Merry Christmas!

The stockings are hung, the pumpkin pie is out of the oven, the turkey is smoking on the deck - and my kids are arriving to do all of the cooking. Laura arrived early this morning and got that turkey going. Her husband Jamie will come after work this afternoon.  Jerilyn and Darin are on their way.  It should be a great Christmas.  I hope everyone has a blessed holiday with friends and family!

I'm healing nicely from my surgery and will probably feel like sewing next week.  I have some fun things to show you all.

And I'll be posting my 200th blog posting GIVEAWAY in the next few days.  Can't wait!  Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas stockings

Another pre-scheduled post!

The stocking in the middle is one that I made a couple of years ago. It is hand appliqued and hand quilted.  Looking at it now however - maybe those snowmen need some hats added to their bald little heads.  What do you think?

Christmas hearth

I love the ability to schedule posts even when you aren't able to connect online. 

A quick glimpse of my living room hearth with the poinsettia and the darling mini quilt. I got this last winter from Denise Russart for a mini quilt swap through Quilting Blogs.  I love the colors as well as the design.

It is a perfect fit on the small iron frame that I keep on this hearth just for mini quilts.  It's such fun to switch them around for different seasons and holidays.

Nearing a milestone

I'm getting very close to my 200th blog post since I began in 2009.  Watch for a great GIVEAWAY coming up to celebrate.  I'm guessing it will be sometime around Christmas!

In the meantime, I'll be missing in action for about a week while I have some surgery.  See you all soon!

100 Blocks - not enough time

I finally picked up a copy of Quiltmaker magazine's 100 Blocks (volume 2).  Just like Volume 1 last year, this is full of exciting new block designs and variations of old block designs. Very inspirational.  There is a paper-pieced snowflake block that I just HAVE to try out soon.  I even have tons of scraps of blues from my snowflake quilt from last winter.  If I decide the paper pieced block will be an "orphan", then it will make a spectacular pillow to go with my quilt.

Stash report

I made a total of 38 pillowcases for our charity project, with the final 10 made this weekend.  We gave 50 beautiful pillowcases and 50 new pillows to the area safe house yesterday.  And we plan to give away another 200 pillows and pillowcases at the Love Feast on Dec 16.  We still are a little short on the pillowcases but hope to make our goal before that date.  We had very generous donations from 2 local elementary school faculties to buy enough pillows.

So this afternoon I did a little figuring on how much of this fabric actually came from my bins and closet. The pillowcases average about 1 yard of fabric per case, and of course not all of it came from my stash.  But a lot of it did.  My estimate is that I used up approximately 20 yards of fabric from my stash. Unfortunately that also means I bought nearly the same amount.  But it was for a really good cause so no guilt is involved.

Guess what I'm making!

Guess what I'm making with this cute little jungle baby print?  I have a layer cake to work with.  And the pattern is Ten Cents, by Me and My Sister Designs.  Love their patterns!  And hopefully my first grandbaby will love this quilt when he or she arrives in early June.