Merry Christmas everybody!

Merry Christmas everybody.

I hope that you are having a great Christmas.  I thought I'd share with you what I bought myself this year.  It's the (little drummer boy, a drum roll please)....

Karen K Buckley KKB39 4" to 24.5" Adjustable Square Quilting Ruler

It's like a puzzle that you put together so that you can go from 4" up to 24.5".   It's open in the middle so that if you do applique it doesn't get squished.  It comes in a beautiful 10" container.

The back of the box tells what you get.

Then you get to open it up (see?  Just like a Christmas present) and you see this.

It took me a day to get all that backing off of the puzzle pieces (what I think of them as) but they did come off.  Then, of course, I had to play with them and put them together.  I found that I needed a jeweler's mallet (around $5 from Walmart) to help put them together.  This was mentioned in one of the videos.  It should loosen up but for now it was needed.

After taking it apart again, I decided that I would put some batting in the bottom of the box to protect it a little bit more.

It now it's all protected and sitting in a corner.  I shall use it in 2019.  

Speaking of 2019.  Here is the picture of what the Fleur quilt looks like.  I shall be making a smaller version of it in 2019.  

Between now and January 1, 2019, I shall be deciding what I want to work on.  I'm also trying to cut back on my projects in the hopes that some will get done.  I have to flimsy's lined up for January and then start on Fleur which will be a block of the month.  I have the whole pattern but I'm going to turn it into a block of the month.

More on that later.  It's time to take out my turkey from the oven and chow down.  :)  

Hugs to all.

Happy Holidays

I have been busy at work but have finally calmed down a bit to be more productive.  I am happy to announce that I finished the Flimsy (the top) for a Christmas themed fabric rail fence.

It will be awhile before I finish it.  Maybe in July since everybody says Christmas in July is a thing.  I need to wait and see what fabric I can use for a border on it as well as for the back.  These fabric are really nice so I want to have a "good" fabric to use.  I have a couple that I auditioned but they were light colored and I think it calls for a darker fabric for the border.  I might use the lighter fabric for the binding but we'll see.  

The other things that I worked on AND FINISHED was my turtle paint chip challenge.  There are parts I'm not exactly pleased with but overall I like it a lot.  If I do another one of the series that this came from, I know what I would change.  There might be a dragonfly in the making for 2019.  :)

Now it's time to relax a bit and to share one of my favorite pictures with you.  Have a wonderful Christmas and be safe.  

Merry Christmas Eve!

Decorating the Office

It's after Thanksgiving and the first day back in the office.  What does that mean?  Yep, you're right.  It means that it is time to decorate the office.  I need to do it right away since we are only in the office for around 3 weeks before we are off for Christmas.  I always love changing up the office decor and especially when it is Christmas themed!

Here are some pictures that I took.  First though let me share my snow.  PLEASE let me share the snow that we received the other night.

That is after I fell on my cement steps, hit my butt, head, and back, and THEN shoveled out the car a bit hoping that I could get it finished before more snow came.  After all of that Ibuprofen was my friend and still is.

So are you ready to see the office decor now?  I think my snow family are ready.  See them peeking into my office? 

Come on in and join them for the quick tour of my office.

This is still one of my favorites.  I love the sparkle of the beads/gems on it. 

It was so much fun to embroider!  This next one is also one of my favorites. 

As soon as the red quilt was put on the wall, the wall popped with color.  I am glad of it since this is what I will be looking at from my desk.  The snowman counts down to Christmas and was a present one year.  The Christmas Tree is bead work and done around 40(?) years ago and not by me.  I did, however, inherit it from Mom.  It was made by the grandchild of Mom's best friend (and my second mother).  She and her husband took Mom and I on vacations and out to eat and looked after us a bit after my Father died.  They were great friends.  Anyway, Bob and Ruth only had one female Grandchild who was NOT, according to her, crafty at all.  Much to Ruth's surprise, one Christmas she received this Christmas tree from her Granddaughter.  After Ruth passed on, her family gave it to Mom and then Mom gave it to me.

I put up my English paper pieced snowflake also.  Normally I don't put this up until January but I was on a roll.  I guess this means I will have to make something else to put up on the wall for January.  :)

That's it for now.  I hope you enjoyed looking at my decorations.  Have a great and safe night and remember to keep crafting, it doesn't matter which craft, for it feeds the soul.

Playing with Fabric

I spent my day playing with Fabric.  It wasn't productive in the sense that I made anything. It was productive since I folded a BUNCH of fabric.  Here is the picture of it all sitting on my folding table waiting for me to put it away.

Almost all of the stacks of fabric have 8-10 folded fabric in it.  There are couple of smaller stacks which only have around 3.  Tomorrow I will probably put them in my cubbyhole shelves.  I might have to sort them by color a little better.

I did not do one thing that perhaps I should have.  I just folded it and did not iron the fabric first.  That would have taken too long (for me) and I normally iron fabric before using it.  I did find a fabric (well more than one) that I had forgotten I had.

I think this will be used for one of those window patterns. You might have seen them before.  It looks like you are looking through the window from the inside and seeing what is outside.    I just have to figure out how to do it. 

I hope you all had a great holiday and are enjoying your weekend.

That's it for tonight.   Stay being positive and keep negativity out of your life.  You'll be happier.

Happy Thanksgiving 2018

Happy Thanksgiving 2018 everybody.  I hope your day has been a good one.  I thought I would post up my pictures of my Thanksgiving.  I stayed home this year but decided to still do it proper.  It was a little bit of old and a little new.  First up was the old.  A number of years ago, a friend sent me a pot holder which was made out of cute Thanksgiving fabric so I pulled it out and used it today.

Then I decided I needed some new dishes for Thanksgiving.  It is nice sometimes being single.  I can get decorative dishes in a single set when I want.  This year I stayed to basic but I liked them anyway.

Of course then I had to decide what to fill them with.   A cheese and cracker plate.

I couldn't decide what to cook so I bought a new 14 quarter toaster and then cooked the ham in it.  Bu

spiral cut ham with pineapple and pomegranate POMS

Then I found a sale on this lonely turkey breast (barely over a pound) so I cooked that in the oven and basted it with butter, thyme, sage, rosemary, a little onion flakes, salt and pepper.  Decorated with the POMS again.

Of course I had to have some spuds so I decided to revisit my first Thanksgiving spud that I made for company on my own...sweet potato with orange segments in it and served in the orange cut.  

I decided to add nutmeg on top of it for more flavor and nutmeg and sweet potato just seem to go together so well.

So it is time to have dessert which will be cottage cheese with some of the POM seeds in it.  Didn't take a picture yet but you get the idea.  I will, however, raise a glass of wine to all of you for supporting me and my blog all these years.  May you have a great holiday and if you have to travel be safe.

PS:  I've totally drunk this whole bottle of Gewurztraminer by myself and don't feel guilty at all.  I shall certainly sleep well tonight!  LOL.

Sales and More Sales!!!!!This

 Tis the season to spend money but when you can get some good sales, I'm not going to complain...much.  Here is what I've recently purchased and I really couldn't resist much since they were all on sale.  First of all this, besides some blouses, came from Salvation Army.

Bedspread and 2 matching pillow shams for $8

Pillow Sham

$3 for this small wall hanging

Then the other day I received an email saying that Connecting Threads was having a remnant sale.  I had ignored the sale email from Thousands of Bolts (and only one nut) but I am weak and can resist only so much!  So I clicked on that oh so handy button and soon was zipping through the internet to Connecting Threads.  Here is what I scored.

$3.50 a yard

I'm having problems adding the other pictures so let's try something else.

Celebration $1/yd

Colette - Grey - $3.50 yd

Little Pumpkins - Multi - $3.50/yard

Autumn Joy Panel - $1 a panel

Pirouette - Wine - $1/yd

Squiggle Star - $3 / yd

Tiny Buds - Evergreen - $3/yd

That should keep me out of trouble for a little bit.  My friend Connie ordered 3 yds of the pumpkins and 3 yards of the Colette but the rest is MINE!!!!!! (insert joyous laughter which quickly turns a little spooky).

I've taken up enough of your time.  I hope to get to work on some things with the holiday upon us but we'll see.  I have some kits that need to be done before I can play with these.

Everybody have  a great weekend and holiday.

Block Magazine and straightening up

I received 3 Block Magazines (from MSQC) today in the mail.  These were some past issues that were on sale. 

I also managed to buy some of the electronic versions of a couple more Block Magazines.  It will be nice to go through some of them.  I had forgotten that I also ordered the Missouri Star Quilt Co. BLOCK 2019 Calendar.  That I was a little disappointed in.  I had hoped they would have had the patterns in there but they didn't.  To give them credit though, they did tell where to find the pattern (in which block issue or online).  

I haven't felt that great this week but I did manage to get back to sorting fabric a little bit.  I don't have a great system and Lord knows I don't have a lot of storage, but it is a start.

the boxes of my smaller scraps (the soccer ball box is for themed fabric)

This stack is some of my larger pieces.  

They aren't sorted yet by color but the stack on the back of the couch which has the green leaves with red side border is topping some Christmas themed fabric.  I have some more stacks to make.  On the floor, but no picture, is a tote where I put the small pieces until I start to sort them.

That's it for now.  I hope everybody is having a great week!

I've been a bad girl

I was sick last night and still a bit today but in between naps, I thought I'd get a post up here.  I haven't had a lot of enthusiasm for sewing so I was a bad girl and spent money.  Now mind you, this is gives me time to share with you some of the stuff I bought when I was a bad girl.  Yes, I spent money.  Now to be fair to myself, it was all on sale.  I'm sure it must have been on sale because we don't EVER buy fabric full price.  Right?  Ok ok.  I can't even TYPE that with a straight face.  It was on sale though.  So what did I get?  Here we go....

First up is from Thousands of Bolts:

There is another white on white but it didn't come out good in the picture.  It is white circles on white background.  I got one yard of the WOW leaf (above) and the WOW circles).  I also bought 2 yards of black but that's just it.  Plain black.  Nothing exciting but necessary to finish a product or two.

These next pictures are from Walmart.  Each one is 2 yards and I bought them for $4.  I bought one red, one navy, and one maroon.

I also bought some from Jordan Fabrics (and have more coming too).
This first one is for a log cabin table runner.

The log cabin table runner is a kit but I did buy a wall hanging pattern (secret window?) from Jordan fabrics but I forgot to take a picture of it.  I'll include it when the rest of the purchases get here.  I haven't sewn anything yet but I'm starting to get back in the mood.

First up will be to finish the stitching on the Paint Chip challenge.  I'm almost to the point where I can pick up doing the buttonhole stitch by hand.  I'll take an update picture of that soon.

Time for me to lay down again.  I hate being sick although I like the naps that go with it.  :)