Christmas is over for another year

So most of my Christmas pictures are a total blur. Claire is a lively active child, this was perhaps her only "still" moment over the holidays! Llama in Red Pajamas was a big hit, as was the wood clock/counting/shape puzzle. So my gifts were a hit - Phew!
Christmas is over (TG) and I'm luxuriating at home in a clean house with peace and quiet.  It's still green outside and the cats and I are loving it. Who wants to be shoveling snow or scrapping ice off the windshield while your fingers freeze off.

Along with all the holiday frenzy I managed to finish off these two POTC Lucy Boston blocks, and have 4 more prepped for January-February

Looking forward to one more quiet week off work.  Hoping to catch a movie, get some banking chores done and may even get back to stitching the Wild Flowers wall hanging.

So what are you up to this week ?

And we're still green!!

So we've had our first Christmas dinner - with the Pater this time. Claire was in fine form, dancing and talking up a storm. Can't say I understood everything she said, but no worry - she just kept talking. Too much fun! Forgot to take a pic of this year's Christmas cake I baked, but the floral arrangement on my sister's table was nice

My B-I-L has "officially" retired for the last time (?) and the school sent him this as a Thank You.
I am officially On Vacation - YEAH and been busy catching up on chores. Yesterday was taking the car in for repair, luckily it was still on warranty, so no $ spent by me :), picking up a prescription then I found/purchased 2 packs of vacuum cleaner bags for my "old" vacuum cleaner, a new walking foot and some bobbins for my Kenmore sewing machine - yeah. The cleaning schedule is a day behind, but who cares - I'm on vacation! Going to catch diner and movie with some friends later this week, then more Christmas celebrations. Hoping to get some more POTC blocks cut out and ready to go as well as some other sewing later next week. Here's my most recent POTC block

Enjoying my relaxing mornings.

 TTFN

Still Green!

It's still green and mild outside and I'm loving it! A green Christmas is just fine by me :). I added some red balls to my indoor decoration, think it looks better with that bit of colour don't you? So this past week was our guild meeting. Forgot to take a pic of the 3 stockings I made, but did get a pic of the placemat.

Feel a bit of a cheat as the fabric was so lovely I didn't bother to do anything fancy. No patchwork or fancy stitches. Here's the back

At work I enjoyed a nice lunch out with 3 ladies from one of the committees I'm on. It's a great committee, we work hard and enjoy each other's company. It was a sunny day - finally.

One more week @ work. This will be tough to get through, I have TWO, yes 2 potlucks on the same day!! Are they kidding? Now the pressure is on to come up with 2 fabulous recipes, easily carried, easily made/kept warm .... to impress all my work and quilting colleagues. Just know I'm going to fail this test - oh well, the point is to show up and enjoy myself, right?

TTFN

Ho Ho Ho - it's December!

So we had the Christmas party at work. Afterwards they toss all the greenery and branches. Well, I decided this year was a good year to recycle these goodies. How do you like my outside Christmas display .... I added some large pine cones at the base and the bow, otherwise the rest was free ! But not to stop there .... no .... I also created this lovely display for indoor.

The "tin" is a photo negative drawer, again a recycled item this time from the library's archives. I added the pine cones and the star. Woohoo, it's beginning to look like Christmas at my house!! My sister did the mater run this weekend, so I invited the pater over for dinner.

This involved ironing the damask table cloth, inserting a table leave, bringing up the mirrors (love love love having these mirrors on the table this time of year), and pulling out all the red table linens I can find! We lit the candles and popped open some wine and enjoyed our chicken dinner and cake too!!
No real sewing this past week as I spend most of my "spare" time doing chores and finishing off my Christmas shopping. Today will be spent making one (maybe two) Christmas placemats for the guild's Meals On Wheels seasonal outreach. Two more weeks to go then holidays and sleep in time, :) :) :).

TTFN

Still celebrating !

Still celebrating our mild weather and lack of snow. Suits me just fine :) Also celebrating the flowering of my "Christmas" cactus - must rename this plant as it never flowers @ Christmas. I've counted 25 buds, here's hoping most of them open into flowers.

Have been busy, as usual, this past week. Got the "surprise" Hanukkah wall hanging/table topper completed and bound made 2 mug rugs to go along with it. I used the same Dreidel fabric from the back of the hanging for the mug rugs, and a white version of the Star of David fabric. Found a Hanukkah card so now all I have to do is wrap and deliver it!
 Today I'm hoping to make 3 mini Christmas stockings for the guild. We are to fill them with personal hygiene products and they will be donated to My Sister's Place. I am mater free next weekend and hope to get one, maybe two Christmas placemats completed, also for a guild charity, this time for Meals on Wheels for their Christmas dinners. Also hope to complete my Xmas shopping, just a little something for the wee one Claire. This will be fun shopping !

So that's my week, how was yours?????

 

TTFN

Glorious Weekend!

What a difference a week makes! Last week my Japanese Maple was gorgeously red but November winds did blow and now I can count the leaves on the tree .... 8! While I will miss the deep dark red of Fall outside my kitchen window I am not sad as it is another fabulous sunny Sunday and still nice and mild. Woohoo!!
Another big woohoo to my guild London Friendship Quilter's Guild who put on a fabulous feature speaker and followup workshop the next day. They brought in Karen Howes from Faeries and Fibres blog fame.

 

Now, I've been a big fan of Karen's blog for a couple of years now, every since I became addicted to EPP/Hexies. So, I took a vacation day from work, struggled with the sewing machine lugging it down the stairs and out to the car, into the Church and setting up. My only complaint is that I forgot my camera, drats !!! It was all worth it as this was one of the best workshops I've attended! Karen was very well organized, understands the difference between talking and teaching, and had a knowledgeable assistant with her.  Her pre-class instructions were very specific and that was good as we were all well prepared for our hand work for the day.

We were given an accordion file folder with these 6 mini patterns, some fabric and some paper hexies to practice with. Karen works with ordinary paper, not card stock, this and her counter clockwise basting were definitely new to me. Once we accomplished the first(yellow) hexie flower we were on to making the individual hexies from "made" fabric (our homework). We started with the "Half & Half" hexie, then the "Candle" block, the "Whirligig",  the "Frame" and the "T" blocks and finished off with the "Narrow Star" hexie. Karen had a different method for fussy cutting, different from what I use for my Lucy Boston, so that was interesting to learn. All in all I was thrilled - absolutely thrilled to have gone, met Karen and accomplished so much. A day well worth the effort!

On the home front I haven't been a total slug - and I have managed to accomplish a few things. I got the borders on the Hanukkah wall hanging , so I'm almost ready to start quilting.

I think I'll try machine quilting this one, perhaps with invisible thread. Just have to decide on t he backing. I have the same fabric as the border only white with blue Stars of David, or I also have light blue with dark blue Dreidels, hmmmmm which to use ?
I also accomplished another Lucy Boston block ...

This one was a bit of a challenge. I had saved a scrap of the black with flowers from a previous project and got busy cutting the honeycombs before I realised I didn't have many/enough repeats. So I improvised ... I kinda like it, what do you think?

TTFN,

Too good to last ...

Last week the weather was glorious, double digits - no coats, people were actually wearing shorts and sandals! My Japanese Maple , as you can see, was glorious. I had a tremendously busy week - working the weekend and trying to squeeze in my "regular" chores as well.

This week, the November winds have come. The temp has dropped and so have the leaves. That's Simone walking away in disgust - or is that confusion? Maybe she understands fallen leaves mean winter is coming! Bah humbug!!
Ah well, the fabulous weather was too good to last.
Also too good to last was my arrangement with a local "teenager" to help me out and take my garbage up to the curb. It was lovely for a month and a half, but he's moved on now, so it's back to me slugging it up there :(.
I don't have much show-n-tell this week as I've been busy catching up wth housework, chores and hand quilting the Wild Flowers. But I have started a new project! Shhhhhh it's supposed to be a secret.

 It will be a Hanukkah wall hanging for a friend/former work colleague. Somehow we got talking about Hanukkah on FB and it inspired me to dig out those patterns I've tucked away for "someday". Well, someday has arrived! It was supposed to be paper pieced but in my infinite wisdom (folly?) I decided to hand applique the candles/candlesticks.  I see some of the candles/candlesticks are wonky, oh well, done now, and all from my stash!! There will be a small inner border (of unknown colour & fabric at this time) and an outer border of dark blue with Stars of David, and a mid blue with dreidels for the backing. I'm thinking I'll machine quilt this one just to get it done. I also have Christmas placemats yet to make for the guild - one of our community activities as we donate them to Meals on Wheels. Oh, and of course there's work, parents and a social life to try and fit in somewhere somehow....

 TTFN

Say it isn't so !!

Woke up this am to snow !! Oh No!! Say it isn't so ! I hate snow :(. The leaves on my Maple haven't even started to fall yet! Not to fear, the sun has come out and the snow is melting away quickly. Phew!

Finally received my framed Thai temple rubbing . He did an ok job, not complaining there, but somehow it's blah. It seems to be lacking something, don't know what. When you're choosing the frame and matting it all looks good, but somehow this one just doesn't sing. Had this one in the closet for almost 40 years, so this is somewhat disappointing :(. Ah well, maybe I'll get used to it.

No POTC blocks to show you this week. Somehow I got my hand quilting mojo back - maybe it was the great speaker we had at guild last week. Anyway, I actually started quilting the Wild Flowers wall hanging which has been on the frame since late August! Feeling good so far, just doing outline quilting, will have to decide what to do - quiltwise - after the outlining is all done. Any suggestions?
TTFN

Happy Thanksgiving!

Oh joy oh bliss - it's Thanksgiving - a four day vacation from work (yeah) and a chance to gather with the family :). Started the weekend Friday by buying the pumpkin pies and visiting the pater, then spent the afternoon in the sewing room prepping 4 more POTC blocks. Should have been cleaning the house but my back is still not 100%. Had much more fun in the sewing room. Saturday was our usual with the mater, we both got haircuts. I took my camera back to her place and got pics of her "collector plates". Hoping to learn how to put these up on Kijiji sometime next week. Sunday was driving around town picking up everyone then off to my sister's for turkey dinner - yummmmmm. Today is another lovely Fall day so I hope to finish off the garden work. Pheww! I'll be glad to get back to work!
Here's my progress on my Lucy Boston POTC blocks ...

 POTC block from 2 weeks ago. When I'm browsing the internet I like to see the fabric of origin along with the block itself, so here's a pic with it's fabric.

 

This one has a slightly different setting than the others. It was hard to find matching/complimentary fabrics, hence the setting. I rather like it!

This was last week's block - maybe my favourite so far !!
TTFN

Soup's On!

Yup, that's right, I'm making soup .... Chicken noodle to be exact. Not terribly easy this week as I wrecked my back somehow late last week so I'm bent over double at the moment . Am living on tylenol and a heated rice bag :(. None-the-less yesterday still had to do the mater thing (taxi her to the hair dresser, brunch, groceries, bank). May have to make a run to the grocery store myself as I'm out of Parmesan cheese for my spaghetti tonight -  can't have that! Got some of my Fall decorations out, not too many, just not in the mood yet.

Hope to make pumpkin bread this afternoon for the folks at work - love the smell of something baking - Yummmmm. Maybe that will help me get in the Thanksgiving mood.

Managed to get one more POTC block completed - yeah. Got this fabric in Tillsonburg @ Cherished Pieces, part of her Civil War collection. Thought I would "plan" my POTC blocks and use one line of fabrics. For those who read my blog - that hasn't happened! I was/am too addicted to the blocks to use just one line of fabrics, and having too much fun using up scraps creatively. Will probably continue along as I'm going now and see how it works out. May have to make lots more blocks than needed in order to get a nice finished product, but who cares right?

Anyway, back to this block. Not my favourite, In fact I'm rather disappointed. The fabric had lots of movement in it so I was expecting good things, but the pattern(s) are too big for my honeycombs. Oh well, there's always this week's POTC block to come!
TTFN