Ready for Christmas!

Thanks to everyone who shared links with me for the brown Cotton Club fabric - I did find what I needed - now to get that quilt off to the quilter!  One reminder - if you are a "no-reply commenter"  PLEASE CHANGE YOUR SETTINGS!!  I hate it when someone leaves me a comment and I am unable to reply - makes me feel like I'm being rude!  If you don't know how to change your settings, follow this link for the instructions...Lori has made it easy!

If you read my last post, you know that I've been itching to make a Christmas quilt - was hoping some of you would join me in a sew-a-long, but I didn't have a lot of interest in that.  So, I bit the bullet and started one on my own.  I decided to make The Merry Christmas Quilt from Heart to Hand.


I love this quilt and am super excited about making it.  I have cut out all of the black flannel for all of the blocks and have prepped the first 2 and part of the 3rd - just need to steam them onto the block.  Here is the first block...all stitched and everything!

 And here is block 2 - all prepped.  I have about half of the stitching done now.

I had to set those aside so I could work on these...

These stockings are made from my grandpa's neck ties.  I have been going to make these for years, and always forget about it until Christmas time, then there are too many other things to do and it just doesn't get done.  This year, I decided to take a day and just do it!  Well, the first day was slow going, but by the end of day 2 they were finished!  We also have all of my FIL's ties and I need to make a batch of stockings with those as well, but that is going to have to wait!

We are having our family Christmas here tomorrow. It's going to be a busy day - we are starting out with our annual cookie-bake, then having our Christmas dinner and gift exchange, then back to cookies (if we have any energy left by then!).  I've been busy wrapping gifts and need to finish cleaning (I hate cleaning!!) today.  My dad likes date cookies - they are a pain in the butt - you stuff a pecan inside of the date, then put them in batter and spoon them out, bake them, then frost them.  They are a lot of work, but he likes them, and this is the only time of year he gets them (if then!), so I'm going to try to get those done today.  But...I decided to try something a little easier - I'm just going to chop the dates (they were out of the already-chopped-dates at the store...boo!) and the pecans and just throw them in the batter.  Seems like it should work - so we will find out.

I've been decorating a little (I'm not a decorator, at all) and have our big tree up in the living room...

My angel has a bit of a problem - she's leaning a bit - but better than what she was at first!

(do you see those ears sticking up??? Callie always has to be in the middle of it all!)

 and a few close-ups of ornaments on my pencil tree in my sewing room...

Aunt Nancy made me this last year...isn't he cute?

She made this one too...

I also wanted to share this - I had a fun mail day yesterday!  These are from Janet O of Rogue Quilter blog...

She likes making small stuff almost as much as I do.  I already have a couple of her cute ornaments, but this time she sent me this basket - using my favorite red fabric (that she is also hoarding), and some of her wonderful hand made soaps.  They smell sooooo good, and look how cute - love the snowflakes!  Thanks again Janet!  Such a nice surprise!

And just as fun as a good mail day, my DH brought home this beautiful poinsettia the other day...

It's really big, and I would like to set it on the floor, but SOMEONE can't keep their teeth off of it!  Speaking of that little someone...what the heck is she doing??

This is a new one - now we walk on my sewing machine?!

Now I better go get that cleaning done!

I'm linking up with Bonnie at Quiltville - Go check out her blog and all of the links to see what everyone is working on!

Have a great day and a very Merry Christmas!

In search of fabric!

If you've seen my stash, you would think I'm nuts for needing more fabric!  But...do you remember The Cotton Club quilt from a few years ago?  It was a really popular block-of-the-month, and of course, I jumped on the bandwagon!  Here is a picture of the finished quilt.  As usual, I stayed caught up with the monthly blocks, but then didn't ever put it all together.  It seems that I am the Queen of making blocks, then doing nothing with them!  One excuse is that I was intimidated by the mitered border.  Evidently my Aunt Nancy got tired of me not finishing this quilt and volunteered to do it for me (isn't she nice!?).  I quickly packaged it up for her, before she changed her mind!  Here is a pic I found online of the finished top.  Do you remember it?  I still love it - what's not to love about red?  And brown?  NICE!




As promised, Aunt Nancy finished all of the piecing, and yep...I still love it!  I wanted to get the binding made right away (you know...a couple of years after the end of the program...) but quickly discovered that I don't have enough of any of the fabrics for binding!  ACK!!!!  I love 2 of the browns in this fabric line and swear that I had purchased yardage of both of them, but I sure don't have any.  I think that one of the browns would look best, but...I have ALMOST enough of the red...just maybe 6" short.  Here are the fabrics...

I have searched online, but have not come up with anything - since the name of the fabric line is Cotton Club, searching comes up with a lot of other stuff.  If anyone out there has any of these fabrics, please contact me - I really want to finish this quilt some day!  I need a little over a half yard.

I did finally buy a new Christmas tree - I decided that I was being too picky about it.  The trees that I really liked were so expensive, but really...is it worth it?  Not to me.  Once it's decorated, how much do you really notice the tree itself?   I found a cheaper tree, it's pre-lit, and it is up and I am happy with it!  Callie was her normal helpful self, and we had to chase her out of it several times, but it's still standing, so all is well. I wrapped some gifts yesterday, so now it's really starting to look like Christmas around here.

Speaking of gifts...did you give yourself the gift of Charming 3?  If not, here is what you are missing out on.  This is the second charm in the program.

I know this post is jumping all over the place - sorry about that!

So, next up is a kit that I bought (in MAY, I think!!) at The Woolen Needle in Williamsburg, IA.  They have a great shop with so much amazing wool.  Love it there!  I prepped all the pieces and have stitched a lot of it now, but of course have not put it all together (wonder if Aunt Nancy is up for another challenge?).  This will look good outside the door of my sewing room - I want to start hanging different seasonal things there.

Speaking of seasonal...I know I said it before, but I really have very few seasonal quilts.  Seriously...the only Christmas quilt that I have is a watercolor wreath (remember the watercolor quilts?) wall hanging.  And guess what?  Aunt Nancy put it together for me!  Wow...do you see a trend here?  It was a class that I took as a very new beginning quilter.  At class, we learned very little!  We didn't sew at all...just kind of learned how to lay out the pieces.  It definitely should have been more than a 1 day class - at least for me.  So...the pieces sat in a box forever, and one day I shoved them in Aunt Nancy's car as she was leaving!  And it came home to me like this...(it's like magic!)

I have patterns and fabric for 2 Christmas quilts that I would really love to make, but just never seem to get them done.  One of them is Home for the Holidays, by Primitive Gatherings...


Guess what?  Aunt Nancy bought the kit last year at a show and she has hers finished!  Yes....finished!  Quilted and bound!  I didn't buy the kit, because I have tons of these fabrics - I did buy some yardage for borders, binding (yes...I have fabric for THIS binding!), and backing.  And...I haven't started it.  BOO!

The other Christmas quilt that I really, really want to make is called Merry Christmas Quilt by Heart to Hand.


I LOVE this quilt so much!  Again...no kit, but I have been collecting black flannels for the backgrounds and probably have plenty of wool in my stash too.

So...does anyone else have these 2 quilts on their HAVE TO MAKE list?  Maybe we could choose one and work on it together?  Break it down into sections and have it done by next year?  Let me know if you would be interested - it may be the only way I ever get them done (unless I send them to Aunt Nancy, but I would really like to make something myself!)

Well, this post has gotten way out of control.  It started off as a plea for some fabric - nothing more...was just going to talk about that, and it turned into an "Aunt Nancy saves the day" post, and is ending with me trying to coax you into jumping on a Christmas quilt sew-a-long with me!  I better go get busy!

Hope you have a great week!