wrapping it up . . .

I spent my fifteen (plus) minutes of stitching time on the mug rug project, Monday and Tuesday.  Today it hits the mail, so it's new owner should have it in the next week or so.  Once last 'back side' teaser . . .

Haha!  At least it's not just muslin this time, right?? Since it is a crazy quilted piece, I strongly debated on whether or not to do any quilting on it.  Crazy quilts generally do not have quilting, or have very little.  

But if you look closely, you can see I went ahead and spiral quilted the hexi center, where the 'mug' sits.  I used clear thread just because I didn't want the quilting to distract from the print in the front, which is the focal point!

Ellie *requested* that I bring buttons with me yesterday, so of course, I obliged. She happily played with them for quite some time, dumping them out and then picking them up.

She seems to have an appreciation for their individuality and enjoyed inspecting each one. 

Next time I'll bring them in a tea tin and add to the experience. Yesterday evening Joc texted me a conversation she and Ellie had after I'd left . . . 

     Ellie:  Where Neesey go?

     Jocelyn:  Neesey had to go bye-bye.

     Ellie:  And the buttons?

Ha!  Always leave 'em wanting more, right??!

:)

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!!

:)

guildy remininces . . .

Last night was guild night.  I love guild nights!  We have such an uber-talented group of women in our guild -- it's really quite remarkable!  Our speaker last night was a local talent Elaine, who blogs at Messygoat.  She does fabulous things with scraps, really fabulous.  But before I share those with you, there's a couple of fun things by others I want to share first . . . 

Check out this amazing sweater . . .

Isn't this awesome??!  You know how I love buttons!  I may definitely give this a try on my own.  By the way, this was a Cracker Barrel find.

And then there's this piece . . .

My dear friend Kathy and her husband were discussing possible themes for non-judged exhibits at our bi-annual show.  They laughingly toyed with the idea of "Quilts made by the husbands of guild members." Kathy didn't think any more about it until her husband, Norm, brought her the above as a birthday present. He made it while he was out of town!  Kathy reports he had a little help from the hotel staff.  She also said it was her favorite birthday present ever!  My favorite is the back shot . . .

I loved the knots!  Norm was pretty proud of those knots, too.  Way to go, there, Norm!!

So, now on to Elaine and her presentation.  She shared lots of darling projects that's she's made with scraps:

My favorite are the fish and the owl pincushions.  I love the owl with the "angry" eyes!!  (Movie reference, anyone?!?)  She free-handed the fish, but there's a tutorial for the owls on EfermeraInk!

She also makes BIG things . . . lovely, wild, beautiful quilts . . .

I dubbed the bottom one "backgammon quilt" right away!  I'm taking her workshop tomorrow ... Yay! We're working on a scrappy variation of Bonnie Hunter's String-X.  Can't wait!

In the meantime, I'm going to turn this:

Into a dress.  And, I'm getting closer on my cornucopia:

Whoohoo!  It might just be ready to hang before Thursday!

And, look what I received in the mail yesterday . . .

Two pounds of candied ginger straight from the Amish market!  My mom sent it to me ... so now I can get started on more gingersnaps and almond ginger biscotti! Loverly!

:)

feast or famine . . .

That's how my blogging consistency (or rather, lack thereof) strikes me right now . . . feast or famine; all or nothing; hot or cold.  Somewhere in there I'm hoping I'll eventually find a good balance to it all!  Or maybe I won't find balance at all and will just continue to run hither and yon . . . and still have my Christmas tree up this time next month. 

Todd suggested that we have a year-round tree.  The colored lights make me so happy!  I'm considering the idea.  

To my defense, the past weekend was super busy ... Todd and I held our ministry's fifth annual board meeting on Friday.  I have a lot of prep and setup work beforehand, and then I take the minutes and run the power point and set out lunch ... so it was a busy, albeit productive, day!  The meeting went well and we had a lot of great input from our board members.  With Todd looking at retirement (the Chief came down to his station to give him his pin for 25 years of service last week) from the fire department and going full time into ministry, there are lots of things to consider and decisions to make.

Saturday was Ellie's big tea party!  Oh what fun it was -- and Jocelyn did a magnificent job with the food and decorations.  A very *sweet* celebration!

She loves her dolly!

So precious!

The expression on her face here is simply *priceless*!!  
My favorite picture of the whole day!

Sawyer (and his buddy, Luke) watching the present-opening from a better vantage point!

Pretty Baby June, all dressed up for her first tea party!

And we had family in town for the festivities ... so that's kept me busy, too. Happily busy having dinner with the group on Sunday and Monday and all that marvelous time with all three grandbabies (and their mommies and daddies, of course)!  Wonderful, busy and exhausting ... but mainly wonderful!  

My darling friend Ronda, from church, brought me this awesome book . . . 

She's not just a fellow quilter, she also blogs at Ronda Quilts, and we're Pinterest buddies as well.  She'd seen my "Who's Got the Button" board and knew my affinity for buttons, so when she saw this book on Paper Back Swap, she thought of me!  Isn't that sweet?  It's filled with incredible buttons and button crafts! Whoohoo!

So I'm a little late on my stash report.  I didn't purchase or add any fabric in the past week, though I did use a little.  Once again, positive baby steps!

Used/donated this week: 0.55 yards

Used/donated year-to-date: 0.75 yards

Purchased/added this week: 0.0 yards

Purchased/added year-to-date: 16.75 yards

Net used/donated for 2013: -16.0 yards

I've got June's quilt on the ironing board this week ... and I hope to work up my 6" crazy quilt block before the week is over.  

I've checked one thing off my 'Get 'er Done' list so far -- and working on the second.  So progress is being made!  And I'll go ahead and link up to both the Weekly Stash Report and the Design Wall Monday posts over at Patchwork Times.

Thursday night is our guild meeting night.  It's also the deadline for guild members to submit quilts for consideration in an exhibit our Huntsville Museum of Art is holding from April through August.  They are jurying in 40 quilts to display for five months.  This will be fabulous publicity for the guild and for our bi-annual quilt show, which is in October.  I've submitted seven pieces for consideration -- I hope one of them gets selected!

It's rained here for seven days straight now.  Our temperatures have gone from one extreme to the other (rather like my blogging).  On Saturday it got up to 73 ... now we have lows below freezing.  Aye yi yi ... our weather radio intermittently goes off with flash flood warnings and winter weather advisories.  What's a girl to do?  Quilt, of course!

And finally . . . before I forget (again!!) . . . I have a WINNER from my 1000 post/Happy New Year giveaway!!  Congratulations go to . . . 

Yay, Missy!!  

I feel like there are a gazillion other things I should share ... but for the life of me, I can't think of a single other thing.  Except that I'm going for my first bone density scan tomorrow morning.  Ah the joys of life over fifty! 

:)

delayed by design . . .

Or something like that.  It's been a crazy day!  Todd and I were out the door early, to get the van I used for my Nashville trip back to the Association.  From there we made all sorts of stops.  One of mine involved (finally) fabric!!

Hobby Lobby had *all* of their Christmas fabric on sale for 50% off.  Nice!  I'll be using a fat quarter of the ornament print (far right) to wrap an ornament for tomorrow night's Stitcher's Christmas party.  Yay!

While I was there, I also picked up some more felt for poinsettias.  

I found sparkly pink *and* sparkly green!

And some buttons for those poinsettias, too.

I've got this fabric back out, too . . . time to get down to the nitty-gritty with my Christmas tree napkins.  I'll use some of the fabric in the first photo and then these two combinations.

You get two napkins per fat quarter, so I've got a goodly number of napkin sets I can make!

And . . . in Sunday's Stash Report/Slow Stitching post I showed a sweet little Christmas tree stitchery I'd downloaded from my most recent Sew Beautiful e-newsletter.  In that same newsletter was this cute little fellow, as well:

I'm happy to forward a copy of the newsletter to anyone who would like the patterns.  Both are totally darling, don't you think?

So that's what's theoretically on my design wall.  There are lots of other productive walls to check out over at Judy Laquidara's Patchwork Times!  

And, in case you've missed all the hubbub, don't miss out on celebrating Quilting Gallery's 5th birthday!!  

You can check out my giveaway post HERE . . . and to *totally* sweeten the deal, I found a package of Dark Chocolate Raspberry M&Ms to add to the prize package!

Mmmmm . . . chocolate!

:)