MERRY CHRISTMAS!

It's getting to look a lot like Christmas!  

This Santa Claus is at the Yamhill County Heritage Museum and was carved from a log.  We live near a big logging area and the museum has a display with lots of logging tools.  It is still being done.  When we were in Willamina for the Art Tour and were eating lunch in a restaurant, a logging truck drove by every five minutes or so.

Here are the Christmas decorations that I have in my sewing room, I mean "studio."  The white ceramic Christmas tree was won when I was working at the office Christmas party.  The parents of a co-worker made lots of ceramic items and I was very lucky to win this tree.  It is sitting on top of my quilt cabinet.  The quilt hanging on the door was Bonnie Hunter's mystery Christmas quilt in 2009, the year I retired.

The quilt below has 9 embroidered blocks that were BOMs that I did several years ago.  Right now I can't remember who had them on their blog.  It might have been Gail Pan.

The rabbit on the left was found in a thrift shop with a pattern for the dress.  Inside the wire basket are 2 plastic dolls that I have had since I was about 10 years old.  The boy and girl are dressed in hand crocheted clothes that have never been washed because they don't come off.  That's why they are rather dirty.

Behind the doll is a vintage "Home Sewing" book marked 35⍧ and the book "A Grandma for Christmas" which is set in Norway.  It was published in 1946 and my sister found it in my Mom's sewing machine cabinet.  It has both our names in it, so we're not sure exactly who was the true recipient, but she brought it to me last Christmas.  It has recipes for Lefse (which I made today), and other scandinavian specialties inside the cover.

Me and DH

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

GETTING READY FOR CHRISTMAS!

Yes, I'm sewing, but I don't have very much that I can show you right now.  Here is one table runner that I made, though.  The poinsettia fabric in the stars has been in my stash for years, but the black background with red birds is new (I got it on a shop hop).   I was up early sewing a Christmas gift and will take a picture of it when it's finished.

The Ho Ho Ho fabric was found in an antique shop for a very good price!  It wasn't even an antique!

Last month DH and I went to Willamina, OR for their annual art tour.

We enjoyed it a lot and turned in our "ballot" at the end.  Recently I received a call from one of the artists telling me that I had won some prizes!  I received a small table topper quilt, a calendar with photographs from around Oregon on each month and 2 bars of hand made (with goat's milk) soap!

As you can see, Mt. Hood is the picture for January.

It's always fun to win something!  

We had snow again this week.  For the first 2 years that we lived  here, it didn't snow, except for some flurries that melted upon hitting the ground.  Since our DS#2 & family moved here, it has snowed twice with school being closed both times!  Abby is in kids' heaven!

Abby with "cowboy" snowman.

Me with Abby in front of their house.

We might get some more snow today and the high temp will be 33º!  Hope you are having a lovely December so far!

OUR FIRST SNOW!

I can't believe how long it's been since I posted, but I've been super busy.

Yesterday we had snow!  The first real snow since we moved here.  The area where we live is in the Willamette Valley and this area doesn't usually get much snow.  Abby was thrilled as it was the first snowfall she has ever seen since she was born in Florida and lived there until last summer.

View looking out our Patio door.

A friend and I participated in the Handmade Holiday Bazaar at the Yamhill Valley Heritage Center in McMinnville, OR last weekend and I'm still trying to get back to normal from that.  We had a very good weekend.  But, no, we didn't sell out of everything!

Now I'm in the middle of wrapping presents, mailing packages and trying to get a few more projects made.  My ideas don't always fit into my time available and I haven't been able to keep up with the blogs I follow, but I'm trying.

Let's hope we can all get our projects finished on time!

CAR QUILT

I finished quilting this car quilt.  The embroidered blocks were a set of partially done blocks that I picked up at an estate sale.  I finished the embroidery and put them together into a baby quilt/wall hanging size quilt.  

When I was trying to figure out what to quilt in the border, I went to a favorite blog for quilting designs, The Inbox Jaunt.  Lori Kennedy has some amazing quilting designs with directions for how to make them by free motion quilting.  I found this race car design and when I read her step by step instructions it look pretty easy.  Below is my first try at it on my practice scrap.    

It seemed easy and I made them all around the border of the quilt.  They aren't perfect, but I like them anyway.    Here are a couple close ups of the cars as quilted in the border.  They aren't real visible because of the plaid fabric, but maybe you can see how they turned out.  No two of them are exactly the same.

I definitely will continue to use Lori's ideas - they are amazing!  

SOME QUILTS QUILTED AND BOUND

Quilters Madder is quilted and bound!  Yea!  I really like it and think I will use it as a table topper.

I stitched straight lines in the middle and small feathers in the border,

I also made 2 of these table toppers.  This is the medium sized one and I also made a small one.  It's a pattern from Atkinson Designs, "Happy Holidays" designed by Terry Atkinson.  I have used this pattern before and made other table toppers for different times of the year.

I quilted leaf shapes in some of the spaces.

Yesterday I quilted 3 table runners and I have and have one more table topper left to quilt.  In the mean time, I have other things in the works.   Now, I have 2 more tops ready to baste and will soon have another one.  Some of these will be for gifts and others to sell at a craft fair in 2 weeks.  

Have a happy Thanksgiving - in case I don't post again before then.

7 QUILTS BASTED!

Today I basted 7 small quilts.  Some are Christmas table toppers and some are musical table runners.

This first one is from a pattern I have made a few other times - Happy Holidays, designed by Terry Atkinson.  I made 2 Christmas table toppers in the small and medium sizes.  Both have the same fabric layout as in the one below, which is the medium one.

Below are the other quilts folded so you can only see their backings.

The goofy Santa fabric was purchased at a garage sale and I have only used it for backing Christmas quilts as it is rather silly.

I hope to get these quilted soon.  Thanks for visiting!

QUILTERS MADDER

Today is the link party for the Quilters Madder SAL (sew-a-long) organized by Lori at Humble Quilts.

I have all my blocks placed on my design wall, but not sewn together yet.  I hope to get it finished next week when I will have a little more time.  I'm not sure if I will add the HST border or not.  

Quilters Madder

In case you are wondering, "madder" is a reddish brown color of fabric that was popular in the civil war era - maybe - I'm not exactly sure.  I know it has something to do with dying fabric red.

TRUNK AND TREAT

I just had to show pictures of my DIL's car that we set up as a doll house for the Trunk and Treat at our church.  My sweet 7 year old GD dressed up as Super Girl.

The doll house idea was just about the only thing I could think of, and I think it was kind of cute.  I couldn't fit as much in as I wanted to.  The doll bed was made for me by my Grandpa around 1950 and the doll in it was my Mom's doll.  I made the cloth doll sitting in the chair on the left and my sister gave me the little sewing machine that is on the desk part of the chair.

Last night we went to DS#2's home to watch the Chicago Cubs beat the Indians!!!  GO, CUBS!!  Since we were both born in Chicago and raised in the area, we have always been Cubs fans - well, mainly DH, but I'm definitely rooting for them to win the World Series.  Tonight we're going back to watch the final game and I'm fixing crock pot beef stew to take over there.

Obviously taken before the end of the game.  Final score was 9-3!

Sorry this is blurry

SWAP BLOCKS RECEIVED!

I received my broken dishes exchange blocks today from Barb!  What a wonderful variety of red civil war reproductions!!  Thanks Barb!  I'm not sure how many I got, but I think it's about 80!  I wonder what I will make with them.

Here are some more items that I've been making for a craft show coming up this weekend.  I just finished one more of the Bow Tucks Tote designed by Penny Sturges.  I got this fabric at my LQS and the colors are so great!  I have another one like it in process.

Back view

Front view

These are some smaller tote bags made from a panel of cat pictures.

Front view

Back view

I've decided I don't really enjoy making tote bags and probably won't make many more of them.  It takes forever to iron on the batting and interfacing!  

Tonight our church is having a Trunk or Treat event for the local children.  I had never heard of this before we moved here.  But, since they desperately needed more trunks, my DIL and I decided to decorate her trunk as a "doll house."  I will try to get some pictures.  Hope it doesn't rain tonight!

SHOP HOPPING

This week I went on a shop hop in the Salem OR area.  My friend and I went to a few shops but didn't make it to all the shops in the hop.  

Besides the shop in our home town (Boersma's), our favorite shop is Grandma's Attic in Dallas, OR.  The scrap bin was full of great pieces of fabric and you can stuff a plastic bag full for $4.99 as long as it can close.  Here is my bag.

And here is the contents of the bag spread out.  I stuffed 12 1/2 oz. into it, which makes it a great deal!  As you can see, I got mostly civil war and 30s reproductions.

I couldn't resist purchasing some other yardage and below is what I got.

Just got home from watching the Cubs baseball game and they won!!!  They will be going to the world series next!  Yea, Cubs!!!

PIN CUSHION EXCHANGE

Barrister's Block had a pin cushion exchange and I decided to sign up for it.  This first one is the one I made and sent to Britt.  

I recently received this log cabin pin cushion from Linda along with a gorgeous piece of fabric!  Thank you, Linda!  Of course, I love log cabin blocks!

Thanks Randy for organizing this exchange!

I have also been working on a SAL (sew-a-long) organized by Lori.  You can still join in if you want to by going here to find the instructions.

Here is my group of blocks from Part 3.

I think the final reveal is coming up on Friday with directions on how to put them together.  I have been joining in with Lori's SALs for years and they are always great!  Thanks, Lori!  I can't wait until Friday.

WHAT I WORKED ON LAST WEEK

I just realized that it's been a while since I posted on my blog!  I have been spending less time browsing as well because I have been keeping pretty busy on quilting projects.

This block is the September BOM from Barbara Brackman's Civil War blog.  I haven't done the August one yet.  Both of these have Y-seams, which are not my favorite.  I tried to make mine more like the one Becky Brown made (see Barbara's post).  Also, my friend/neighbor and I have signed up for a craft show in November and I'm working on some projects for that.

In case you didn't know, I love going to garage sales and thrift stores.  I look for fabric and projects that I can use and/or sell from my Etsy shop.

The quilt show that I went to in Salem, OR had a sale section of fabrics, panels, etc. that members of the group donated.  There were some great deals!  Below is a small panel of a dalmatian dog along with some pieces of fabrics to finish it.  I put some of them together, but now I'm thinking of making it into a small quilt.  The top and bottom border pieces aren't sewn on yet and I don't have any more of that fabric.  Right now it measures about 22" x 29".  I was thinking about making a wall hanging, but if I make it into a baby or child's quilt I would need to enlarge it.  Any suggestions?

This Santa place mat/table topper or Santa's cookie and milk mat, was also found at the quilt show.  It was layered and partially quilted.  I just added some more quilting and finished it.

I found this rabbit at a thrift shop and she needed a dress.  The package included a pattern for a dress and I had this fabric on hand.  I made the apron out of a vintage napkin.

I love the old crocheted corner on the napkin.

This table runner was purchased at an estate sale and it was all layered but not quilted yet.  I decided to finish it off and hope to sell it at the craft show.  It looks like a mardi gras design.

This is some of what I have been doing.  The weather has turned rainy, so it was a good time to spend inside sewing.