Catching up

February. Guess I haven't kept up with blogging lately. It isn't because I don't want to. I just run out of time or steam or both. It has been a cold, snowy, dreary first month of 2011. Allen and I and the Oz have been working long hours. Oz loves the cold because it gives him a good excuse to snuggle on someone's lap or hang out on the couch.

The bright spots would be a trip to Mobile last weekend with Shannon  to see Meghan, Justin, and the boys, getting the bathroom finished, and spending lots of time quilting. I've finished a couple of good sized lap quilts. One is out of Kaffe fabrics, and it was machine quilted in straight diagonal lines.

Another finished project tested my free-motion skills - I am way better than I was but not proficient by far.I did finish it finally last week. Right now, I see every little thing I wish were different, but I also see some things I really am happy with. I like the color wash, and there are some spots where the quilting is just what I wanted.

One really fun project I've started is a Civil War Block of the Week from Barbara Brackman. She posts a mini history lesson and a quilt block each week. I will end up with fifty-two different blocks. I have five finished, and the instructions for the sixth week are printed and waiting with the fabrics I've picked. This is Week One - North Star.



Week two - Seven Sisters. This one took three tries because of the tiny star points. I finally ended up machine appliqueing it.



Week Three - Catch Me if You Can



Week 4- Texas Tears



Week Five - Kansas Troubles

I am having fun pulling reproduction fabrics from my stash and putting these together. Each one has been a different challenge. There is even a Flickr group going where people can post their pictures and monitor their progress through the year. Just fun!

I'm also about finished with a quilt-along blog quilt. Pictures later in a few days. Next quilting project will be the baby quilt for Georgia Mae which I think will be under way this week.

This is long enough for a Sunday evening. I am still stuffed from the stuffed mushrooms I fixed for dinner. Italian sausage stuffed portobello mushrooms.  Tasty, very rich.

I promise, bathroom pictures next. We are really happy with the work our remodeling folks did from Stanford Remodeling. We will surely have them do our next project (after the foundation fixing - ugh!).

Snow Day

New Year, New Quilt, New Bath

Happy  New Year! Vacation was just wonderful, and we surely did enjoy having everyone here. The decorations are put away, and we are back to work though. Sigh. However, I have lots to be excited about even though I am back at work. First, I am in the middle of making a bright, bright Kaffe quilt, and that is fun. I have several tops to quilt, and that will be fun with my new machine. This block is from a block of the week program by Barbara Brackman. She started a new blog focusing on Civil War Quilts in honor of the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War. I think I will play along. This is my first block.

This morning, the master bath will be demolished. There is a dump truck in the front yard ready for the trash. That's exciting! Hope it goes smoothly. I'll try to put up some picture.

Short post - but I have to go to work. Quilts and bathrooms cost money.

The weatherman says it may be a snowy Christmas!

Christmas Eve!  The stockings are hung by the chimney with care. Shannon and Nathan and his folks will come for Christmas lunch tomorrow.  Meghan and Justin and the boys will be here for dinner time, and then we will all open presents, starting, of course, with the stockings.



The rest of the house is decorated and more or less ready for the family week. The boys always seem to like to look at the nativity scenes we have. This one is on our sideboard in the dining room. It was my mom's and was always placed in the stable built into our tree stand. It has been mended a few times, but I always enjoy getting it out year after year. I have another set that my brother and sister-in-law brought to us from the Holy Land many years ago. Maybe my brother remembers what year that was. I was young then, and I'm not now. I also have a miniature scene on a shelf above the kitchen since, and then there are a couple inside of ornaments on the big tree.  There is even a triangular shaped plastic nativity that I got as a child from Sunday School.



I always have a hard time getting a good picture of the Big Tree. It really is big, too big for the room. Not too tall, but too fat for our space. However, it just would not seem right to have a little tree in the room, and we didn't spring for a new skinny, tall tree yet this year. This guy is 12 feet tall, and although it is a big deal to put it up, it is not nearly as challenging as when the kids were little and we had real trees this size. We wire this one to the balcony, just to be on the safe side. Many memories hang from ornament hooks on this tree! I have some wooden ones we painted from a kit the first year we were married, gifts from all kinds of family and friends, teacher ornaments from thirty four years of students and colleagues, handmade ones from the girls, ornaments from craft shows, some bought just because we liked them, and some that hung on my childhood tree. The patchwork stocking was made for me when I was a teenager by my grandmother. I surely did not think it was so special then, but now ?



Merry Christmas from Patchwork and Pug.

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat!

All decorated, most of the shopping finished, and packages ready for the mail. All of that plus snow flurries today, too! It must be close to Christmas.



These wool snowmen were made from a pattern by Bird Brain Designs. There are seven of them hung on little bobbins and stung. They are hanging in a basket above our hall door to welcome visitors.



I have a pair of snowmen made from paper mache. My mom made them sometime probably in the early 1950's. The scarf is much newer, knitted by Shannon a couple of years ago.



This is upstairs on our little balcony. Meghan painted the tree for me last year, and Santa likes hanging out by the tree.



I decided I had to have a new tree in my sewing room The garland is measuring tape braid, and the ornaments are little wooden spools strung with beads and some old bobbins I had stashed in a drawer. The stocking on the right was my childhood stocking made of green and red felt with some sweet little ornaments My mom made one for me and one for my brother. Remember that, John?



This last photo is the new little wool tree skirt I made for my sewing room tree. The thimble sitting there was my mom's. I don't usually even use a thimble, but this one is well worn. The stockings are not yet hung, but they are ready.  This was a fun, relaxed weekend. It is cold here in Alabama, with the wind howling and flakes flying, but we are cozy inside with Ozzie the pug.



The table is ready to set for Christmas dinner!

New Christmas Tree Quilt

Here's another little project from the last month. For years, I have thought I should make a tree skirt for the four foot tree that sits on a table in our family room. I just never have gotten around to it. This year, I decided to make it happen. It is just nine patches in holiday colors, all repro fabrics I have on my fabric shelves in my sewing room. It wasn't a tree skirt pattern, so I just cut the quilt up the center and made a small circle to accommodate the tree trunk. Some binding, and it was finished.



I am slowly, so slowly improving my free motion quilting. Last weekend, we drove up to Knoxville on Sunday, and then Monday I completed the Machine Mastery classes at Gina's Bernina for my new Aurora 440QE. The last two lessons were on using the Bernina Stitch Regulator and using the machine to  attach embellishments to whatever. I had so much fun taking the series of six classes. We enjoyed dinner out at the Chophouse and a nice couple of days away from work.



This little tree has all small glass ornaments. I broke a few decorating this year, but I probably have a couple hundred little ones on the tree.



Ozzie? He's fine. He had a day at the vet yesterday for his annual checkup and shots. Not much seems to upset him. Well, maybe the Alabama loss to Auburn bothered him, but he had a fun time at our Ironbowl party anyway.  We had to buy a new living room rug, thanks to puppy-dom, and I guess a new couch will have to happen soon since he has customized ours with a couple of chewed holes. But we love him. We keep reminding him that Santa is watching -- he better be good!

Guess I need to catch up

Whew! Busy, busy. Between school and house stuff and dog stuff and, well, life, the days zoom by. I will post in more detail, but this is one recent project that was lots of fun. I made this little table runner out of fabric that the Sew Beautiful Martha Pullen store is carrying. I had to have it ready before the Houston Quilt Market and the show. I suppose it was there. I wasn't. I hope that the pattern is usable. I have never written a pattern before. Of course, I write lesson plans all of the time, but a quilt pattern is different. Plus, I made the quilt and then went back and wrote the directions. I thought that I would write everything down as I went, but no, that did not happen. I am so new to free motion quilting that I know it could be more "artfully" quilted, but oh well, I did what I could. Anyway, here is the link to the PDF.