Merry Christmas!!!

Hey, ladies! Thought I would check in and wish everyone a very, very, VERY Merry Christmas. It's been a quiet one for us... it's just the two of us this year and I was under the weather yesterday so no super big meal was served today. Just some naturally smoked ham, some hearty cornmeal pancakes and real maple syrup. Simple but very good!

I almost got all of my presents where they needed to be this year... Just one box is still sitting here, waiting for shipment... pretty good for me! ;0) I got one stocking made for the very littlest granddaughter, Chloe.

Many years ago, I started this very same stocking for her Daddy, getting only the front appliqued and quilted. It got tucked away in the sewing room and I discovered it when I was looking for trims for a stocking for her. I pulled it out, looked at it and just knew I could go ahead and finish it in no time... I added the back and used some vintage bias trim for edging it and Bob's your uncle, one rather small stocking perfect for a rather small little one! It even got there in time for Christmas!

Other creative endeavors lately included massive amounts of Chocolate Rads cookies to tuck in Christmas boxes...



They are soooo chocolately good!

We also broke down and got an artificial tree this year and spent some quality time together putting it up and decorating it...

we have lots of glass and acrylic icicles and I love the look it gives to the tree.


If we had been just a bit farther north we would have had a white Christmas... as it is, we just had a very wet one! ;0) I hope each of you has celebrated the season in your own way and I wish you Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays... may your New Year be ever so full of successful creative endeavors!

Pink Bouquet

Allie asked "What is that gorgeous pink bouquet wallhanging you have on the design wall? Looks yummy....." so I thought I'd give you a closer view.



Before moving to Arizona I had started a very interesting class given by
Heather Thomas at a quilt shop in Boulder, Colorado. The class was called "The Language of Color and Design" and it was great... at least the first two months were. I ended up making a quick move to Phoenix and couldn't finish the class... bummer! Anyway, it is designed as a year long exploration of color and she still teaches it at various quilt shops throughout Colorado. This piece was made in August '04 as a monochromatic scheme for the second class in the series. I chose red-violet and used a piece of fabric I'd had forever as the background, another as the table mat, then I raided my stash of upholstery samples for everything else. It was great fun until I tried to do some embellishing. In my novice state I had used a VERY heavy fusible interfacing and it was nearly impossible to get the needle through the fabrics and the interfacing. I did the bare minimum and just kind of left it where it was; however, this may very well have been my first "crazy quilt" adventure. Of course it's not really a crazy quilt, but it did use bits and pieces of fabric, thread and beads so in my book, it was pretty close to CQ! ;0)

Here are a couple of closeups for your viewing pleasure:

and


I should probably do something with it but I don't know what. Further investigation should probably be my next course, especially since my creative muse seems to have left the building. I tried to do some Christmas sewing last weekend and all I managed to do was cut out a couple of Christmas stockings. It was very sad, I must say. Hopefully, this weekend will be better!

For those of you into other fiber arts, here is a beginning spinner's prize pack I won on Norma's blog. See, before I found all you lovely quilting ladies, I found the knitters, they hooked me on blogs and I still visit quite a few of them. So here we have a Bosworth midi spindle, 4 oz of Merino Swirl roving, 8 oz of white cormo roving and 4 oz of Bluefaced Leicester in a lovely dark colorway called Walk at Midnight.

Pretty, yes? I was trying to find something to corral all of this when my Bag of Fun caught my eye... perfect!!

Now, all I have to do is learn to spin!!! ;0)