this, that, and everything in between . . .

Looking back, it's been a fairly busy week/weekend!  It started snowing Tuesday afternoon, and continued well into the evening, giving us a full inch of pretty ground covering . . . 

Coming into the camp.  It took me ninety minutes to get home from work on Tuesday evening!

It was still pretty the next morning, too!

Wednesday I finished up the binding on the last of the Christmas quilts . . .

Three little lap quilts, all with their binding neatly stitched up! Ijust need to pop labels on them.

Thursday we had our annual Christmas Open House at work.  I enjoy getting things set up for it.  We generally have a good number of visitors come through the doors!

My favorite table of visitors . . .

The Christmas tree always makes a great backdrop for this pretty trio of girls:

Does that not just deck your halls?!!

Friday morning we had several visitors over for breakfast al fresco . . .

And along with running some Christmas errands and lunch at a new restaurant in town with Todd, I tried my hand at this darling fabric origami hexi ornament:

Well, I tried my hand twice . . .

These whip up very quickly and make a darling addition to a gift!  Not Afraid of Color shared theirs in a recent Slow Sunday Stitching post and also shared the video tutorial she'd used to make them.  You can find it right HERE!

Saturday, was all about tea!  My mom, Joc, Ellie, Evey and I headed to Chattanooga for a Victorian Christmas tea at Polly Claire's!

Four generations!

We had a very lovely time.  :)

Over Thanksgiving weekend, Mary Corbet at Needle 'n Thread released a darling set of snowflake embroidery patterns.  SO pretty!  I'd been watching the sample pieces on her instagram feed, and knew which one I was going to want to stitch up first . . . 

I couldn't wait for Sunday and have taken a few stitches, but this will definitely be my project for some much anticipated slow Sunday stitching!

And I'm using metallic floss, so it sparkles.  ♥

Linking up to the slow stitching post at Kathy's Quilts--stop by and see who's doing what!  

Have you seen one of the latest ornaments on my tree??

Isn't this hand-painted snow fellow the sweetest?  If you haven't entered my 'giftaway,' and you'd like one like him, be sure to check out my Pearl's Peg post!

Happy Sunday stitching!

:)

out with the ... hmmmm . . .

You know, as I move my marker from "50", I'm not so sure I like that saying any more!  Out with the old??!  But why?  It's still perfectly good!  New is *not* necessarily better ... is it?!  NO!  Ha!

Todd and I did venture out for a bit yesterday.  It wasn't encouraging that right off the bat, the car decided not to cooperate!

A jump start and she was fine.  We even stopped and had the battery checked to make sure it didn't need replacing, but it was fine, too.  I think she may have been a tad jealous that we used the golf cart for our 'first' outing.  Persnickety thing!

We needed real food, so the grocery store was on our circuit.  Actually, I went there while Todd took off to see about the car.  Call me crazy but I'd been craving red meat.  With gravy.  And homemade yeast rolls (what is this affair with bread making lately?) . . .

Dinner was good . . . and so will be today's lunch!

I finished whipping up all my little pieces for the GC block and started whipping them together.

I remember now why I skipped this block.  I've probably made it a lot more difficult than it needed to be, but it sure looks pretty!

Especially when it's attached to the background fabric!

When I got tired of whipping pieces together, I pulled out my snowflake block fabrics.  I decided that since I really did want the look of a snowflake, I'd try it in blues and whites and grey.  Here's what I came up with:

I had to do a little refresher course on paper-piecing, it had been so long.  But once I saw the first step, it all came back ... like riding a bicycle ...

Yes -- I'm very pleased with the overall on this one!!  (I photocopied my one finished one six times so I could see what the finished piece would look like.  It's how I roll.)  Now only five more triangles to do. Hmmm . . . where is that GC block?

If my recollecting is correct, in addition to the snowflake, I started (and even finished) a couple of other NewFO projects in the merry ol' month of December.

Pretty darn productive and definitely worth a link up to the December NewFO linky party over at Cat Patches!!

Finally, the view out of the RV window this morning . . .

I love living in a place where this is what greets me in the morning!  Enjoy this last day of 2013 and let me wish you a very happy, peaceful and blessing-filled 2014!

:)

lagging behind . . .

And I'm not (purposefully) describing my posterior, either!  You know it's been a long time when you have to 'sign in' to blogger before you can post.  Aye yi yi!

July is flying by and I've been so happily busy!  Life is, for the very most part, good great! Since the last time I posted was July 8, there's just no way to do a single post that covers *everything* (even if I just limited it to the quilting part of my world), so perhaps I'll do a series of posts this week.  LOL! Listen to me!  ;)

I'll start back on the 11th of the month . . . I visited a local guild -- the Madison Station Quilters -- who had Kathy Shaw from Shawkl Designs as their guest speaker.  Kathy was my mentor through the crazy quilting course I took through StitchMAP, as well as the author of the curriculum.  Which means she's GOOD!  So when I heard she would be in town, I couldn't pass up an opportunity to see her in person!

Would you believe, I neglected to get a picture of her and I? Or of her?!? Where was my head??! I did manage to get some pictures of her extraordinary work:

I was totally captivated by her 'tea' themed block, can you tell?!  Not surprisingly, because that's the block *I* want to do next for my own!

This stunningly embellished Elizabethan lady of royalty took over 400 hours to complete.  Just the lady herself.  WOW!

And she had loads of beautiful blocks that she's received in swaps, too.  

She commented at one point that she'd swapped out some of her best work! LOL!

I made a few purchases, too (I mean c'mon -- we want to support our speakers, right?!?):

I already had her book, but I picked up the sketch book and the monogram pattern set.  I brought her book with me so she could sign it!

And the sketch book is really a simple but genius idea ... it's filled with graph lines to just sketch out ideas -- embellishments, seam treatments, block layout, whatever!  

Having done that with my first cq block, I know what a help it is to do that!

As I left the meeting, I had a fun, totally random surprise.  

I know, I know ... you say, "A bench?  C'mon, Denise, you need to get out more!"  But I happened to have designed that bench with the "M" for Madison City monogram (when I worked in the ornamental iron business)!  I'd forgotten all about the fact that there were thirteen of them at Madison's City Hall (which is where the guild meets)!

I do have things blooming on my design wall . . .

This is an adaptation of a quilt pattern (Laura) that's up on Michelle's Romantic Tangle.  She's done an armful of different baby quilt patterns this year and I fell in love with Laura!  Yes, I made mine smaller.  It's what I do.

And things are blooming on the outside, too!  Isn't this Tiger Lilly pretty? 

It's the first time I've seen this plant up at our site (and we've been here three years); I guess I finally got enough of the weeds cleared away for it to have some breathing room!

And flowers aren't all that are blooming . . .

Sweet little baby!  Just snoozing away, not ten feet off the walking path.  Isn't he precious?!

And on that happy note, I'm outta here for now!

:)

sorry i'm so late, but . . .

My car ran out of gas!  No.

My alarm clock didn't go off this morning!  Double no.

Traffic was really bad!  *yawn*

I got pulled over?  Sounds like a personal problem.

The dog ate my homework?!?  Good gravy, that's so fifth grade.

I know, I had to finish a QUILT!  Say what??!

Ummmm, I had to hack a fallen tree in half to clear the driveway??

*ding*ding*ding*  We have a winner!  (Poor Todd -- luckily it was only one tree!)  That was yesterday morning.  We had sustained winds of 20-30 mph overnight ... blustery indeed!  Temps quickly dropped and we had snow flurries throughout the day yesterday, fun!

Some folks will go to any lengths in order to get to 1,000 posts, won't they?  This is 995, by the way . . . !!!

We had a gorgeous visitor on Christmas Day . . . I think perhaps he was one of Santa's that sneaked away for a bit of a well-deserved break . . .

Simply grand.

:)

an odd conglomeration . . .

I'll start with hexies ... because I *thought* I was going to have a marvelous post with a finished hexie project, all ready for Sarah Did It! and her monthly HeLP for Hexie-aholics linky party.

I thought wrong.

I had high hopes of finishing up my little mini-hexi quilt . . . but I've only gotten as far as quilting the hexies.  I like the angle of this shot because the quilting makes the little hexie flowers dimensional.

I still need to quilt the border and bind it.  Hopefully I *will* finish it this weekend.  

So then I thought perhaps I'd pull a hexie project out of one of the Miniature Quilts magazines I lucked upon.  Do you know, out of all SEVEN of those magazines, there was only ONE hexie quilt project?  And that one was a cover feature (which Sarah noted and pointed out right away, from yesterday's picture -- LOL!).

It is cute.  Petit Noel.  (See it?  Down there in the bottom left corner, in the above pic.)

I love the instructions in this magazine.  And how there's no need for bulky pull out sections with tons of patterns on them.

Because the patterns are all so small, they fit on the pages!  Look at the "full-size quilting diagrams" up there in the top right of this photo!  

Anyway, that's all the hexie-moxie I've got this morning.  But I know Sarah's got a really cool hexie project up -- so definitely head over there and check it out!!

But wait ... there's more!  LOL!  I just like saying that (although there really is more I want to share).

Look what my favorite daughter-in-law in the whole world gifted me with . . . 

I *love* this stuff ... and now it's sugar-free!!!  Whoohoo!  Talk about kicking your holiday season off right!  :)

Todd and I had a blast last night.  We went to dinner at Logan's and both had steaks.  From there we headed to the Von Braun Center's Playhouse (at Huntsville's Civic Center) and to our very good seats.  

The adaptation from screen to stage was handled very well and required very little set changing (which is nice, because that can be really distracting).

The cast was marvelous and did a great job.  The actor who played George Bailey did a marvelous job, as did the fellows who played Clarence and Mr. Potter, respectively.  

It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed getting to shake hands with the performers after the show and telling them how great it was.  One of the benefits of local theater!

While we were soaking in culture at the theater, the kids were taking their kids through the Galaxy of Lights ... the walking tour.  I'd love to do that some day -- not quite up to it yet, though.  This year I'll settle for the driving tour!

This is going to be a magical year for Sawyer.  Look at his precious, sweet little face!!  He's totally captivated by the lights -- I love it!!  (June is in there -- she's snoozing in the back of the stroller!)

And I *adore* this picture of him with Santa!!  They didn't think he'd like Santa, but I knew he would.  He was so excited to tell Santa that he wanted a Buzz Lightyear!

Ellie, on the other hand, did not care for Santa very much . . . 

But this picture is totally precious, all the same.  I love the look on their respective faces!  A priceless capture, to be sure!

She was happier with the glow and twinkle of the lights.  And being surrounded by mommy and daddy was better, too!

I captured a lovely sight outside my sewing window . . .

Yesterday morning.  There were six or seven deer -- I know it's hard to see them -- they are well camouflaged (which, since gun season started this morning, probably works to their benefit!).   Can you see the doe laying down?  They were just passing the time, eating an acorn or two, nibbling on grass.  Can't beat a view like that!

One of the Traveling Stash boxes is up for grabs at Squares Around the Quilt.  There are some fun additions to it -- definitely worth checking out!!

Busy day today -- shopping for tonight (youth bonfire), tomorrow morning (our turn for breakfast at church again), the weekly groceries *and* Thanksgiving dinner!  Whew!  What's on your plate?

Have a *lovely* Saturday!!

:)