Merry Christmas!!

Pixxie enjoyed our busy day today. You can see how she has to be close to one of us. I get tickled how she puts her paw on our leg like she doesn't get enough attention (smile)

What a wonderfully busy day. Actually two days - as it is in the wee hours Christmas Eve as I write this. I just finished two bath mats for Christmas presents to our parents. I don't know why I can't seem to get the photo to flip sideways so you'll just have to turn your head (smile).

This is two bath towels quilted together on the longarm, no batting. I got the idea from another longarm quilter as I looked through webshots. Pretty cool idea actually. The original lady shared that she quilted gently worn towels, since this was a gift I purchased new towels.

It wasn't difficult to quilt, a little thick but no worse than quilting double knit (ugh) or minkie.

Have to admit it was rather therapeutic to be quilting again after a week of longarm set ups and limited customer quilts the last one of which delivered 12/23 at 7:30 PM. I didn't start on the bathmats until after 10 PM or so and finished a little after midnight. I made two. The only issue was in the trimming - I've got to vacuum!! What a mess. I cheated and did a machine binding instead of hand sewn on the back -- but heck, it's a bath mat! (smile).

Our immediate family had Christmas together this afternoon - our work schedules are so crazy that this was the only time all four of us could be together. I was working up until the last minute! Realized as I was wrapping presents that #1 Son only had one gift under the tree from us (it was a "big" one) and then I remembered that earlier in the year I had purchased some fabric with "Texas Hold'em" on it to make him pillow cases....nothing like last minute sewing! It was 11 AM and we were scheduled to get together to eat and open gifts a 1 PM!!

He was proud of the pillow cases, and asked if I'd make some throw pillows for his couch. Of course!

I had hinted that I wanted Mamma Mia! for Christmas and was very pleased that I received just what I asked for. Probably one of my favorite movies this year...hum...only saw three or four at the theater this year and actually liked them all, but this one made me feel like dancing -- so seems like a good one for the library, you know, something you pull out on those down days when you need a pick me up!

#2 Son is an artist. He knew his dad liked the old "rat fink" from his hot rod days so this was a most welcomed gift.

#2 Son painted this for #1 Son. It was too big to wrap so #1 Son was told to "go look in the hall closet" (smile) He was very pleased.

We are wanting to encourage #2 Son in his art so he recieved an air compressor and air brush materials. Can't wait to see what he creates next!

The next few days will be spent with extend families. Can't believe it's Christmas already! Nothing like waiting until the last minute to finish those gifts! Hum..maybe that's just part of the season (smile)

Merry Christmas everyone.

Christmas Quilts

Even though I've taken time out for a Christmas Open House, tool shopping, and a church pot-luck on Sunday that I haven't even told you about yet - I really have been busy with Christmas customer quilts too! Not all of them have been "Christmas" quilts -- but wanted to share these recent ones to sorta put you in the holiday mode!

I really enjoyed working on the broken star log cabin quilt, it was done with a simple panto and the customer was pleased when she came to pick it up. I know someone will enjoy snuggling under it this holiday season! You have to look close, but do you see my professional quilt model amongt the batting at the bottom (grin)?

I was able to sneak in a quilt of my own this past week as I quilted two student/customer quilts the same time as mine. You may remember these from earlier posts - they are a Square in a Square pattern called Exploding Star or Christmas Star in the book Advancing On II.

I wasn't sure if all three of them would fit on the frame, it was a tight squeeze, even with wide backing, but ta-da!

This one was my class sample. The quilting doesn't show up much due to the rich colors in the fabric, but when the light hits it just right you can see the texture. Even though it's quilted, it probably won't get hung this Christmas -- needs binding and a hanging sleeve and that's just not on my agenda or to do list for this season (sigh).

This one is Peggy's. She pieced the center in our SnS class and then went home to add the borders and the snowman in the center. I really like the way it looks and you can see from the close up that her choice of a lighter background fabric allowed the quilting to show up more than mine. Good job Peggy! She said she was gifting this to a friend for Christmas, I hope she likes it!

This next one is Cheryl's. She too was in the SnS class and pieced the center in class and went home to add the borders. Her green fabric has a little gold in it and it worked well with the gold thread - somehow it reflects and sparkles. She too chose a lighter background fabric that allowed the quilting to show better. Hum...seems I have something to learn from my students!

I played around with some different feathers on this one. Even though the quilts are all the same pattern I couldn't quilt them alike (sigh and grin)

I hope the girls are pleased. They took me longer than anticipated and now I'm a little behind...such is life. Need to get off the computer and go load another customer quilt that has been promised for Christmas...

In the meantime, I hope these Christmas beauties have inspired you to take time sometime this next year and make a Christmas quilt for yourself and your family. Certainly brightens up the room and adds joy to the season if ya' ask me!

An Early Christmas Gift???

It's not what you think.

It's not a gift for my husband.

It's not a gift for my oldest son, or even my youngest son.

Nothing for the brother-in-laws in my life, nor my father-in-law.

It's not really even a gift.

So why am I posting a photo of a new set of tools from Sears? What do tools have to do with quilting anyway - isn't this suppose to primarily be a quilting blog??

Glad you asked!

You see, I received a "tool list" from my friend Jamie Wallen, fellow longarm quilter AND fellow A-1 dealer. Yep. These are the tools he said I needed to be able to set up an A-1 plus a few more that he said we'd shop for together later. Gosh darn it, that meant a trip to the mall today was a necessity.

For those of you that don't know, I 'm not really a shopper. Unless it's quilt related of course! Couldn't tell you the last time I went to the mall. Just not interested. I'm a pretty simple gal and don't have a lot of wants and needs - shopping just isn't something I make a habit of doing. If and when I go it's with a list - boom, bang, in and out, I'm done.

Not so today. Today my hubby went with me (after all, I needed a man to help decipher my tool list which I had neatly printed out and tucked in my purse for safe keeping until we hit Sears). I would have been content to park right outside of the Sears entrance, you know, the one by the tool department...nope...he said "while we're here, let's just walk the mall". Okay, sounds like a fun date - but I didn't have my walking shoes on - nope, good ole high heel boots. Fashionable with jeans of course. That's okay, I'm a Texas gal, hit me with anything and I can handle it! Keyword in my life - flexable!

All kidding aside, it was nice to 'walk the mall' -- so many things have changed since I'd been there last -- and not just Christmas decorations! New stores and such. I was glad he was with me because I get so turned around in that mall, I never know where I am. That's why when I do go I always park outside of Sears so all I have to do is look for the Sears sign and I know I can find my way to my car!

Oh, and I did do a little shopping while there -- found a store that carried beauty supplies. Last week when I got my hair done my stylist gifted me with a manacure -- don't fall over gals, but this was my FIRST professional manacure. I'm serious when I tell you I'm not a high maintenance sort of gal. It was a real blessing though because it was prior to open house and I was proud to have nice nails for my 'hands on' demos. Well, this store in the mall had the same brand of nail polish my nail technician used so I thought "why not? I can touch up the paint myself!" and found the exact color!

So as my hubby just stated "we went to the mall today to get a pry bar and nail polish!" -- they were out of the recommended size pry bar so I guess I'll just have to go and do more tool shopping between now and the first A-1 set up on Sunday! But I've got the nail touch up covered! It's all about priorities!

Christmas Open House

Yesterday was my Open House for my business, Quilts 'N Kaboodle. We were celebrating several things - one, God's mercy on our home during Hurricane Ike, two God's blessing in the increase of our quilting business to include being a certified instructor with Square in a Square (this happened in June) and our new association with A-1 Quilting Machines as their Texas dealer (this happened in November). Truly a blessing to share these praises with my friends.

So from 10 to 3 many of my quilting friends "dropped in" for a hug, a howdy, a cookie and a few demos.

The cookies were baked by my good friend Annette, I've learned to rely on her for my "food needs" when I have quilting events. Not only is she fabulous as a person and friend, but she's a great cook! and by turning the kitchen over to her I'm relived of a lot of stress (smile)

As you can see, the kitchen is a big hit with my guests, everyone loved Annette's cookies, many asking for the recipes...

I spent a little time doodling on the longarm and then asked my guests to take the A-1 Quilting Machine for their own test drive. Many took me up on the offer!

Part of the open house included some of my 'students' bringing their show and tell from the Square in a Square classes we've had this past year. This is Delores, she took the Ohio Star class but didn't want to make the six inch blocks and a small quilt so I showed her how to translate the pattern to 12 inch blocks and away she went! Turned out to be a big, beautiful quilt and it's finished!

Judy was in the Exploding Star Class, she brought her top to share and to inquire about adding more rows to make it bigger. Can't wait to see the finished project!

At the top of the hour we had drawings for door prizes. Judy won one.

And Kaye did too!

I think the real fun was playing on the longarm...I think you'll agree as you view the photos!





All in all it was a fun day and I truly appreciate all that came. Especially Sara who took the photos and along with Amy and Annette greeted my guests. To see all the photos visit my webshots album

Yes We Need A Little Christmas - right this very minute!

That right! It's December. The time we celebrate the Lord's birth.

I'm usually not one to rush the season, I really like Thanksgiving and actually bemoan that they start Christmas music on or before Thanksgiving. But the day after, well, that's another tune!

Funny, I woke up singing "and we need a little Christmas" and that's the first song I heard when I finally did turn on the radio station the day after Thanksgiving (the same station that began playing Christmas music ON Thanksgiving - I boycotted them that day because I refuse to rush my Thanksgiving). Well, now that's its officially December I'm ready to begin the festivities!

Time to pull the boxes down from the attic and decorate!!

I started with the easiest room first - add a little festivities to the bathroom with a quilted table runner and a couple of my painted treasures from days gone by. Did I mention that I used to tole paint? Mid 80's to early 90's that was my hobby and my business, Sonshine Creations - perhaps you heard of me (yeah right!). My husband cut out the wooden items and I painted them. We even sold some items in Gatlinburg Tennessee back in the day before the imported crafts took over.. I don't have too many of my projects, most were given away, but I held on to the Christmas ones...oh the memories associated with Christmas!

The quilted table runner was made before I owned my own longarm - it was done on a rented machine. I call that my "tuition" into learning the longarm. Hate to think of what it cost me back then to rent by the hour -- oh well, just one more cause to rejoice that I have my own machine now! Just reminds me that God is the giver of good things!

Since the bathroom is shared by the two fellows in my life I decided not to do too much more, not everyone gets as enthusiastic about the decorations as I do (grin). Besides we all love the sea shells so its hard to move them out. There's stories behind the sea shells too, but I'll save those for another time since they don't have anything to do with Christmas.

Added a few items around the living room to make it bright - the teddy bear with the red pants was made by one of my great aunts, Aunt Effie. It was probably made around the time I was in high school as I have another one she gave me in my school colors. We won't mention that I've been out of high school 30 years this year (grin). My mom brought the teddy to me when she came to visit for Thanksgiving. I think he looks great mingled in with the Christmas decorations don't you?

By the way, Aunt Effie was the one who taught me how to embroidery and helped me a lot with my sewing. She was always making neat things for her church bazaar. I loved her crafts. If you look really close you can see on the bottom of the wall shelf a little red cloth clown. She made that for me when I was a child. I have a few other treasures from Aunt Effie, included a couple of her beautiful quilts. She was quite a lady! And I loved her too, not just her crafts.

I have also put out a few things in the kitchen in the way of decorations and preparation for my open house this weekend - but things aren't cleaned up enough to take photos (grin). My tree is up but doesn't have the ornaments on it yet - later tonight I'm hoping! So there will be photos and more stories to come in another post. After all, why rush the season!

What I have done is finished up a project that has been in the works for three Christmases. Well, it's not really finished yet, but finished enough....

See I have this place in my living room where I've hung a good size quilt that matched my curtains - problem is, I've changed curtains (grin) Yep! This weekend while my mom was here she helped me finish up my "new" curtains that have been in the works since summer (before Ike). Well, the wall quilt doesn't match these curtains -- I went from blue to gold tones...but there's a wall quilt in the works to replace this that DOES match the curtains, alas, it's still not finished -- it's my border quilt from my class this summer with Winnie Fleming...it needs two more borders and to be quilted (I've run out of Sundays - the rest of the year is spoken for)...so in the meantime I really have come to dislike the blue quilt on the wall...and with open house coming up....well, you see my predicament don't you?

And since I piece for myself on Sundays......and yesterday was Sunday....

Yep, you guessed it. I pulled out a Christmas quilt that I planned three years ago to take the place of the blue quilt each year around this time...problem is...it was still in blocks and needed 14 more 8 inch blocks to be pieced....add to this that my quarter inch isn't the same since I now have a different machine that the one I originally used....oh me...it's not the best pieced quilt in the world, but the fabrics do hold precious memories -- leftovers from the two other Christmas quilts I've managed to piece AND quilt through the years...well, I just had to finish it and cover up that blue quilt....

As I said, it's not really finished, it is suppose to have a top and bottom border but I'm hanging it up anyway! (it's pinned to the bluje quilt) Here's the cover from the book "Christmas Heart Light" by Susie M. Robbins, Peddlars of Danville. I purchased it at the Houston Festival 2006. You can see how the pieced border is suppose to look. I changed up the blocks, but that's what makes it uniquely mine right? Maybe by next year it will be finished and quilted.

In the meantime, it's time to go warm up some Thanksgiving leftovers -- hubby smoked a brisket that we have been enjoying all weekend (true confession, I did call out for a Domino's Pizza for lunch today) and I think this will be the final meal of "mustgoes." Perphaps we can get the empty boxes back in the attic and things straighten up to our new normal after dinner.

I think we've worn out the puppy...