New Year's Eve Morning

It is the last day of 2008 and this morning I couldn't believe how fast this year has gone. It is true, the older you get the faster the years go by. I only have to work a half day today so I will finish quilting this quilt when I get home . I absolute love this quilt and I think it is one of my favorites. This evening we are going to dinner with friends, but will probably be asleep when the New Year begins. :D

I am working on piecing my new quilt a little bit each day. I have all the small squares marked, which took me 2 hours to do. I am one of these people that have to do this to get my half square triangles to come out right. There are 336 of them! I also got the strip sets sewn together.

The last picture here is the binding. I am partial to striped fabric for bindings, I like the look after they are put on.
Time to go to work so I will end with wishing you all a very "Happy New Year" and may the new year bring health, happiness, and peace to one and all. :D

Back to Quilting!

Now that Christmas is over, it is back to the sewing room to sew-sew-sew. I have some starts and finishes to show. The quilt below is the wonky star quilt that I have had done but not quilted. I finished the binding before Christmas and decided I had better post a picture before I forgot. I really like how it turned out. On Saturday after my daughter headed back to Ohio, I made a trip to the quilt shop and used up some of my gift certificates I received from Santa. He was so good to me! I love the FQ's and the jelly roll. I have no plans for them right now but until then I will enjoy looking at them. :D

I started a new project this weekend also. Hubby and I have had terrible colds and so I spent all Sunday afternoon cutting out and sewing this new quilt. Below are the different components and the backing fabric. With all the "Merry & Bright" fabrics and FQ's I have, I will have made 2 quilts and a wall hanging by the time I am done. I still want to make myself a table runner too.














I am looking forward to Bonnie's New Year Mystery. It is so much fun to see what others are doing and all the different fabric choices. What a great way to start the New Year don't you think?

PAY IT FORWARD

I have the 3 wonderful players that I need for Pay It Forward and I couldn't be happier. I look forward to getting to know these ladies so I can make the perfect gifts!

Only One More Needed!

I am so excited! I only need one more blogger to play PIF with. Surely there is one quilter that would love a quilty gift sometime in the coming year?? Nancy from Canada and Amy from Wisconsin are going to play so far. Who would like to be the 3rd?????

New Mystery!!

I am so excited! Got home last night from our big family Christmas and I see that another mystery is set for New Years! Yippee!! I immediately started pulling fabrics and ended up with these. The colors aren't showing up quite right but I love the group. Can't wait to get started! Another fun morning surprise, I have one player for "Pay It Forward"!!! Nanci has agreed to play so now I am just hoping 2 more wonderful ladies will join us.

Darling daughter and I are heading south this morning, she is heading back to Ohio and I will hit the quilt shops to get some fabric with my wonderful, multiple, gift certificates!! Life is good!

Pay It Forward

I have decided to join the "Pay It Forward" fun with Lurline, so if any of you would like to join me, the first three leaving a comment on my blog wanting to join are in. Below are the rules and the button to copy and put on your blog is above. Come and join the fun!!
Here are the "Pay It Forward" rules.
The first three people will be chosent to participate if they leave a comment on this post asking to join. They are agreeing to post a similar announcement on their blog, and Pay It Forward to three more people, who will in turn agree to Pay It Forward etc. What does it mean?

Lurline is going to send me and her other participants one handmade item sometime in the next 12 months. I, in turn, will send one handmade item to each of the three participants who signed up with me, withing the next 12 months. You, in turn, will send one handmade item to each of your participants, and so on.

P.S. - Please don't be concerned about posting a "Comment" and having to be involved in PIF - that's fine with me and I know what a busy time of year this is!

I am looking forward to this and to meeting new people. Won't you join me????

ICE STORM OF 2008

On Friday morning this is what we woke up to. It was really beautiful to look out but heartbreaking too to see big branches laying on the ground. I guess it is Mother Nature's way of pruning these big old trees.

We were without power for about 10 hours so after taking pix I got out my hand quilting and with a generator outside powering the corn burner, I was as cozy as a bug in a rug. Hubby was out on service calls, helping people get their generator's going and working on broken water pipes.

Here is our corn burning stove. It is has been a life saver for us for quite a while now and quite a few of our friends have them also.

Right now our forecast is for a high of 6 degrees and the wind is blowing about 25 mph. I can't imagine what the wind chill factor is. We are picking up our ground pile and will finish that today so I will be leaving for work shortly. Am not looking forward to it since the elevator is not all that warm on days like this. One thing about it, I know where to get all the corn I need to keep warm at home! :D Happy Sunday!!!!

ALMOST DONE!

I finally have all my customer quilts done and ready to be delivered! It is such a good feeling. :D
The only quilt left to do is for my daughter for Christmas and I loaded it last night so I can get right to it when I get home from work tonight.
The quilt below is huge but I absolutely love it! I like the way she did the borders and with all my scraps, this pattern would be a great one to use.
The quilt below she called her Arizona quilt. She made this with fabrics that were purchased on her trip there. It is an interesting quilt and she did a wonderful job.

During the holiday I plan on getting a couple of my mystery quilts quilted and then on to quilting the Church Ministry quilts again, they have really piled up since harvest. I guess there is just no rest for the "wicked"???

IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK ALOT LIKE CHRISTMAS!

I am getting so excited for Christmas to come! I am no way near ready for it but I am anxious just the same. This past Sunday after church, hubby and I went to place north of us to pick out and cut down our own tree. Personally I love the artificial kind but hubby wants the real thing. After walking around the tree farm in the cold blowing wind which seemed like forever he finally found the tree he wanted. He cut it down, they shook it to get the dead needles out, wrapped it up and off we went. It didn't take long to put it up and decorate it, hubby always helps. we are happy with it.


That is all the help I get, he goes to the computer and I finish with the other stuff. Here is the wonderful nativity set that was given to us as a Christmas gift as few years ago. I just love it!

Next comes out the wallhanging I made in the 90's.

A few other holiday pieces are scattered throughout the house. I love the carved Santa and the tree.

The santa I am showing here I cross-stitched many years ago and this little one hangs with a ribbon on a door knob in the house. I just love snowmen and so I leave them scattered throughout all winter. The snowman here in the center is made out of a wooden post and is very heavy! He makes me smile just looking at him.

It has started to snow here and now it really looks like Christmas!

HO HO HO!!!!

Happy Birthday Hubby!

Today is my hubby's birthday! We are now the same age, and I never hear the end of that fact! :D I don't have a pix of my honey on this computer so I will substitute a picture of the bear he got in Canada a year ago and had stuffed. Our house is not really big so this fella stands in the corner of our bedroom, along with deer heads, stuffed fish and pheasants. It took me a long time to get used to these animals and I would still rather they could roam free without the threat of being shot and then mounted, but this is what my hubby likes to do so he puts up with all my fabric and quilts and I put up with the zoo in the bedroom. :D

Finally Finished!

This evening after supper I didn't want to sew but wanted to do something productive in the sewing room. Hand stitching sounded appealing so I decided to finish the label for the Bear quilt and get it attached. Now, we just have to set a dinner date for the Canada group so we can present it to the recipient. I know he will love it!


I have been working on my leader ender projects and the piles are starting to mount up. This is really alot of fun, and it sure is colorful on the cutting table. On a sad note, last night I was trying to finish up machine quilting a quilt and on the last row something happened, I must have hit the clamp because with a loud bang, I broke the needle and ended up bending the needle bar. I made a frantic call to Gammil in Wisconsin this morning and hubby will take my machine up there on Friday to be fixed. I still have another quilt to get done before the holidays, oh my.

Anybody else having any glitches in their plans to try and get these last minute projects done besides me????

New Projects Started

Some people think I am crazy, Christmas is coming, lots of things yet to do, and I start working on two new projects. I have decided that doing the "Leader Ender" process that Bonnie Hunter is known for, is the way to go. I rarely have had to cut threads and it is amazing how quickly the blocks seem to get completed.

This first pix is of a pattern called "Leftovers Again?" from the book "40 Fabulous Quick-Cut Quilts". I love Evelyn Sloppy patterns and since I have all these wonderful pieces of fabric leftover I thought this would be a great pattern to use. I have all the light blocks done and half the dark ones so it is moving right along.

The other leader ender quilt project has no name yet. I have all these great "Merry and Bright" fabric scraps and some yardage, and after looking at some of these small quilts with teeny 4 patches I was so inspired I thought I would have a go at one. I haven't made one with such small pieces before, so far it has been quite an experience. Wish me luck!

Last but not least, this week I received a wonderful Thank You note, a new pattern and a wonderful new quilt book hot off the presses! Here is what led up to this wonderful surprise. Last spring when the states out west of here were having terrible floods and alot of people lost everything they owned, I read on the G. E. Designs blog that we quilters that had fabric and such that would like to donate to these women, we could send them to her and she would see that these quilters would get the donations. So, I went thru my stash and sent off a box post haste.

Well, this week Gurdrun Erla sent these wonderful things to me as a thank you and I am shocked. What a great surprise! A wonderful display of projects to add to my list of things I want to make.

Last but not least, hubby and I finished up the Christmas shopping!! Now, to get it all wrapped. Have a great week everyone!! :D