Merry Christmas!

We are enjoying the joy that the birth of Jesus brings today...in a foot of snow. It is beautiful!Merry Christmas to you!

6 years old

Happy Birthday 6-Year Old!

How quickly you grew! I am so thankful to have such a thoughtful, smart, kind and loving child. At six you are now a confident kindergartner, a protective big brother and a caring son. It is so wonderful to watch your powerful walk with the Lord. We are amazed that your love for all things transportation is as strong now as it was at 8 months old. It is fun to watch you read a book, go sledding in the backyard and ride your bike with no training wheels. Thanks for being such an awesome kid and a huge blessing in our lives. Happy Birthday!

Love, Mom and Dad

Sometimes I wish I could turn back the clock

February 2007. I have quite a few of these video thank you clips. Unfortunately, they were too big to send on email so I "set" them aside. Well, just found this one...almost three years later. So.....thanks Beci!

Don't you wish you could go back and spend just a day with your kids when they were two?

By the way, we have been eating the gingerbread house. Yum, Good call!

::Winter Wonderland::

Like many of you, we are welcoming the snow here in Minneapolis. Only 5 inches or so, but now it gets cold...it's 7 degrees out right now and on the way down. I'm hoping the kids are inside for recess today; they are hoping outside I'm sure. They are thrilled with the snow; outside until dark last night.

My son was too busy out at the playset and, well, I was a little too cozy to go out myself!

This is what I am quilting right now. I'm about halfway through it. It is going to be beautiful! Hope you like it Mom.

We also welcomed a new cousin/niece last week! Hello Isabel Grace! I'll get better photos next time we see her.

She is beautiful!

I had to share this amazing gingerbread house my daughter made with her Grandma. She asks me 10 times a day if we can eat it....what does everyone think I should do? It is such a great holiday decoration!

LED lights are my new addiction this year. I have spent a small fortune on them, but they are so fun at night...here is the rest of my holiday cheer outside.

The continuing saga of the hydrangeas! Here is where they end up every year...

...stay warm and safe.

Back to Quilting

Crafty girls weekend is over and I got a chance to play. I brought some new charm packs and a little yardage and I just played. It was great! I still have two Christmas quilts that I need to work on but that is for this week. Here is a peek at the tops I pieced...

Above is the start of a table runner. It is made with Eva fabric by Basic Grey for Moda. These are really unusual colors but I love them together. Next is a table runner using Figgy Pudding. Once I get my quilt done this will match!

The last one is a throw top in progress. It is simple abundance fabric, also from Moda.

The photos are the best that I can do in the winter with my point and shoot. The colors are definitely off a bit. Since I can't borrow my mom's great camera ALL the time, guess what is on my Christmas list?

Thankful for Family

I am thankful for so many things but what stands out this week is family. We had a wonderful visit with my brother and his family. Great times, great talks, great kids. Distance makes the heart grow fonder... and now we miss them more than ever!

Catch up...

It's been a while...and been busy here. So much fun keeping us busy, the best kind of busy. I hope to share some of it little by little in the next few days. Today I am sharing a diaper cake I made for my sister in law. Baby showers are so much fun to decorate and I loved doing this. I have made a few of these and they make a fun gift and a perfect centerpiece. I took one lonely photo but you get the idea. We think it's a girl...we will find out soon. :)

I put in the effort...

But no big sales. I entered my first craft sale with my in laws last weekend. Probably not the best fit for quilts. Lots of shoppers but I think every one was looking for lower bracket items. I did get to chat with a lot of quilters and that was really fun. Since I am relatively new to quilting it is nice to have encouraging comments that I am doing nice work. I finished this Christmas quilt for the sale. The details are back here. It wasn't the easiest quilt to make (easy pattern, many frustrations) but after it came together I really liked it. I had to go out and find the perfect red binding. I pieced the back. Many traditional quilters at the sale thought this was interesting, like I ran out of fabric.

I also put together a few table runners and toppers. I have been making lots of coffee cozies too...I'll post those another day.

This may give me the incentive to start an Etsy site (finally) or my Christmas shopping list might be a little shorter (wink). I am going out of town with my crafting girls this weekend. I am bringing my sewing machine and I hope to get a few projects done in the midst of relaxing. Thanks honey!

::Print your own fabric and a quilting club::

Oh, I have been ignoring this blog a bit...but enjoying sewing. I am in the middle of many things and will post pictures when the projects look like something. :) I had to share my excitement with Spoonflower. An online company that will print fabric for you. I found this to be a very reasonable way to get personalized sewing labels; that is what you are seeing in the photo below. I am going to cut up the yardage and sew the individual labels on to my projects. Tuesday night I participated in a quilting club for the younger crowd over at Quilted Treasures in Rogers, MN. I had a great time, met some new friends and got a few things done. We are getting together again so if you live close by check it out!

This week flew by and I can hardly remember what we've been doing but I'll leave you with the trick or treating pic below...the bumble bee, muscle man and mr. handsome!

Where is the Hydrangea now?

Very wet and cold. I know the plant is fine but it has never looked like this in all the winters we have had. It has been very wet this fall and then the temps dipped below freezing a few nights. I usually put the dried blooms in my winter outdoor arrangements...we'll see if these hold up.

This was a welcome addition to my morning today...let's be honest...most days.

I am working on quilting the Roman holiday quilt. I ended up using dark red thread. I think it might look better with white but I couldn't help myself, the dark red color is so pretty. I'll take better photos if we get more sunshine!

Soon, we will have to dry these pumpkins off and carve them up...maybe tomorrow.

Have a great fall weekend, enjoy that extra hour of sleep (those of you with no kids at home) and stay safe!

Homework...

Our school is hosting an auction and each class is putting together a themed basket of goodies. The themes I have to work with are "Thanksgiving" and "Arts and Crafts". I really wanted to put something together using fabric I had at home and that worked out! The above (frustrating rotated) photos are the table topper I thought would be for a thanksgiving dinner. I used Moda Shangri'la scraps from another table runner I did...not sure if I posted about that one...hmmmm.

Below is a kids crayon/marker holder for travel. I have made a few of these but I made this one bigger to hold longer markers. It is a bit too long but I like the Moda MoMo Wonderland fabric, hopefully it works for a boy or a girl.

Sidenote: Blogger still rotates photos as I upload if it thinks it should be vertical. It doesn't seem to matter what I do. If anyone knows how to change this let me know.

Have a great weekend everyone, we have a busy but fun one ahead...thanks for stopping by!

Half-Square Blocks

Yesterday I found this fun blog...http://metrosupialdesigns.wordpress.com/. She has some beautiful quilts and I learned a lot about value and putting fabrics together. She is doing a quilt a long with Half-Square blocks. I love how there are endless possibilities for half-square blocks and I decided to put together a fall table topper with some Shangri-La scraps (Moda, 3 sisters). I am donating this one to a "Thanksgiving" themed basket at the kids' school auction. Here are the options I came up with...Same set of squares...very different looks...

In the end I think I'll go with this one:It actually isn't my favorite but I think it is the best one for this project.

Check this quilt out from Red Pepper Quilts! She used 400 half square blocks for this. It is one of the best quilts I have ever seen, I love it! Someday... It does reinforce that I need to keep fabric shopping, I don't have enough different fabrics to make this. :)