Carolina Christmas....

To border this is not........ We are off to Des Moines! Gwen is there!

Christmas Day fun....

we didn't need to go anywhere for Christmas Day. We stayed home due to winter weather.

This worked out well.

I loved it!

I ended up scrapbooking for a 3x3 mini-book.

I spread out all over the living room floor....

going through scraps of papers....

cutting letters for words....

punching squares and shapes The blue arrow is on the actual book....so small and sweet. I love that HO HO HO.

I added the blue lines to seperate all the different elements for pages....

from here I carried it to the kitchen table and started glueing it all down.

I can only work on the floor so long.

This is a gift....the person, who shall remain nameless for now, will only need to add pictures to all the blank pages I left.
....and WA-LA a small memento from this Christmas!

This book would never have happened if it weren't for the unexpected day at home. Things really worked out well.
Makes me want to scrapbook some more!!!

Christmas Eve finish.....

Two big quilts are ready to be wrapped.

We must have been in the eye of the storm this morning.

There was hardly any wind...this made hanging them

outside for pictures so much easier.

The top one is actually a birthday present for my sister who turned

50 this December.

The bottom one is for my mom, she helped lay it out one day while

she was here, a long time ago.

And then it sat in the closet waiting for it's finish.

I have never given her a big quilt... just little ones.

This seemed like the perfect year to

get it done and give it to her.

It is from the Certifiably Crazy Book by the Buggy Barn and is called...

Crazy Goose Chase

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

another snowday....

These Santas get to be in the blog today just because I think they are cute. I made the one with the white hair (the tallest one) He was in a magazine years and years ago....his hair seems to be thinning out....I still have plenty of it to add to him....someday....today I am working on binding for one last Christmas gift. ....and since I don't relish the binding process...I am stalling....doing important things....like blogging.

See the little penguin guy below??
....here's the link so you know what I am talking about.....
http://mrsmoenhowtos.blogspot.com/

I was cruising in the bloglands again.....

accused of spending to much time on the computer by tractor joe...

....but I find so many ideas that way...

anyway I thought this penguin would be so sweet done up the way she did her picture in the blog. No I haven't tried it yet. Sometimes just thinking about it is enough.

I better get busy.

the snowmen

Crispy joined some secret Santa thing at school.

He wanted to make little snowmen out of socks like we did many years ago....and give them away.....okay, he can do that.....

Except.....

He left me to finish after he stuffed them and wrapped the wire for the arms.....

....all that was left....attaching the face and the buttons and the hat and the mittens with the hot glue gun.

How long can that take???

I am not sure....but I was at it for quite some time.

I thought they turned out pretty cute!!!

Christmas gifts

We went shopping yesterday....
after years of making only a few pancakes or french toast or grilled cheese sandwiches at a time.....
We bought ourselves a great big griddle.
When we arrived home we wasted no time....it was opened and put to use.
What a treat, all these pancakes done at the same time!!!
We love it!!

In the mailbox was a package from Virginia.....
One of the things in it was this massive, big, coffee table sized book from my niece!



I spent some time this morning going through it.

I took some pictures of the ones that caught my fancy...

Tons and tons of inspiration...



I see a pattern in the pictures of I took.....

There are no curved or appliqued quilts in the ones I was drawn to....even though the book is full of those too....(and are really cool to look at)....for now I will stick to straight sewing lines

I will need to spend some time studying this book. Everytime I look I see something different and wonder...how did they do that???

on the kitchen table.....

http://quiltville.com/carolinachristmas.shtml

Bonnie Hunter has a new mystery...it is about done. I didn't participate this time.

But when I saw it.....I wished I had....

I love the lay out of it...

When I saw the image on the button....just a small section of the whole quilt....

I thought....hey, that would make a really nice little quilt for Christmas.

I have no printer right now...so I colored my graph paper....

Oh so slowly I am also working on my stitched WELCOME.

Christmas....

There! I am done

decorating outside

for Christmas!!

Isn't that lovely???

blizzards mean binding.....

Karen did the binding on one quilt yesterday,

it is for Haley, her favorite daughter in law,

well...

her only daughter in law.

anyway....she can use it as a table cloth or lay it gracefully over the back of a chair or the couch...
Karen is also working on a ton of small wall quilts for gifts.

I have two quilts that now have binding. I thought about hanging the star quilt outside for a picture, but decided it was to windy. Besides I want to wash it and give it that krinkly look first.

It is laying over the arms of a chair, making Nikki's napping spot a little more cozy.

It is so nice having these blocks out of the box and put to use after all those years.

jenny's give away

Jenny is having a give away at her blog. She makes little cross-stitch patterns.

http://countryrusticprimitives.blogspot.com/2009/11/my-first-giveaway.html#comment-form

I didn't pay attention very well....it is the actual Christmas filler ornies that she is giving away
not the pattern,
so when I said to her....
I would make a small wall hanging with them....her face was horrified...
"But they are stuffed!"

...then I understood......ohhh.....

it is the real items that are laying under her tree right now,
not the pattern.
Nevermind....

you're insane.....

I bundled myself up and was heading outside.

"What are you doing?"

it was tractor joe....

he was looking at me kinda funny.

"I want to take pictures of the weather outside."

that is when he said "you're insane"

It was cold, my finger tips were chilled trying to get the pictures....

But I was able to get some!

.....and this is what insane looks like...

standing in the blowing cold snow.....

No school...

hmmmm.....underlined text

I am not sure why it does that....

it quit. Good.

We are trapped here today. I am waiting for

daylight to get some outside pictures.

I made a pile of the small and one big red backed quilt that are waiting for binding.

Some are very important to finish...some aren't...

An unexpected free day leads to lots of extra time for sewing.

No dog no.....

Don't sit on that!

geez Ozzy, I am just trying to get a picture of a done quilt!





Not to bad of a picture. The colors are even darn close to
real life.
It isn't up on any wall though.
Right now it is just hanging cock-eyed over the back of chair. It looks nice
there....maybe that is as far as it will get this year.

my nativity set...

I bought these last year while out shopping with Karen in Forest City. I fell in love with them and used my birthday money to get them.

I was talking about them on Thanksgiving morning. "Remember my nativity set I bought last year?"

No one did.

"....its so cute, should I go get it out?!"

that idea was shot down......I was asked....

"Can't that wait until we are done eating the turkey?"

oh yah....the turkey....okay.

So far this is all I have brought down from the closet.