My Favorite Schnibble

To cap off Another Year of Schnibbles 2012, Sinta and Sherri  asked that we post our favorite Schnibble.  It's really hard to pick a favorite, but I really, really love the color scheme in my July 2012 Schnibble - Bennington...

Those blues and browns together gets me everytimn!  And, I really love the argyle print I used for the skinny border and the back...

It is still being quilted....

Yes, that is hand quilting going on there, folks!!

Speaking of Another Year of Schnibbles....I won one of designer Carrie Nelson's prizes for my December's Schnibble - Morsel!

I had heard Carrie out-does herself with the generosity of her prizes.  People are right!  This is the box that came in the mail...

Gotta love that label!

What was in the box blew me away...

As if this gorgeous fat quarter bundle of Fig Tree's Tapestry line wasn't enough, Carrie packed in all of these other goodies...

In the  first and second photos is a cute little fabric envelope and its contents - three "feed sack" tea towels - and the long photo on the right is a 2013 calendar tea towel - these are from Moda Home (I didn't even know there was a Moda Home!), then back to the left, we have a delicious box of chocolate peppermint cookies from Trader Joe's (which are staying in my sewing room - no, I'm not sharing with the rest of the hosue!), the latest edition of 100 Blocks Magazine, a cute little pincushion in Carrie's Full House pattern done in Countdown to Christmas fabric that matches my AYOS for January which was a Full House pillow (did Carrie make this for me on purpose?  I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't put it past her!), and a cute little tin of glass head pins.  Above the pins in the photo is a postcard from Carrie that got me choked up a little (that girl's got beautiful handwriting by the way).   I was as excited opening that box as I was on Christmas morning.  Hubby and I must have ooh'd and aah'd over it for half an hour!  And I drug it around with me everywhere for about a week showing it off to people (no one can ever accuse me of being a quilt geek, now can they - LOL!)

Thanks again, Sherri, Sinta and Carrie for Another (Great!) Year of Schibbles!

 

Check out Sinta and Sherri blogs on February 1st for the entire parade of My Favorite Schnibbles!

PMQG Sew Day and a Scottish Night

How can you go to a sew day on Saturday and have most of Sunday free and hardly get any sewing done all weekend? At least that's how I feel!  But, what a fun Saturday!  I attended the PMQG Sew Day at the Waldorf School yesterday and had a blast as usual.

I guess I was doing more eating and chatting than sewing...

Danette, Becky and I break for lunch

I love when do we do a pot luck lunch - my fellow guild members bring the yummiest food!  I also enjoyed checking out what everyone else was doing...

I brought these fabrics to work on a new baby Houndstooth quilt, but only got as far as cutting...

That really wasn't all I got done - I did finish up the last blocks for the Chopsticks quilt, and cut out some strips for a charity quilt the guild is doing and finished up the binding on a table runner, so I actually did accomplish something!

Becky hard at working quilting...

Bobbi will have sweet dreams with her new pillow case - LOL! It was a birthday gift from a friend - nice gift!

I thoroughly enjoy getting together with my guild peeps - we sure do know how to have fun!

I had to leave mid-afternoon to get my Scottish on for the annual Burns Supper on Saturday evening hosted by our friends in the Loch Rannoch Pipe Band....

Loch Rannoch Pipe Band

 Dad, Mom & the Newlyweds (aka sis-in-law Cathy and brother Jeff)

 our table

The girls

The Haggis was eaten and a good time was had by all!

What Santa Brought...

Before next Christmas rolls around, I wanted to show what quilty things Santa brought me last month!

Our newish LQS, The Round Bobbin, ran a "Stuff My Stocking" program for 12 days in Christmas.  What fun!  Every day you'd get an email with an item at a fantastic price.  You had until midnight to call or email the shop to tell them that you wanted the item and to "stuff your stocking" with it!  So, I clued hubby in to this and told him that if I saw something I thought I'd like, I'd forward the email to him and he could order it for me - or not.  So, these two items caught my eye...the new Turning Twenty book with a little stack of FQs to go with and this great little "round the neck" light.  This light is fabulous for hand stitching or reading in bed - I love it!  So, at the end of the 12 days you - or your Santa - would stop by the shop to pick up your stuffed stocking (which was really a bag) and pay.  I thought the whole thing was a fabulous idea!  I also liked the gift certificate hubby picked up while he was there o:)

This book I actually bought for myself...it was one of those "make up the $25 to get free shipping" on Amazon purchases.  I needed to get one last Christmas gift for someone and this popped into the cart for me!  It was a great buy - 4 of the quilts in this book are on my "must-do" list and I want to make at least 4 more!

I had borrowed this from this library and only got a few pages read and knew it was one I'd want to savor and have in my library.  So, I promptly took it back to the library and put it on my Christmas list.  I love me some Kaffe!   I had the pleasure of attending one of his lectures about 15 years ago and he couldn't have been nicer!

 This was on my wish list on Amazon for a while...then it went on my Christmas list.  I also love me some Fig Tree!  I still need to give it a read through....

I loved Angela's first book and I'm sure I will love her newest (again, need to get the time to read this!)...

At our December PMQG meeting, we had a White Elephant swap.  It was such fun.  I got a GREAT bag of goodies - no elephants in there!  I got Andrew's gift and love the bag as much as what was in it - isn't this a hoot!

 The little appliques and those awesome buttons are from Japan (Andrew lived there for quite a while) - how cool is that?!  The purse handles and magnetic closures will be put to good use and the elastic has already come in handy.

 Then there was this yard of colorful butterfly fabric - some little girl is going to be very pleased with this...I'm thinking pillow case maybe???

And, finally, a sneak peek of what I've been working on....more later!

AYOS - The End

It's the last day of the year and this is my last entry in Another Year of Schnibbles 2012!  And, I didn't miss a one.  Whew!

December's Schnibble was, again, another Little Bite.  This one is called Morsel - and designer Carrie Nelson has provided patterns for a few different pincushions in the pattern - all very cute.

I chose to make mine in my Little Black Dress scraps and it a very elegant pincushion indeed!  In fact, I put my very elegant white pearl head pins in it and it looks lovely.

I filled it with crushed walnut shells.  I now only have enough crushed walnut shells left to make 999 more pincushions!

Thank you to Sinta & Sherri - and Carrie - for another great round of Schnibbles.  It has been fun!  You can check out the parade of Morsels starting tomorrow on Sinta & Sherri blogs.

Thank you all for reading along with me in 2012 - I hope you'll stay with me in 2013 (and I will do my best to be a better blogger and post more often!)

HAPPY NEW YEAR

EVERYONE!!

Christmas Recap

Every Christmas, at the end of the day after all of the gifts are opened, the dinner eaten, and the family leaves, my husband says "Well, it's all over for another year."  My grandfather used to say the same thing.  The cycle continues.  It makes me feel a connection to the people who aren't with us any more and reminds me how similar we all are.  Kind of like quilting.  o:)

We had a very, very nice Christmas.  

The quilts were a hit...

 Son Bill and Daughter-in-Law Raqhel

Nothing says Christmas like a skull sweater (she's 23, when do they grow out of that????)

Daughter, Ariel and "Gramma" (my mom)

I think we've had enough...

 Bill photo-bombing

My treats were  a hit again this year.  I didn't get to make everything I had planned but the staples are my pickles and shortbread.  These are "Easy Refrigerator Pickles", they're a little sweet and a little hot with some garlic and onions. Yum!  I found this recipe in a Cooking Light magazine years ago and have been making them ever since.  You can find the recipe here.

Some years, I would love to skip the shortbread, but I think there'd be a revolt.

The recipe:
    1 cup butter
    2 cups flour
    1/2 cup sugar
    1/4 tsp salt (if using salted butter. I use 1/2 tsp if I'm using unsalted)
    1/2 tsp vanilla

I cut up the butter in pieces and put all of the ingredients in a food processor.  Pulse until crumbly, then process until the dough comes together - about 40-50 seconds.  I used an 8 wedge pan and one recipe makes one pan.  I usually double up so I get two pans.  Bake at 325 degrees for about 40 minutes.  I let cool a bit before taking the shortbread out of the pan - then let cool completely on a wire rack.

I forgot to take a photo of my cracker toffee, but that's another super easy recipe that we've been making for years.  A lot of recipes call for brown sugar, but we always use white.  I also add chopped hazelnuts after the chocolate is spread before it cools.  I either put the pan in the frige or outside on the ledge if it's cold enough until the toffee cools completely.  Then break into pieces and enjoy!

I can't believe it's all over for another year!

Shop Hop Win and Modern Siggy Blocks

Sure didn't mean to blog-fade again, but 'tis the season!  Both work and Christmas prep have had me crazy, but work is over until next Thursday and I've got all of the gifts bought and wrapped.  I still have a bit (a lot) more sewing to do...but I think things are under control.

I did take some time this morning to go shopping with a friend.  I've been racing from one thing to the next the past couple of weeks and didn't think I had time as I have so much more to do before the big day.  But then I thought about what's more important and decided I'd be much happier taking the time to have a girl's day out.  Cathy and I went here and there - she helped me shop for a last minute gift for my daughter and we went to the LQS and out to lunch today.  I'm so glad I did - it definitely gave me a lift, not to mention we were very productive!

I've been meaning to post about a couple of things.  I was super lucky during the recent shop hop in October and won the basket at my very last stop - Granny's Sewing Den (which is conveniently about 3 minutes from my office).  I stopped there the very last day of the hop during lunch and got a phone call at 5pm saying I'd won!  Well, that was certainly worth the trip!  The basket - which was actually a really cool tote bag - which was great because the last thing I need is another basket - was filled with great loot.  It included some "green" batting, a bunch of patterns, three spools of thread in beautiful colors, a book on color, some fabric and a little wall hanging kit.  Thanks, Granny's!

I also received my Modern Siggy Swap blocks last month.  I got about 60 blocks from all over the world!  It was so fun looking at each block to see where they came from.  So glad I participated in this swap - my first!

I also wanted to mention my "Black Friday" Shopping (yes, this post is ridiculously overdue - bad blogger!).  I don't really do the whole "Black Friday" thing anymore, but the Joann's coupons were too good to pass up because I really needed to stock up on batting...and rotary blades.  At 75%, I couldn't resist!  I splurged on an entire 40-yard bolt of Warm&Natural.  I'm putting a date on it so I know how long it lasts me - I think I'll be good for a while o:)  I also treated myself to a new 6"x12" Omnigrid ruler (the lines are wearing off at the edges of mine after 18 years of hard use!) and the June Tailor Shape Cut Pro ruler I saw at our guild meeting last month (thanks, Pat!)  Can't wait to try that one out!

I'll be back before Christmas to show off all of the goodies I've made!

Santa's Workshop

Christmas gift-making is in full swing here...both in the sewing room and in the kitchen!

Every year I make a number of different goodies - usually sweet & sour hot pickles, hot tarragon mustard, quick toffee, shortbread, caramel corn and a few other goodies.  I'll share those recipes and photos in another post.  Today, I made the pickles and got started on the mustard.  Then, it was back into the sewing room ... because I don't have elves to help me out.

I am obsessed with making these very cute - and super easy - tissue covers (tutorial by KimQuiltz).  They are like potato chips - you can't stop at just one (which takes about 15 minutes start to finish, by the way!)  Everyone's getting these.  So far, I've made seven...

Purse construction is also in full swing...I'm making 5 of these striped purses from Jessica Levitt's Modern Mix...

I've also started the quilting on the Helix quilt  (from Emily Herrick's Geared for Guys) for son Bill.  This quilt was almost an epic fail.  You need to be careful and label all of the strips and carefully follow the instructions to sew them together. I did that and things were going well.  Until the cutting of the corners at 60 degree angles.  Angles and I do not get along.  Particularly ones that aren't 90 degrees - those I can usually handle (geometry was NOT a strong suit in school).  I thought I was doing fine until I started sewing on the corners to square the quilt back up.  This would be the wrong way to do it:

It hit me at 4:30am that I was sewing the corners back onto the corners I just cut.  Duh!  You needed to sew them on to where you didn't cut to square it up (this probably makes no sense, but trust me)  I will say that the only reason this quilt didn't wind up wadded up in the trash is due to the help of friends.  Becky and Lindsay both came to my rescue at different points in the making of this quilt - talked me off the ledge and provided two more hands and more brain cells and we figured it out and it's now on the frame.  Whew!  Thanks, friends!

I'm going "modern" in the quilting of this very modern quilt.  Straight lines in the green area and boxy meandering in the brown.  This is gonna take a while.  I've already gone through one bobbin and I only got one pass done.  How many more days until Christmas???