And Another Thing...

Please allow me to share with you the adorable little quilt that Karen Mowery, Sew Primitive, made for me! I can't tell you how much this woman's talent continues to amaze me! I about fainted dead away when I saw the darling sketch she created for the center of this quilt. She drew it on antique muslin, so it is spotty looking in places and looks so old.

I hung this little treasure in my bedroom right below my sampler, so they can look old together. I am going to name the quilt "Mary" after my granddaughter who, at three years old was a flower girl in her aunt's wedding.  When she told people the story of her aunt's wedding she always told them that she was the "flower peddler". I love that!

Karen has a line of delightfully unique patterns. She sent me her two newest. Check out her blog and find the link for her website and I am sure you will find better pictures than these! Plus, you have to see her sketch of her family: Her son the Marine, Karen, and two felines. Darn cute!

My Lucky Stars!

I saw so many pretty Christmas scenes as I cruised around Blogland the past week. I hope your Christmas, or Hanuka for 2010 was a joyous one! Ours was sweet and quiet. We usually travel to see our kids but this year we stayed home, and altho we missed being with family, we didn't miss the airport scene one bit. And then the storm hit the east coast! Even here in Virginia Beach we got snowed in!  This is the view out on our covered deck. 

 Aside from the usual holiday cooking, I have gotten some stitching done as well. I created a little sampler design to go into the center of the ABC Sampler Doll Quilt. So now the pattern will provide directions for a cross-stitched center, or an optional focus fabric center. Pattern coming soon!

And I am stitching up these crazy stars as well. Marcus Fabrics was kind enough to leave a big box of fabric on my doorstep and I have been seeing stars ever since! You may remember that in January I said that 2010 would be my lucky year, and indeed it has been! What a sweet culmination! Nothing like being snowed in with a box of Marcus fabric, EQ7 and my trusty Bernina!  

This is where I thank my lucky stars! 

Wishing you all a warm and wonderful New Year!

FROLICKING

OK, I have to admit I frolicked yesterday. I am usually not much of a frolicker, but yesterday I had the pleasure of getting together with my two good friends here in Virginia Beach for our annual Christmas lunch and gift exchange. We all lead such busy lives and complained that we don't get together often enough.This may be the last good picture we have of us together--2009! Notice I said good. Haha!

We lunched on sandwiches from Panera's, which I picked up on my way to Joan's house. Joan has her house all decorated for Christmas, and it looked lovely. Now let me share the darling gifts I received from my dear friends.

Joan loves to work with wool, and she stitched up one of these darling table mats for each of us. It is so precious, I love it! The design came from Lisa Bongean at Primitive Gatherings. Lisa actually came to our booth at market. It was quite thrilling! She even bought stuff! Naturally we went to her booth as well. It is always a thrill to see the actual designer peddling her wares! (However, Lisa was out gallivanting and we saw her husband Nick instead.)

Joan found this cute little tin for us, and I never run out of objects to put inside little tins. Maybe HSTs?

This darling little tree was made by Sue's husband and then she decorated it with tiny cross-stitch ornaments. Isn't it the sweetest thing? And thanks to Sue I now have a Christmas tree up and decorated!

Sue also made these darling little angels with the sweetest faces. They are fabric fused to felt and the face is drawn on. Sue did a beautiful job with that. Isn't it wonderful to have friends who know just what you like? I always remember one Christmas morning, one of my kids opened a gift and was so thrilled, they said, "Wow! I didn't even know I wanted this!"  That's how I feel after our little exchange.

Did you see the lovely post that Mary at Quilt Hollow wrote about me? What a sweetheart! It is like my own little magazine spread! Scroll down a bit to see it as Mary writes often. Mary is a long-arm quilter and does really lovely work, in fact she quilted one of mine that was published in McCall's. Oddly, the photo she used in her post was taken at the same time as the one above, at the Olde Green Cupboard booth-Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival! It was such a magical time! Haha! Thanks Mary, for such a lovely review!

After my last post I got comments from  many of you who shared my feelings regarding a lack of enthusiasm for Christmas. Well, not really Christmas, but what Christmas has become, and what has been commercially created. It is like we have to rescue the real Christmas! Mary at Quilt Hollow shared the nicest video that really touched my heart. I put it in the following post--just below this one!

Christmas Blessing to everyone!

Where's the Line to See Jesus

 Mary Flynn from Quilt Hollow shared this video with me and I hope you like it too!

Merry Christmas to all my blogging friends out there!

Here it Comes Again!

Would somebody jab me with a candy cane! Here is is the season of Joy and Goodwill, and I am not in the mood. Let's just say that I am having trouble finding the Christmas Spirit. What does this say about me, as a person? Now the guilt comes for not wanting to dive into all the frolicking. Sigh.

Here is the thing: I just want to stay in my sewing room all day and make quilts. Big quilts, little quilts, I don't care. The truth is I am full of Joy and Goodwill all year long! I love my family, I love my friends, and I love doing for others. What I don't love is shopping at any time of year. My husband will tell you that he has to beg me to go to the grocery store! Currently we only have two grandchildren small enough that we can buy them presents. The rest are teenagers (and Becky), and my holiday spirit goes like this, "Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas, here is your check!" I do love them all tho, and I think the check makes them happier than me trying to buy them clothes or just the right music CD. Perish the thought!

 Probably what this says about me is that I get excited about different things than I did in the past. For example, I made a little doll quilt and I love it so much that I want to fly through hoops in the sky! Does that sound a little extreme? Well, quilters, and other people who love their work, know just what I am feeling. Call it a "break-through", call it a "runner's high", call it the "Christmas Spirit"! Haha! We all know that different people enjoy different things.  This thing is definitely me!

Meet my newest doll quilt, Lil' Smokey. I take a bit of pride in the fact that I have never named a quilt after food. It is a challenge sometimes, but I have resisted! So no, this quilt is not named after little sausages! Rather, I tried to incorporate smokey colors. Of course some sparks had to be added as well. I like the contrast. I hope you do too! Something that I really enjoy about making scrap quilts is mixing new fabric with old, and combining fabric from different designers and manufactures. It is like cross pollinating! I love the result! Wouldn't it look fitting lying on a humble manger.

So Christmas comes and Christmas goes. It seems like it always comes sooner than I want it to, but once Christmas actually rolls around, and the REAL Spirit of Christmas engulfs our home, I hate to see it leave. We all know that the Grinch was right when he finally admitted that "Maybe Christmas doesn't come from a store". So maybe there is still time for Patchville to be touched by the magic of it all!

Fusion-It's Not Just Nuclear Anymore

Seems like I have been hearing the word fusion in regard to a lot of things lately. Fusion of color, fusion of music, even a car has been named the Ford Fusion.  It has left me a little baffled. I turned to the internet and googled fusion. Listed was everything from fusion beads, fusion ink, and fusion hair extensions. When I was a kid I am pretty sure there was only one kind of fusion. Only one that I remember anyway. I clicked on good old Wikipedia, which can give you the answer to just about everything. Just as I suspected, Wikipedia went straight to nuclear fusion, and describes it as the process in which two or more atomic nuclei join together, or "fuse", to form a single heavier nucleus. This is usually accompanied by the release or absorption of large quantities of energy. Hey, I could use some of that! Energy, that is. 


Today I sat down to the computer and looked for the foot pedal. I immediately thought, fusion. My two most oft attended occupations are trying to fuse into one. I wasn't too concerned, I was able to open the computer and type without the use of the foot pedal. In fact, I even felt kind of cool that I could use the word fusion in this modern way. It wasn't until later that I wondered if fusion is the root for another word, "confusion". 


Nah, that is just plain silly. Plus, I like the idea of my interests fusing together. You know, like EQ!