This is AJ and his mom Tiffany.  I think he was about three

 months old here.

This is Micah in his Halloween costume that I made for him.  I made Madison a Princess Leia costume.  Josiah is going to be Yoda and Elijah will be Luke Skywalker.  I think dad is going to be Darth Vader.  I think mom is going to be Luke's mother and Teddy is going to be an Ewok.

I have been gardening, knitting and canning.  I canned tomatoes, pears, relish, pickles, applesauce and pear sauce and apple pie filling.  I knit the baby a hat and socks, socks for me and now I am working on sweater jackets for the three littlest grandsons.  I have been busy babysitting my grand kids and my mother.  I know when I am finally, if ever, able to retire, my days will be full.

I just realized that it has been a year since I wrote a blog post.  I thought it was just a few months.  I guess I will have to try to do at least a monthly post from now on.  So much happens and time goes by so quickly.  I want something to help me remember.