Singing in the New Year and Doll Quilt

These cute caroling dolls were a Christmas gift from my MIL. Aren't they so sweet, I love their red hats and sweaters. In the picture the expressions on their faces look a bit like more of a surprise than singing.

We had been away on Vancouver Island for Christmas and when I got home on boxing day, this wonderful goody package was waiting for me. This is the swap gift from Karen, we did a swap with the 2 of us. I love the wool jacket on the Santa, I will treasure this every year and it will bring back warm memories of our little swap. Along with Santa came other goodies as well. The snowmen wooden blocks, wool and fabric note book (I've already started using this little book to write down my quilting ideas) and she also sent a 12 block stitchery pattern and some chocolaty goodness. I've finished the Junior Mints and now starting on the Lindt Chocolates. Thank you so much Karen, I love everything and will enjoy bringing them out each Christmas. I can't wait to start on the stitcheries, they are only 4x6 so very doable to have 1 done each month.


































A little doll quilt for a little girl's birthday, Jade turned 2 years old yesterday. She has a little pink wooden bed for her dollies so I thought making a doll quilt would keep them warm and the pinks are so sweet. The pink fabrics are scraps from another baby quilt I made earlier in the year. Nothing goes to waste.



















I hope you are having the Happiest New Year ever. I look forward to 2008 and especially seeing and reading all about your next creative endeavors. I've enjoyed reading all your blogs and meeting new friends and I've learned so much from all of you. Wishing you all the best for the coming year.

Merry Christmas

Here's wishing you all a fun filled holiday season with family and friends. It's time to relax and enjoy good food with the special people around you.
Both my daughters will have warm feet this season. I really like how these socks turned out. The stripes seem completely random to me, I never did figure out what the pattern was intended to be, they still turned out great. Hand made socks are so comfy to wear, I know she'll will love them.

Thanks for stopping by! I always look forward to reading every comment.

More Decorating

Where has the time gone, it's been a week since my last post. I don't feel caught up at all. I still have shopping, wrapping and baking to get done this week. No sewing for me...sigh. I feel so over whelmed this time of year. This week my daughter and I will be spending the day together baking Christmas cookies...I'm really excited because I don't see her enough. She usually has school and work but now she's between semesters at school. I also need to finish some knitting for my daughter, hopefully she will get a pair of socks on Christmas.

Last night we had a fun evening of singing Christmas Carols with MIL and FIL, the audience was part of the caroling and some people were even dancing in the aisles. When it came time to sing 12 days of Christmas the audience participants with singing and standing up when they get to your birthday month and then you sit again until they get back to your month. So having a Feb birthday gave me lots of exercise. On the second day of Xmas my true love sent me Two turtle doves, I was up, down, up down. You know how the song goes. It was truly a lot of fun. Here is a Christmas Angel quilt. My first log cabin quilt done in the early 90's. The angel is all made of log cabins and the trees, stars, her face and shoes have all been appliquéd on top.
This little tree skirt I found recently in my "to do" pile. I made this oh...I'd say well over 10 years ago. I still need to finish the binding....that's very silly since I do like hand sewing bindings.
I really like this Santa wallhanging. He is done with wool and appliquéd on sandcastle fabric. He's got a long fuzzy mustache.

Santa mustache close up.

Another Santa I really like. I didn't make this guy.

Jenny decided the empty Christmas tree box will be a great place to have a nap.

I can't believe it, my next post will be my 100th post. I was planning a giveaway but it's too much for the week before the holidays. So if you don't mind waiting until Jan, I'll have something in the new year.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Christmas Decorating

I've been seeing so many blogs with such beautiful Christmas decorating. I think this means I'm way way behind with my decorating, so yesterday I spent the day playing with all my Christmas treasures. Here are two snowmen I made a very long time ago. The taller snowman is made of muslin and the smaller one is made using quilt batting.
A small tree wallhanging I made a few years ago.
This little tree is filled with crocheted snowflakes made by my dear grandma. She's been gone for almost a year now, so I wanted to decorate this little tree in her memory.
I love snowmen. These are made of wood and not made my me.
We had our traditional French dinner at our regular monthly stitching group. Andree made us the meal her mother would make when she was a kid. There was roast pork with pototoes and veggies. The dessert was fresh pineapple grilled and hot chocolates sauce drizzled on top. Sorry I didn't get a picture of that...it was delicious.

Here are the "Thank You" gift we surprised our host with. As we were all bringing out our blocks Andree was puzzled why she wasn't included in making these blocks. Then we told her the blocks were for her. You should have heard her laughing and so very surprised that we would do this for her. I think the blocks really turned out well and coordinate well, that was another pleasant surprise.

Season's Greetings to everyone.

Some Surprises....

As you can see a few chocolates have already been devoured, don't want to waste time just looking at them...teehee. When I got home from our island holiday these are the goodies awaiting my arrival, it was worth the wait. These yummy sweet chocolates Annie sent me all the way from Australia. Thanks so much Annie for a wonderful box of handmade chocolates. And Thanks Sharon for organizing a fun and yummy swap.
This little pink quilt is for a swap with Karen, we talked about doing a swap some months ago but with Karen's house tour which involved redecorating an entire room "you go girl", we decided to put it off until now. I'll show you what she has made me when I receive it, I don't even know what she will send, we promised to surprise each other. If you haven't seen her beautiful house it's well worth a look. Karen has excellent eye for colour and decorating. I wish she could visit me and redo my house...LOL
Here is a close up of the quilting.
More about swaps. Darlene and I have been swapping 9patch blocks for a few months and I've been having a blast exchanging with her, thanks Darlene, I might be late this month...sigh. See my sneak peek post here. Sometimes we send each other little surprises, oh my is it ever fun...teehee. When I told Darlene that I was making the PDG's she offered me some seaside rose fabric. What a great surprise in store for me. Here is my first block done sitting with a gorgeous collection.. I wasn't sure about how the embroidery colours were going to work together but after seeing this picture I think it will be a wonderful combination with the fabrics.
Even more surprises when I got home, does it ever end....oh gosh... don't get me wrong I'm not complaining a bit...lol. Caroline was so sweet to send me this heart pincushion, little strawberry and red trimmed crocheted doily. I love them all, I think the buttons are vintage and the purple lace is hand dyed. Thanks so much Caroline, this certainly is a wonderful package of treasures. Big Smiles from ME!

I feel so lucky to have met these wonderful ladies and I cherish their friendship.

Happy Stitching to Everyone.

Aloha!

Hubby and I returned last night from our little island get away. We've been relaxing on the Big Island of Hawaii soaking up the warm sun. This hammock was outside on the grounds of our hotel, next to the ocean and was the prefect spot to watch the sunset.

This is our third trip to the islands but our first trip to the big island. Are timing was prefect as we missed the first big snow fall at home. My daughter was taking care of the house and Jenny (the cat) while we were away and I got a few frantic text messages with "help" where is the shovel and salt???. Fortunately the usual weather here is to have a warm spell after a snow fall and it now looks like it never snowed at all.

Paradise wasn't entirely prefect. Our plane arrived early in the morning, too early to check in to our hotel. We decided a tour of a coffee farm would be a good first day activity. That's when it started....the rain. And not just your whimpy rain drops, this was like stepping under a water fall. The rain cut the tour short and we decided the next best thing would be sit the rain out while enjoying Kona coffee and a chocolate brownie. We sat for a very very long long time, the rain doesn't seem to be letting up, the waitress came around and said the roads are starting to get washed out. Hmmm.....we better go to our hotel. About a 2 minute drive down the road, we saw a few cars stopped on the road in front of us and then we saw it, just like the movies, mud and rocks raging across the road, unbelievable what do we do now? A couple of cars turned around but where would they go?? Soon they discovered more mud and rocks across the road in the other direction as well. And then a pipe next to the road broke and water was shooting up in the sky about 30 feet right behind us. So to make a long story short, we stayed in the car watching raging mud, down pouring rain and water shooting up from the ground for about 2 hours before it let up and the road could finally be cleared. I can't tell you how worried I was that our first night on the island was going to be sleeping in a car. The next day there was almost no signs of all the rocks and mud....incredible experience. The rest of the trip was dry, sunny and stress free....whew.

I have so many things to show you, the packages waiting for me when I got home and the antique shop find I brought home from the island. This was going to be a short post that turned long quickly. I feel like I've missed so much and have so much catching up to do in blogland. I'll be around shortly to read what everyone has been up to this last week.