hollydaze . . .

Saturday/Sunday came and went and I just didn't get to blogger.  I really, seriously thought -- for some strange, unfathomable reason -- that this past week and weekend was going to be slow.  I thought wrong!

I don't have the pretty image, but based on my last paragraph, it should come as no surprise that my stash is unchanged.  Nothing in, nothing out, and a total balance of 22.5 yards used for the year!  It'll probably stay that way . . . though since I'm off next week, I plan on spending some time in the Nook and maybe I'll use a little more!

I got the sweetest, heart-warming/melting letter in last week's mail . . .

I'd sent cards to Sawyer and June with pages to color.  I'd asked if maybe they'd color one and send it back to me!  Can you tell which is Sawyer's and which is Junes??  LOL!  In addition, Sawyer wrote the most precious letter to me!!  

Since he asked about Sebastian, I was only to happy to visit him at our neighbor's house (which is where Sebastian moved when the Panter crew moved to Irvine) and grab some video and pictures to share with the kids!

I finished up my Noel tree. I hate it. I'm thoroughly not pleased with it; after Christmas, I will cut it out and do something different with it. But I knew I wanted to hang it in that space, so I just went ahead and put it up.

Part of the problem is that I stitched it on muslin -- I should have used a quality thread count white cotton.  *sigh*  I didn't know I was going to fall in love with the final stitching so much.  And I couldn't find what I was wanting in the red trim, so I made my own out of satin ribbon.  Mistake. Aaaah well, I'll frame it or something.  Lesson learned. The ray of sunshine is that I'm pleased to see that the "NOEL" does stand out enough to make sense.  LOL!

Sunday was a busy day -- we had our Christmas party in Sunday school.  David is our pastor's son, and I love that little fellow!  Here he is showing off his "King of kings" crown we made!

After Sunday school we had worship -- and our choir performed our Christmas cantata.  It was good music and I love singing, so that made it a good morning! Then Sunday evening, Todd and I went to see the Living Christmas Tree at Huntsville First. I'd never been before (and I'm not sure why), but it was fabulous!!

My sister sent me a pattern for another cute wool ornament . . . and really, it was so cute, I got right to it:

Isn't that one precious?  I saw it done in navy and red, too -- I think I may give that combo a try as well!  The pattern can be found by clicking HERE.  :)

We've had rain, rain, rain.  Since overnight on Saturday, we've had rain.  You know what happens when you have that much rain?

The creek rises!

In the likely event that I don't make it back here before Friday . . . a very warm and Merry Christmas to you!  May your celebrations be filled with laughter, love, family, and friends. Mmmmwah!

:)

confession time . . .

I have a couple of them, actually.  The first is, I barely spent any time stitching on poor ol' Mr. Owlie yesterday.

I stitched a red flower and finished a stem.  And then that temptress of a quilt sang her siren song and I gave in.

Which leads me to my second confession.  I'd already told someone that having so MUCH time pass between the beginning blocks I quilted and the last blocks I quilted showed differences in my quilting.  Eeek. You know what else happens when a lot of time has passed since you first started a quilt?

You forget that the yard-and-a-half of lavender Evening Mist was purchased for the assembly and binding of a particular quilt and instead use it to back a dolly quilt for Christmas.  

Aye yi yi!!!  First thing I did was jump online to see if I could find some somewhere, just in case my LQS doesn't have it any more (which it probably won't -- I purchased this three YEARS ago, after all!). Whew! I'm good. Then I went ahead and looked at my leftover piece and started cutting, just to see if I had enough to assemble my blocks into row. I did!

So then I decided to just put two blocks together . . . for old times sake . . . and one thing led to another and all of a sudden, lo and behold . . . 

One row.

Two rows?!

THREE rows??!!

FOUR ROWS!!!!!

This is a lovely thing!  I took lots of pics of the process and will 'whip' up a tutorial as soon as I get more fabric and can assemble my rows.  And I figure as busy as I'll be this week, it'll be nice to have some hand work for the evenings -- I can stitch down my strips.

So that's my design wall for today!  I *may* try to get the GC *or* the snowflake block finished this week, but no promises -- waaaay too much going on.  Linking up to the design wall post on Patchwork Times!

Our final day at CBC went really well, though I did manage to soak a dozen or more Kleenex!  And, in tribute to my sweet husband, nearly *everyone* showed up in camouflage!  It was SO great!!  We looked like it was Duck Dynasty Sunday or something!

At first I just thought it was coincidence that a couple of guys were wearing it (and Todd had worn it, too, of course).  But then when I saw several women and some youth and children all wearing it too, I knew it had been planned -- and I had my first cry of the morning!

My girls gave me this sweet gift:

I was so touched!  The daisy tag in the middle reads, "Thank you for helping us bloom!"   Awww....cry two!

Then they prayed over us and had a lovely going-away lunch.  Even the table decoration and the banner they put up were camo-oriented.

Such fun!  And such a sweet and gracious spirit in our brothers and sisters there -- what a blessing they've been to us.

Today.  Today I need to hit the ground running -- much work to do!!  Enjoy your Monday...make it count!

:)

the storm before the frenzy . . .

I miss my blog!!  I can't believe how long it's been since I last posted.  (Which I guess isn't really all *that* long, considering the time of year it is!)  I have a feeling when I look back on 2013, I might be a little sad that I didn't at least take a little more time in chronicling the day-to-day events that make life rich and precious. My failing short-term memory really appreciates having the blog to refer back to. I'm working on some ideas that will make blogging less 'work' and will allow me (and family) to be able to look back and see what's going on without all the writing, editing, and picture editing stuff that has kept me blogging so sparsely this past year!

Anyway, that being said, this month has been busy, busy, busy!  I've had fun crafting with the grands and on my own.  Here's a little taste of some of the fun things we've been up to: 

A couple more button wreath ornaments ... these went on gift bags!

Took me forever, but I finally decorated!  Inside and . . . 

Outside!  Yay!

Ellie and I made salt dough ornaments!

I made Ellie a fun "E" for her Christmas tree.

I used the wreaths we made to decorate favor bags.

These went to my sweet Sunday School girls!  :)

I made poinsettia hair clips for June and Ellie and a Frosty button pin for Sawyer.

Sawyer and his mommy made this *awesome* gingerbread house.  He was SO proud!

More "regular sized" poinsettia brooches.  I figured out how to use the machine
for these (which makes them go a LOT faster)!  The original tutorial/pattern from
lil fish studios is HERE.

Our guild's Christmas social was a huge success -- we had a great turnout.

The tables were so pretty!  And instead of doing the typical "make and take" project,
we did "make and leave" projects -- Christmas cards for Van Tutt Veterans' Home!

And finally, something quilty: a little "Snow Buddies" project.  This was
 a quick put together with fabric I'd won a LONG time ago from A Legacy of Stitches.

So that should bring me up to date, I think!  I'm busily crafting away today . . . I've still got today and three solid days before Christmas, so who knows what kind of frenzied trouble I can get into!!

:)

whoopsie . . .

I see that November is taking after October and sneaking up on me!  And we're already a third of the way through it, to boot!  I guess it's time for the ol' monthly stash report update . . .

Used/donated this month: 1.0 yards

Used/donated year-to-date: 36.25 yards

Purchased/added this month: .75 yards

Purchased/added year-to-date: 86.5 yards

Net used/donated for 2013: -50.25 yards

To be honest, it took me a minute or two to figure out exactly what, if anything, I'd purchased in the way of fabric last month!  I added two fat quarters to do Ellie's superhero cape and got a great Alabama Crimson Tide fat quarter as gift wrap for my birthday!  Roll Tide!  That was my addition.  After cleaning up the bunk room -- AgAiN -- I have sworn off fabric buying for the rest of my life! the next decade! the year! a month or two.  Maybe.  *wink*

I also was given a bag of silk ties and some velvet remnants for crazy quilting.  I can't even begin to count it, so I'm not, but I wanted to be forthright in my posting (for posterity).  LOL!

And once again, I have a plethora (don't you just love that word??) of pictures because I'm so delinquent in posting (gotta love me!), so I'll do a pictorial post with comments, instead of paragraphs!

First up ... last Saturday we celebrated June's "One-ness"!

Kim set a beautiful spread!

I contributed my signature cream cheese mints!
 I'll be posting the recipe for these next week.

June is all tomboy...she quickly abandoned her princess wand for the sword!

Ps...unless she's captive, getting a front shot of this girl is *tough*!
But since the back is almost as cute as the front, who's complaining?!

Birthday cake:  a success!

Next up:  Sunday -- all smocked up for a paint day with my youth SS girls!

Everyone with their works of art -- what a fun afternoon we had together!

I did a Christmas tree -- I love it!  I'm in the spirit!

Monday, June and I had one-on-one time while mommy and Sawyer went to the dentist! 

Monday afternoon, Todd and I went tooling around the camp, enjoying the day.

Tuesday, I spent the whole day going through my mess in the back bunk room.
It was a complete disaster, but twelve hours later . . . 

A pan of it's organized neatness!  (Clicking will make it bigger.)  When creative
genius hits, it's easy for the room to get out of control.  Bahaha!

The Panters came by for a visit on Wednesday.  Sawyer was having
a ball playing in the leaves!  Constant motion --out of about twelve
pictures, this one was the least blurry! 

Thursday I got to spend with my darling Ellie!

She was a *big* help in making a batch of my Holiday Biscotti.
And she learned that she's quite fond of pistachios!

The aforementioned Holiday Biscotti.  Isn't it pretty??  And it's *so* yummy!!
I'll be guest posting at Sew Crafty Angel next week, sharing the recipe, in case anyone is interested.

Then last night (Friday), Kim, Sawyer, and I headed to downtown Fayetteville
for theopening night of the town's Host of Christmas Past event!  We got to see
the lighting of the Christmas tree, hear carols sung by the high school chorus
(in which three of my SS girls  sing), and have dinner out!  Sawyer was enchanted by all the pretty lights and decorations!

And finally, I'll wrap this up with some fabric creations!

Finished up my stitching course with the lined butterfly bag and pattern weights.

Kim brought me some fabric to turn into a Thanksgiving dress for June!
(But the fabric is Kim's, not mine, hence not included in my stash! Whew!)

Working on my next crayon tinting/stitchery project for my mini-stand!

And, worked up my blocks for our guild's Starstruck Block Lottery.
The theme this month is "Christmas".  These were *so* easy, I may make a
couple more, seeing as how they're not due for two weeks!

Okay, so that wraps up this week for me!  We've got a camp full of Cub Scouts, an AL vs. LSU game tonight, and then tomorrow I'm headed to watch Ellie while Joc and Jason take an overnight road trip to Atlanta.  I'll be back next week with the Cream Cheese Mints recipe as well as a link to the Holiday Biscotti post!

:)