Late Christmas Project

Lots of things prevented me from getting this finished for Christmas, but just as well, because I won't be going to see the recipient until January anyway.
The picture has a digital black border where it now has a fabric one.  It is sandwiched and ready to go under the needle for quilting.  Today I am creating the quilting design and hope to be stitching by tonight.

 

I recorded a whole bunch of Shirley Temple movies last week so will go turn one on while I design away.

Oh, Goodies!

Besides the usual peanut brittle, almond toffee and jerky, this year I made some hazelnut shortbread snowballs and dipped the bottom half in chocolate.  OH!!! my favorite.  Then I made some cherry jelly sticks and coated them in semi sweet and special dark chocolate. I made some peppermint wafers with left-over chocolate.  In the fridge are the makings for some almond joy truffles and there are some pretzel rods in the cupboard I had plans for, but I believe I am done in the kitchen. Before our trip we delivered goody gifts to all the neighbors on our street and some around the corners plus our VT & HT families, but there are always more exchanges as the time gets closer to Christmas so the kitchen is lined with bags of more goodies just waiting.  I bagged it all so I won't eat it.  At least, that is the plan.

Our Simple Christmas

Before we flew to Maryland to visit R&M&kids, I was in a big push to get Christmas bought or made, packaged and wrapped and delivered so I didn't take any time to decorate the house.  When we came home I saw how bare it was and got into the spirit of the holiday.  I wanted to keep it simple so didn't get out the 10' tree and all the trappings. Here is what we ended up with for a tree. The second little tree on the table is in a bowl of Grandma Dini's remaining glass ball ornaments.









I ended up not making the canvas art for all the kids' rooms, because it seemed like a joy-killer gift so I used the one I did make to dress up our door wreath, along with some Maryland holly. Thank you, Mary.  I dug up a baby holly plant the morning we were leaving, to try to grow in a pot back home, but as you can see, it is not holly.  Guess I was in too big of a hurry. 

Can you identify it?

No Empty Chairs

This year has seen two mileposts in our eternal family journey. Here are our two wonderful 8-year-olds and their fathers. We sure love you boys.

I find it interesting and symbolic that both sons are on the right hand of their father.

5 Kernels of Thanks

from the weekly newsletter from United Families Utah that I thought was wonderful:

"After the first Thanksgiving in 1621, there were seasons when the pilgrims had to ration their food.  Legend has it that during the "starving time" of 1623 the pilgrims' daily ration was reduced to five kernels of parched corn per person. Two hundred years later, at the Founders Day banquet of 1820, five kernels of parched corn were placed on each empty plate before the meal, to symbolize the pilgrims' hardships.
Many families continue this tradition today, by placing five kernels of corn on each dinner plate before the Thanksgiving meal. Traditionally, the five kernels of corn represent the blessings of Autumn: beauty, love, family, friendship, and freedom in America."

First Snow of the Season

I had to scoop a path to the grass and a little spot for Peppy to go because she wouldn't step outside this morning.  I will be getting the tractor out after church for sure.

2 quilts done

first is the christmas challenge for QG
next is a baby quilt made for the neice of one of your Dad's cousins- front and back

Back Home - Again

everything went well.  Back on steroids for a week, anticipating all the fun side effects.   Doc fixed my big neck bellybutton.  Tiny area held together with steri strips. look forward to seeing the outcome.
This morning before heading to SL I finished a baby quilt top for a niece of Dad's cousin .  Long story but baby is grandchild of a recently deceased cousin so cousin's sister is hosting baby shower.  did that make sense?  Maybe I should wait til tomorrow to post, post-anesthesia.

2007 done

Hey, I'm getting there slowly but surely. 2008 starting today.

One Down

Took all day but I got it quilted and bound.

Now to the scrapbooking.

3 Word Journal

What It’s About
A really cool idea. Wish I had started this system 40 years ago. Would make for an easy indexing system and if done online, the words would be tags. It also makes you think of the focus of your story telling.
The Word Cloud gadget on the left side of the main page is pretty cool. 

fabulous special I watched tonight

BYUtv - Celebration Of Family History

In-the-Spirit-of-Thanksgiving

In-the-Spirit-of-Thanksgiving

Thanksgivng Message

Lessons-I-Learned-as-a-Boy

Aw, Nuts!

Late freeze this year prevented all but 1 almond from developing.  Last year we had a small bowl-ful. If the gopher didn't eat too many roots this summer, maybe I'll get some next year.
The big pile of retaining blocks in front of the almond tree was a project I was hoping to have the strength and time for this summer.  I had neither.
On the left is my new plum tree.  The gopher was all around it too.  (keeping my fingers crossed for it)
In between you can see a mass of what looks like it could be weeds.  That is actually my little bush cherry.  It really did well, considering it was a tiny twig this spring.













 Next in my list of 2010 additions is my fig tree.  I am so proud of it.  It was so very very late getting started that I had Dad write the company for a refund.  I now need to send them the money back.  Look at how well it did.  It too was just a stick with a few roots when it came this spring.












Here is the walnut tree on Oct. 30th.  It looks all lop-sided and floppy.  One branch on the right side grew so log that I cut it back but then a bud on the stump grew just as long as the part I cut off. And one branch heading toward the fence was flopping to the ground so I had to prop it up with the hose minder.
I did have 3 hazelnut bushes behind the walnut but realized they would soon be in permanent shade so I moved them to the front yard last week.  I really hope they make it because they are so beautiful in the fall, even tho I doubt I will ever get a nut from them.

And this photo I just had to share, taken November 1st.  It is about to explode with blossoms again.  Last time it bloomed was for my birthday in April.  This "cactus" was my grandma's and was given to me by my mom who could kill an air fern. I would love to be able to move it to a more visible location but it loves this back bedroom for the low indirect light and cool temp.  I think of my grandma every time it blooms.  Thank you Grandma.

On Saturday, 10-30, I cleaned out the garden and cut back the raspberries, then we hauled one load of refuse to the dump. One more load to go - mainly yard weeds and tumbleweeds from the south desert that blew in during our last storm.
You can see that Dad finally got the deck boards all down.  Yea! One more item to tick off of our decade-plan.

``How did it get so late so soon?

  It's night before it's afternoon.

  December is here before it's June.

  My goodness how the time has flewn.

  How did it get so late so soon?''

                                                                                                 -Dr. Seuss

Tickles My Fancy

Ain't Misbehavin'
 This is the music I had on my very first blog site back in 2002 or 3 when I was big into card making.  That was all the site was really about then.  It wasn't too long before the blog site host (or whatever they are called) decided to charge $$ to keep it so I quit.  Also back then you could lift music quite easily.  I just recently rediscovered the original midi on a redesigned site and am able to link to it.  I would like to learn how to add a midi gadget or jukebox or something but for now, I just wanted to add this along with a few pictures of old cards of mine - for old time's sake.
Remember these, Katie?

 The beach grass stamp is a favorite. I also forgot how much of a creative outlet scenic stamping was.

I had forgotten about the Peanuts stamps I collected.  Love them.

saying on vellum over trees on stamped card

Made with Pearl-X

A Few Quilts In The Que

 These first two are the oldest ones waiting to be quilted.  The scarecrow one Andrea and I started 2 years ago.  We were each making one after she bought the pattern at a Fall Shop Hop and we were hoping to have them done by last Fall.  Well, the top was done, but it is still waiting for quilting.  Maybe by 2011?  The blue and brown quilt is made of leftover blocks from the quilt I made for Jeremy O'Dwyer's wedding last October.  It has only been waiting for a year.

This one was started sometime in 2009 but put away several times because I didn't really know where I was going with it.  Finally this year I got a glimpse of what it could be.  It is just a top right now acting as a curtain to some messy book cases and that is fine with me... for now.

 These two Christmasy ones were made with some challenge cloth from quilt guild and NEED to be DONE (i.e. quilted and bound) by November 22nd to be displayed at our December luncheon.  I still need to add something to the triangles.  I am thinking of embroidering some pinecones in them.  We'll see.  The Santa Tree one, after quilting, will be cut with the scallop edge of the red border... at least, that is what I am thinking right now.

This one was a quilt guild project.  I still want to add some applique swags in the wide outer border.  That is the plan.  We shall see.  I seem I have a habit of making things without a pattern and then getting lost along the way.

This was a project made for quilt guild.  I am in charge of the "Round Tuits."  Every month we have a challenge for a certain number of ladies to complete a project that has been sitting around, just waiting for them to get around to it.  I come up with lottery handouts each month.  In September the theme was canning so I  passed out the pattern for the canning jar in the middle of this frame, then I made one to show.  I liked it so much that I bought some more food fabrics to make a wall hanging quilt for the kitchen.  I will be on the lookout for more of this type of fabrics.  Here are the ones I bought last month.

Okay, now for some quilts in the piecing stage:




This one is for Paul's new truck.  He, of course, needed all new bedding for his new truck. I hope to have it done by Christmas.

This is a block from a Christmas surprise for my sister.

I also have a pretty flannel quilt cut out but haven't started sewing on it yet.

Am I crazy, or what?

Ancestry

I signed up for Ancestry.com for one month again, so I've been very engaged in that pursuit in October.  I gathered enough new material to spend a couple of months adding it all to new.familysearch.com.  But first I need to finish the scrapbook for our soon-to-be 8 year old grandson. 

And somewhere in the next 2 months I need to find time to make a few quilts for Christmas.  hmmm - I'd like to buy a few more weeks, please.

Quick Trip

After my shift at the polls on Friday (22nd) I had the car already packed so just took off from there and headed east to Colorado, our old stomping grounds.  Dear friend, Katie had signed us up (and paid for me) to attend a CTMH (Close To My Heart) stamping convention - or whatever. It was a blast.  Some were making cards, many brought boxes of photos and were making scrap pages.  Many women hauled in cartloads of supplies for their day's entertainment. There were tables of product to buy (and we did!) and classes to take, some for $ and some free.  We arrived early, found our assigned tables, signed up for classes then sat down to CREATE.  fun fun fun

Sherri Vincent of Palisade was at our little pod of tables.  She was working on scrapbook pages but didn't bring photos.  The pages turned out beautiful, don't you think?

 

Here is Katie at the beginning of our day.  The table is relatively clean and organized at this point.  Ha Ha ~ You should have seen the table once we got into our first packet of papers.  #**#

This cute "pencil" holds a package of Rollos with a Kiss on top.   You could print a message on one side of the pencil or the name of a school or teacher.  CUTE idea.

This is a display of a card kit we purchased that made 16 cards and we have lots of leftover elements.

Here are the cards K and I made at a class.  They are acrylic cards with a scalloped front bottom that you can't really see.  Katie's is the tall one.  Mine has glitter glue snowballs on it that weren't dry when we took the picture.

 This is a fun kit we got that has 4 "milk cartons" in a carrier.  The one in this pic is cutsy but our kits were more elegant colors and decorations.  We didn't have time to finish K's kit and I thought mine might get smashed on the drive home.  I'll have fun putting it together later.  It will make cute VT gifts.

This kit makes up into a "purse" that is a card holder when you open it.  The kit also has supplies to make 8 cards and envys.  I am thinking I will take it to MD with me to play with the gals on a quiet day.