NancyNoBlogBlogs

Christmas

Well did you have a great Christmas?  I did.  Christmas is my very favorite time of the year.  I went to church Saturday night and asked this little girl sitting next to me if Santa was coming to visit her.  Her reply - yes I'm on the good list.  Awwww  She looked just like a little angel.  I asked her what was on her list and of course I had no idea what she was talking about but she rattled off three or four things.  I had four days off and it was awesome.  Other than church, Jeff and I went nowhere! We had no one over.  We did nothing but watch movies.   We had a Christmas staycation!  I did get some sewing in.

This

became this

I did some binding.  I am way behind on that.  I think I still have 10 quilts that need binding.  Here are a couple of gifties from my bff.  Isn't he cute? 

And the snowman table runner is from Sharon too

 

The snowman greenery is from my friend Brenda.  What a sweet surprise.  I also spent time in my sewing room yesterday cleaning it out and trying to be realistic about what I want to make in 2012.  What UFOs am I going to finish?  Do I want/need to sign up for any new boms?  I'm thinking NO!  But what if they are really really cute?  The designers seem to come up with stuff every year and I have no willpower.  How do I decide?  What do I do?  So many questions, so much to do and so little time.  I'm also thinking of making a Christmas quilt every month.  Maybe that will be the plan.  Oh well, you know how women are.  We are always changing our mind.

Merry Christmas

As this year comes to a close, when you see twinkling lights, let them remind you of the love of Angels, let the wrapping paper remind you to wrap yourself up in the presence of those you love, and always remember that love weighs more than gold and gather up as much as you can!

Wishing you and your family all the blessings of Christmas.

Favorite Christmas Movies

One of our favorite movies is A Christmas Story

My son Daniel loved that movie so guess what he is getting for Christmas -

 

Isn't that hysterical?  Nothing says Merry Christmas and I love you to a 27 son from his mother than a leg lamp nightlight.   He does love the movie and I know he will laugh his skinny ______ off. 

Jeff kept asking me where I got it.  I wonder if he thinks he's getting one.  I'm sorry but this would not fit in with the snowman/quilt theme decorating I have going on.

I forgot I had this one.

The chubby snowman was made by my friend Robin.  She moved last year and we only get to see her at quiltover.  We shipped her our gifts and I'm not sure if she has opened her gifts from our quilt group so I'll have to wait to post those.

On Saturday we went over to Yvette's house for a little Christmas lunch.  We have been on a mini quilt making kick this year and here is what they made for me.

This was from Yvette.  It looks red here but it is actually pink and has little candy kisses quilted all over it.  I LOVE it.

She gave us some candy and JoJo cookies from Trader Joes.  I love those cookies.  They are delicious.

Beth made this for me.  I can't believe she parted with him.

 

 
Frosty's body is shimmery.  He is really really cute.  Beth also had Nicole make us these tiny little Annies  I had to steal the pic off Yvette's blog because I couldn't find the picture I took of just her.  My Annie's dress is a little different.  I do have one with her new big sister.

This was in a box when I got home.  I don't know if I was supposed to open it but I did.  Sharon had Nicole make her for me.  I love her dress. 

Here they are together.  ADORABLE!

All of my friends are soo talented and fun.  I'm pretty blessed!  I mailed Sharon's gifties off to her on Saturday and I finished wrapping last night.  I hope you are having a wonderful Christmas season!

Snowman Love

I don't keep up the rest of the year with blogging and I'm even more behind with the Christmas holidays.  There is the shopping, sewing, binding, getting packages in the mail and then there are the PARTIES.  Woohooo. We had our quilt group party at my friend Lavon's house on Friday. Her house is so festive.  Lavon has a great collection of snowmen.  Here is a little tour of her house. 

Isn't he a cutie?

This little guy is the same size as a small child. 

 

In the kitchen

She even made a snowmen kitchen valance

This is everyone's favorite

Here are the snowman wrapped gifties I took.  See why I don't blog very often.  There are seven of those.

I have started decorating my house but just like with blogging I am behind.  Here's what I have so far

Pier 1 had the cutest snowman dishes this year.  Both Lavon and I have supported that store this Christmas.  The cookie jar is from that collection and here is the wine stopper.  He could put out an eye with his nose.

I still have a ton of wrapping to do and a little more shopping but then thats it.  Yippeee.

A Little Antiquing

Jeff and I went to Boise for Thanksgiving and sadly it didn't snow.  We we antique shopping and I bought the cutest little clock.  There is a light behind the fireplace grill and when its on it spins around and looks like there's a fire.  I also bought the little Josef doll and now I am obsessed with them.  Yvette made the mini quilt.  She hand pieced it.  Wow!

 

I am so obsessed with these little Josef dolls.  I had Jeff drive me to several antique stores in Boise and found four more.  Its hard to believe that Christmas is only a few weeks away.  I'm almost ready.  I have a box going to Missouri next week, my quilt peeps are having our Christmas party tomorrow and next weekend I'll be getting together with Beth and Yvette and then there's the office party at Morton's.  Woohoo.  I love the holidays.

Thanksgiving

Most of my time this weekend was spent cleaning out my sewing room.  I don't know how or why I started cleaning at this time of year but clean I did.  I think I am set for life in the quilt fabric/thread/buttons/fusible webbing/batting/scissors/needles departments.  I'm not even putting a picture of my room as I was semiorganizing it.  Its embarrassing!  So while its fun to have all that stuff, I am really just thankful for my husband, son, wonderful family and friends!!!  Happy Thanksgiving week!

 

 

Can You Believe It?

Thanksgiving is next week!  Christmas is only a few weeks away.  I've started decorating for Thanksgiving but I didn't get my quilt done.  My friend Lavon and I decided that we would work on the Buggy Barn Crazy Tom Turkey quilt.  OMG it was a pain.  We both finished all our turkey blocks.  Look how little the face is.

Look at the cutting sheet.  Yikes

Just follow the dots?  Seriously??  This is one of the hardest quilts I have EVER made. All the turkeys are done but only two of the goards are finished.  We spent four days sewing on these things.  It obviously won't be finished for next week but if I don't finish anything else next year, it will be this one! 

Have you ever gone in your sewing room to find something and end up rearranging everything?  Last Sunday I went in mine to look for my Robin Pandolph bin.  My sewing room looks like a bomb went off in it.  I not only started rearranging it but decided to refold my quilts in my cupboard upstairs.  This is what it looked like down my hall.

Still folding  The one on the floor is from a kit that Sharon sold when she owned her shop by my house.  She had the prettiest kits. 

These are on my 2012 binding list.  They have been done for years with no binding:(

I still have serious sewing room clean up to get done before January.  Sharon is coming out for Road to California and its going to take me that long to get it completed. 

Yes I found my Robin Pandolph bin.  I want to make this little house wall hanging. 

Christmas just seems to get here so quickly.  I'm not ready:(

Happy Veteran's Day - 11-11-11

Both my dad and husband are retired veterans.  My dad served in the Air Force for over 20 years and Jeff served in the Marines for over 20 years.  Happy Veterans Day to my dad and Jeff! Thank you for all the freedoms we enjoy every day!

 

With the high price of everything including fabric, its nice to know that there are shops out there that don't have their fabric over $10.  Daisy Cottage has the new Pam Kitty fabric for $8.75 and I received an email from the Quilted Kitty this morning.  They have adopted a soldier and his family to support overseas. They recently discovered that he is responsible for a group of soldiers at his new station, so The Quilted Kitty has adopted them all and plan to support them while they are away.  We can support the Quilted Kitty in this endeavor and also enjoy her sale! 

On Friday, November 11 and Saturday, November 12 all of the Patriotic Fabrics are on SALE for 25% OFF!   The Benefit to the Soldier and his group will be 10% of all sales!  These funds will be used for whatever they need or want from "home". 

I just got my Minick & Simpson book from Daisy Cottage and I'm going to order some patriotic Fabrics for the quilts in their new book.

Happy Veteran's Day again to all our soldiers, past and present!

 

Another Year

Yesterday was another birthday.  Oh yippee.  It was a great day!  There were all kinds of yummy treats made for me by my work peeps.  Homemade red velvet whoopie pies, buttermilk pie, muffins, doughnuts.  All the things I love that are so good for you.  Aren't birthdays calorie free days.  I think so.

Some of my friends took me to lunch for my birthday and by reading this so far it appears that all I did on my birthday was eat.  Nothing makes the rest of the day go by faster than to come back to your desk to these

 

 

Pretty pretty!  After work, off to dinner with another one of my girl friends.  We had dinner at Clearman's North Woods Inn in La Mirada.  They have the most amazing garlic bread and salad.  Throw in a glass of wine and its an awesome dinner. 

This isn't the end of my day.  There were more flowers from my brother and sister-in-law at my house

and two big boxes of gifties from someone in Missouri.  Ok they were from Sharon.  She went a little crazy.

This is the card she sent.  She's soooooo funny

If you know Sharon at all, then you know what a perfect card this is!!!  If she's around with that camera you are not safe.  Haaaaaaaa!

And I'm guessing that she is now the applique queen.  I love to machine applique but she loves to hand applique.

Isn't that adorable...prairie points, hand applique, stitchery and with a big red cherry on top.  I LOVE it.

Even the back is super cute

Big giant polka dots.  They match the little polka dot bowl.  I'm not sure that was planned but they match

More happy little glasses.

Wizard of Oz and Wicked are my favorites.  I have seen Wicked three times and yes I know most of the words to all the songs.  Pat and I did a little sing along at quiltover last weekend and all our friends were so impressed.  I'm kidding they were mentally begging us to stop.  At any rate, this was in my box.  How cool is this Wizard of Oz notebook??

There was even some new bling.  We collect Juicy Couture charms and she found necklaces to wear them on.  I already have my Christmas teddy bear on mine.  Not the best picture.

Wait there is still more.  I told you she went birthday present shopping crazy.  She also sent me a Pandora bracelet with a candy cane bead on it.  The bead has my name etched on it.  Apparently, I need to get away from the sewing machine and shop more often because I didn't know anything about these.

 

And this is Zac.  He's a spoon.  You read correctly a spoon and he has on a tie.  Why?  Who knows but he will be the best dressed spoon in the utensil caddy.  Isn't this hilarious?

 
There was also birthday Philosophy, needles from Primitive Gatherings and and and. 

Thank you so much Sharon for everything!!  This was a very special birthday.  I had a pretty difficult year health wise and am very blessed to be so much healthier and happy now.  I have a wonderful husband, family and a lot of great great friends.  I still have a lot of pictures from quilt market in Houston and quiltover at my friend Lavon's house last weekend. 

Yummy

There is a bakery that is not far from my house.  Sharon took pictures of their cakes when she lived here and now that she's in Missouri I am doing it for her.  I love going there and wish I could decorate cakes and cupcakes like they do.  Here are some of their latest Halloween creations.

 

I don't like snakes but its still a neat cake.

Just a little more white and this cupcake would look my cat Minnie.

This is my favorite cake.  I LOVE her.

 Cute cute cupcakes

This isn't a Halloween cake just a cool beach scene cake.  The little chairs are sitting on a sand of brown sugar.  Sweet!

Cute owl.

 

So what did I buy?  Well I bought this for my honey.  Jeff has a sweet tooth and loves german chocolate.  The bakery had a brownie with german chocolate frosting on the top.  Heavenly!

And this for my friend Yvette's birthday.  Her last year in the 40s:)  Isn't this the cutest?

Beth and I went over to her house on Saturday to sew.  I made these cute little Halloween bags.  The pattern is from Sherri at A Quilting Life and is really easy and fun to make.   I took their Halloween treats over a little early because I will be in Houston with Sharon for Halloween at quilt market.  YIPPEEEEE.  I just can't wait. 

Yvette and I sewed on our red and white minis from Temecula Quilt Co.  I don't know why she thinks mine is perfect.  I can't get my chimneys to line up:(  But after its quilted and washed I don't think I'll care and I'm certainly not in love with my seam ripper enough to make them perfect. And now that I'm looking at the third house maybe I will fix it. 

 Here is what Beth worked on.  She does the most amazing cross-stitch.  I had to steal the pic from Yvette's blog.  Beth was sitting right next to me and I forgot to take a pic.  Isn't it fabulous!  She has three different ones in the works.

 

One of our local quilt shops recently went out of business:(  My friends and I used to meet there for our monthly Thimbleberries Club.  We would meet for dinner first and then head over to the quiltshop.  We have been doing this for at least five years?  I have been sad about not getting the Thimbleberry fix.  So look what I got in the mail for Halloween from my bff.  A Thimbleberry quilt.  Woohoo.

Isn't it great???  I know this has been a long post.  I still have more pictures but need to get to work.  October is just flying by.