And the winners are...

Joyce & Freeblady! You are the quiltie gift winners. I asked The Boy to name a number under 10, and after much prompting (you know, a number that is less than 10? But more than 0? Don't you have a favorite number? Just say a number?!) he finally said 2. Then I said, ok, I need one more number less than 10. Well, I wouldn't have accepted 8 since that was my own comment, but anyway he definitely just wanted out of the line of questioning and said, "oonnnnne?" in that tone that says, mommy, I just don't get it--can I go now?

Congratulations to the winners!

In other news, I completed the top of The Boy's quilt. And I am working on the binding of The Girl's quilt. I doubt I will finish that, it generally takes me forever to sew down a binding. But that is at least one goal finished for the year. Shwew!

I neglected to mention last time I posted that I got some cute Christmas exchange gifts at both of my guild meetings. At one I got a yard of varying fabrics in homespun-like colors. I was thinking I might make an applique block to frame. I generally think it is dorky to decorate with quilt patterned things that aren't quilts but I think I can make an exception for something that is appliqued.

At guild two I got three awesome things...a really cute hand-made pin-cushion--which I am already using--a set of triangle rulers, and (my favorite!) a needle threader. I've wanted to get one for awhile but I kept shying away, thinking I'd rather spend my quiltie dollars on fabric or thread rather than a gadget I might not use too much. So I was really excited about it.

Also at guild two we got a packet of fat quarters for a challenge quilt. I really love the colors in it. So far there is no theme to the challenge. It just has to be at least 30x30 and less than 60x60. I am patiently waiting for inspiration to strike.

I am about half-way down with my first hand-pieced block from the rosy fabrics. I neglected to mention that the pattern I am using is from Quilter's Newsletter #394 and is called Sunburst with Holly Leaves. The link has a little picture of it; since I don't want to step on copyright laws I'm not going to repeat the picture here until I have my own blocks to show. Anyway, I am not crazy about the holly leaf blocks so I'll probably do something else there. I do love hand quilting so maybe I will just leave them open as showcase areas for a quilting motif.

And since I mentioned hand-quilting, I joined a hand-quilting blog ring. It is my preferred part of the process, so when I stumbled across it I could barely contain myself.

And just to stick in a photo...Cottage Living is my favorite magazine. Yes, folks, it somehow manages to barely slip by even the quilting magazines I receive. I even have this goofball rule about it. For some reason, decorating the house has been a difficult task for me. It is just so darn overwhelming, and I don't want to waste money on something that turns out looking like the anti-home & garden. So, when I get a Cottage Living in the mail, I am not allowed to read it until I do some decorating tidbit around the house. Since December is already so crazy I allowed the Christmas decorations to service the rule. I still haven't read it, though. I was reading Spindle's End by Robin McKinley. Someone at work recommended it and I liked it, though be warned it is a retelling of sleeping beauty and is considered juvenile fiction (though it read very well, in my opinion.)

I hope everyone is having a terrific holiday season!

Goals: hit or miss?

I happened to look back and see what my quiltie goals for the year were. It seems I need to finish a quilt top for The Boy and bind The Girl's quilt to make any reasonable claim of having reached the goals. Oops. I guess I could maybe finish The Boy's quilt top. It only needs borders, but I can already tell they are going to turn out wavy. I'm a bit miffed, actually. My project that was supposed to help me practice precision and accuracy came out looking like it came out of a bag of Frito Lays. (Err, wavy chips, that is.)

Above is The Boy's quilt before I got the rows sewn together. Quite bright, no?

So it is back to the drawing board on the accuracy/precision practice. Sigh.

Oh, and in spite of my best efforts I could not resist the rosy fabric. I took it to work and started it last week, I think on the 4th. It is hand-pieced and will take forever, I'm sure. But it isn't interfering with either one of the kids' projects, since I am working on those at home.

Peek-a-boo

Well hey, I guess all I had to do to get more comments was to give something away! He. If you don't know what I mean, visit the previous post and leave a comment before 12/15 for a chance at a little quilt gift. I did visit a number of new blogs and left comments, just as part of my effort to get to know the know quilt blog ring that I joined. So maybe that accounts for the increased comment traffic. Or maybe my charm is finally working it's magic. Ha ha.


I went to a new quilt shop the other day. It was a good 45 minutes away and I had a gift certificate that I didn't want to expire. You may remember that I had a block that The Girl practiced a few stitches on, which I mentioned a few posts back. Well, I still really love the pattern, and still want to make it. So I decided I was going to try and do it in a more traditional color scheme, like turkey red and white. But...I wasn't seeing anything in that shade that I liked, so I bought some fabric that was more, um, I guess I would call it Civil War pink? I just know I don't want to call it mauve. I am so excited about it, I couldn't even photograph it for real because then I would want to start work on it right away, and I still have two other projects that need to be done, The Boy's quilt top, and The Girls quilt binding. So this is just a little peek into the bag:

The pink one at the bottom is a paisley, and it is my favorite. I was prepared to do the entire quilt in that fabric when I found it, but alas, the store only had one yard.

This is a shot of the shadow of our Christmas tree, after The Husband showed his mountain-man colors. He chopped it down and dragged it to our car just like Pa Ingall's. Only he used a wagon. And Pa didn't have the farm owner tie it to the top.

This is an artistic interpretation of the tree, post-decoration done by (who else) The Husband.

Happy Second Blogiversary!

Ok, so I'm one day late. I spent the day yesterday at the spa courtesy of birthday gift certificates so I think you can forgive me. Or maybe hate me. Anyways. It is an annual pilgrimage with the mil and sil. We don't always go the same time of year, but we usually go. This year it landed on the blogiversary, and somehow the day slipped by me. The picture is me celebrating. Ok, ok. I was at a wedding. But that's celebratory too, right? This was at Chalicat's sister's wedding a few weeks back, which was very lovely, btw.

To celebrate, I am going to mail two lucky commenters a little goodie. Hopefully I'll send it sometime before the next blogiversary. he. But leave me a little comment if you are interested in a little giftie. I'm not sure what it will be, but something quilty.

We stopped at a shop that had all sorts of signs up saying 'visit the third floor for fabric!' and I was so jazzed. I ventured up on my own since I was the only one interested...and it was just upholstery samples. Lovely but I'm not in the market for that. sigh.

So happy blogiversary! Leave a comment before 12/15 if you want to be in the drawing. Of course it is pretty likely that I'll only have one or two comments anyway, but if there's more I'll do a drawing.