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Monday, December 31, 2012

Happy Holidays!

Well a Merry Belated Christmas to you all and Happy New Year!

It's been busy in this house with all the gift making and giving and cookie baking and eating.  I did manage to finish our stockings in time for Christmas.  The boys loved theirs.  I haven't managed to get a good picture of them yet so I'll post pictures of them later.

We went up to my best friends house a week before Christmas and the kids all got to make a Gingerbread House or a Train.  A picked a house and O picked a train.

This is a picture of all the kids houses.  They all did such a wonderful job!

O's train.  Looks more like an old Chevy truck than anything, but he loved it.

A's house in progress.

Then we actually got some snow a few days before Christmas.  Of course it only stayed a day or two.  That's a decent time for us here.  The boys made sure to enjoy every last bit of it.  There were snowmen with Grampa, snowball fights, mini snow-people all over the yard and then just laying in it when they were too tired to do anything else.

An excited little guy.  First chance to get out in the snow. 
And an excited big guy.


 We also got a bit of snow on Christmas Day, which is the first time that's happened since we moved here 3 years ago.  It was a wonderful Christmas surprise for all of us.

Hope your Holidays were filled with love, peace and family.  Wishing you all a blessed and wonderful New Year.

Friday, December 14, 2012

Potholders & Trivets & Quilts, oh my!

So as promised, here are some pics of what I have been finishing up lately.  I'm almost done with all my Christmas-y projects and am excited about that fact.  I don't usually finish everything I've decided to make.

This set of potholders is being shipped out to a family member.  

These are probably one of my favorites so far.  I really love the colors.  These are a set of potholders (the yellow) and a grey chevron stripe trivet (hot pad).  Also a gift.

This set of potholders is being shipped out today to another family member.  I just finished this one and the following one yesterday afternoon.

And this one is reversible.  Again, another gift to be shipped out today.  Surprised?

And here's the other side.  This is my favorite side.  I do love a good stripe though.

And lastly, another potholder set gift for some very dear family members.  

Phew... I'm a pro at potholders now, just sayin'.  I have a few more sets to make before this week is over then I'm going to try tackling some stockings.  I've never made stockings for us in all these years.  Seems wrong.  I spend so much time making things for other people and for my shop and have very few things that I've made for my family.  So, this year, I'm attempting to make us some.  I'm not sure I'll finish them (at least not all) but dang it I'm going to try!

And lastly, here's some photos of the boys with their Christmas quilts I made for them.  I think I posted about this already, but really, can you blame me for doing it again? I mean, look how cute they are!






I loved making these quilts for them.  They loved receiving them too.  Warm from the drier and ready to snuggle into and watch a Christmas movie.  They fit on the beds very nicely too.  A's is mostly red since he just loves red and O's is mostly blues since he loves blue.  I have to find the pics I took of the backs and then I'll post those.  A's back is all red and O's is all blue.  They were quite excited about the backs.

Anyway, I'm off to have a cup of tea and get ready for another marathon day of sewing!

Thursday, December 13, 2012

A Quilt for My Bed

Well, I have been working on this quilt as I collected the fabrics for it and have finally finished the top!

Isn't she lovely? You see the one bottom corner on the left here where there is just a solid rectangle of grey? I used up every single little scrap of my fabric for this quilt and rather than buying what would end up being more than I needed for one block, I decided to just put a solid block in there.  I think it looks nice, and you don't really even notice it when the quilt is all laid out.  

These are all fabrics collected from Anna Maria Horner's fabric collections.  There is quite a lot of LouLouThi in here, as well as Innocent Crush and a smattering of scraps from her older lines. 



I just love how alive this quilt is! There's so much color and texture in the fabrics and the grey gives your eyes a quiet place to rest.
This was originally going to be a large lap quilt for me to snuggle under, then I realized it was more of a twin size and before I knew what had happened it turned into a Queen size.  I think I better get it quilted before I pull it out and it's morphed into a King size.  Yikes!

Sorry that the pictures aren't the best.  I had been waiting for a sunny day (I know, a sunny day in the middle of a WA winter?) and then finally decided one night to just take the pictures.  I really wanted to share it.  
So... normally I do my own quilting on my mother-in-law's long-arm machine.  It's not set up to handle a Queen size quilt though, so I'm debating whether or not to rent a machine at our local quilt shop and do it myself, or send it out to my sister-in-law and have her do it.  While I do enjoy the quilting process, it sounds kind of fun to have someone else do it for me.  It's been a long time since I've had anyone do my quilting.  I suppose it will all boil down to money.  This will be waiting until after Christmas I'm sure.

Check back tomorrow as I have several more goodies to share with you all.  Happy crafting!

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

An Advent Calendar, a Tree and a Baby

I apologize in advance for a short post.  I've got many things being quilted, sewn, pieced together, bound, washed, etc currently.  The problem is... I can't really share a number of them because the recipients read this blog! I've been doing a lot of "elfin" as my boys call it.

I can show you this though! This is our advent calendar.  I made it in a long afternoon in between real life.  I love it.  So does my family.

One of my favorite things about it? I used scraps I had on hand.  No fabric was purchased to make this.  

And the binding.  I LOVE the scrappy binding! And as a bonus, I found the scrappy binding already sewn together and ready to be used.  It was leftover from a previous Christmas quilt I made for my parents several years ago.  Score! I love using things up.  It also makes me happy because every time I look at the binding it reminds me of the quilt I made my parents.  Happy times!


 And just because I think it's beautiful, here's a picture of our tree.

I love all the handmade decorations on it.  There is nothing better (in my opinion) than a Christmas tree filled with memories.  The boys and I are planning on making a few more tree decorations this year.  I'll be sure to post them!


Oh yes.  And that last thing I mentioned in the title? It's true, we are having another baby! Come June the boys will get to meet their new sibling.  It's all smiles and happiness in this house lately.  And I love it.  

Hope you and all your loved ones are well this holiday season.