Tuesday, December 27, 2011

What a wonderful Christmas....



we had at our home.  Dinner with the family here--my gravy turned out great! (I'm gravy challenged, lol, 'cause my mother always made it so I  never had to learn).  Lots to eat, so we never did have dessert. 
Got to talk to my grandson on the phone.  He lives outside San Francisco now, with a wonderful new job, but it's our first Christmas without him.  He received his gift from us okay and loved it when he opened it.  I made him a Philadelphia Eagles quilt for his bed. 
I wasn't sure if it would fit or not, but he took this picture with his phone and says it fits fine.  He bought a new bed frame when he moved and it was just delivered the other day, so he spent his Christmas Day putting it together.  Unfortunately, it's too small, so he'll still be sleeping on the floor, lol, but at least he'll be under a nice, new quilt.


 DD liked her new Christmas quilt, too. We learned the pattern at one of our quilt club's Sunday sew-a-thon's at the fire hall. It's called the 10 minute block and is similar to a cathedral window block.





I'm going to make myself one with Moda's Cattails and Clover layer cakes with smaller blocks.  Maybe I'll even get it done in the next year. 

This year I participated in Chookyblue's Secret Santa Christmas Swap again (my fourth year).  This is the only swap I do at Christmas now because I've never been disappointed in the swaps I've received.  Someone in Australia always has my name and I've received the most beautiful gifts.  I've held off posting the "ornament" we can open as soon as our package arrives, hoping for snow--but all we've had in the past week is rain.  Usually the "ornie" is supposed to be hung on your tree so you can anticipate your Christmas gift.  But this year, Bec had my name, and her "ornie" just kept growing.  So instead of hanging it on my tree, lol, I had to hang it on my front door for everyone to see!  Here it is hanging on my wall the day I received it.

Isn't it the most gorgeous thing you've ever seen?  I love it!  And it hangs perfectly on my front door and is protected by the whole glass frame.  If it ever stops raining, I'll try to post another picture of it on the door, so you can see how great it looks.  It makes me smile looking at it.


 And on top of that, the "real" present she made me is a gorgeous table runner that makes me think of summer and the beach. The colors are beautiful and so is the quilting on it.


 



Thanks, Bec, I love them both!   You're a great SSCS swapper!

I sent my SSCS package to Fiona in Australia. She let me know she was very happy with her package, also. I'm glad, because looking at her blog, you can see she is a very talented lady. Here is the bag and the goodies I sent to her.  Of course, Katie has to do her quality control check before anything can be shipped out.





Stop in at Fiona's blog and look at all the lovely items she has made, you won't be disappointed.

Until next time...
from Sharon, Katie, and Patsy Cline

Friday, December 23, 2011

Merry Christmas...


Thank You, and God Bless You, to all our military personnel serving near and far during this Blessed Christmas Season.   And  Happy Holidays to those of you that do not celebrate Christmas.


I hope I can share this beautiful Christmas Concert from Ricky Tims  of The Quilt Show with you. 

The video link with this blog is the full concert from the December 14-15, 2007 performances. It is 72 minutes long, so get a cup of christmas cheer, good computer speakers or headphones, and chill for a little more than an hour. It wasl only to be available on TQS, so I hope this link will work. I hope many of you will watch it . The video is a compliation of four performances. Also, be sure to visit Kat Bowser's webpage.

Several videos included in the show feature some amazing quilts. Here's the song list:

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Christmas 1956, 1957, and 1961

Sleigh Ride Medley (with Winter Wonderland and My Favorite Things)

The Christmas Song

Carol of the Bells

I Saw Three Ships

Sugar Plum Fairy

Angels We Have Heard On High

O Holy NIght

Midwinter Dreams - on CD (Sacred Age) and download at www.rickytims.com

Mary Did You Know?

Christmas in a Small Town - available for download at www.rickytims.com

Silent Night - on CD and download at http://www.rickytims.com/

Sugar Plum Fairy Reprise - available for download at http://www.rickytims.com/online-store




See you all after the holidays...



from Sharon, Katie, and Patsy Cline

Monday, December 12, 2011

Only 12 days left til Christmas....

and I am so far behind.  Between going to 2 Celtic Thunder Christmas concerts in three days and being sick ever since, I haven't done any sewing.  I even missed Quilt Club last week 'cause I couldn't get out of bed. 

But I do have pictures from 2 weeks ago at Quilt Club.  We had a combination going away, Christmas, and birthday party for Donna W, who went home to Arizona for the next 6 months.  Everyone brought a dish to pass and we chowed down on lots of good food.  Here are some of the pics from that day.












And I even got some sewing done this weekend.  I made table toppers for several of my friends from our old hockey booster club.  We get together once a month for lunch just to keep in touch with each other.  Sometimes that's the only time we see each other because of everyone's busy lives.  The girls all seemed to like their gifts.









Another party coming up on Thursday with my Stitch 'n Bitch Group, so now to get back to more sewing. 

Until next time...
Happy quilting from Sharon, Katie, and Patsy Cline

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Holiday Mail for Heroes

 

Would you like to send holiday cards to our service men and women to brighten their holidays and let them know that they appreciated while they are far away from home? Hurry! You still have time to send your cards to the American Red Cross Holiday Mail for Heroes program. They must be postmarked by this Friday December 9.



The Red Cross is working with Pitney Bowes, a mail stream technology company, to collect and distribute holiday cards to American service members, veterans and their families in the United States and around the world. The process is very simple and takes no time at all - All you need is a pen and piece of paper to share your appreciation for the sacrifices members of the U.S. Armed Forces make to protect our freedoms. The Holiday Mail for Heroes mail box is open and ready to receive for your cards.



All of the details can be found here and it is very simple. You can even "order" cards online for only $1.00 each- just choose your card design and greeting, and a card will be sent to a service member. Click here for the details. (Really, how easy is that??

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

More freebies...

Mollie over at Wild Olive has some cute Fall needlework patterns for you use in your Fall decorating.  The pumpkin, acorn, and squash  pattern would be darling on some new dish towels for Thanksgiving, and so would the rest of her designs in the PDF she has for you to download.

Wendi at Shiny Happy World has a set of 6 designs that would make cute Christmas tree ornaments.  Perfect for tie-ons to packages or as part of an ornament swap.

I found this tutorial and free pattern PDF at Craft too late for this year, but there's lots of time to make these cute pillows for next Halloween.



And Mary Corbet at Needle 'n Thread has a darling scarecrow to embroider for Fall.  She also has over 200 free embroidery patterns to share with you, so make sure you check out her site.

That's all for now.  Until next time...

Happy Quiltig from Sharon and the girls, Katie and Patsy Cline 


Saturday, October 29, 2011

Some more new freebies...

Clover and Violet are starting a new Stitch and Quilt-along on their blog.  If you followed along with their 101 Embroidery Sew-along, you know what cute projects they come up with.  This time it's called the Ruby market tote.   The market tote is going to be about the size of a smaller shopping bag, and will be a quilty bag. Their bags are unique because each one has a patchwork outer and is finished with a binding, just like a quilt, plus it has a special embroidery piece for the outside of the bag as well. So make sure you hop on over to their site and check it out.


Bronwyn Hayes at Red Brolly has a gorgeous Christmas Sampler she is offering as part of 3 free Christmas

projects to get us going on our Christmas gifts.   Isn't it pretty?   She also has a tutorial on making felt flowers that would make beautiful Christmas pins to give as gifts, if you make them in Christmas colors. 

And Rana at Pieces of My Life is offering a new Autumn's Bounty BOM that should be fun.  The first 2 blocks are up now.  Block one is a darling pumpkin, with block two a strip block.  So head over and get going on those blocks before you get behind!


Guess what??  My quilty friends have been sewing their little hearts out lately and I have more pictures to show you of all their projects.  These are from our last quilt club meeting at Joan's house.

Bonnie's Gingerbread TR #1

Bonnie's Pumkin and Leaves TR

Diane's newest purse

Bonnie's Pumpkin TR

Donna's Lighthouse WH

Bonnie's Gingerbread TR #2

Bonnie's Pumpkin Wagon TR

Bonnie's Snowmen


Jane's PP'd Christmas Tree WH

Aren't I lucky to get to sew with these talented women?  They are so inspiring and do such beautiful work.  It almost makes me want to finish something of my own, instead of just starting things, lol. 

But I do finish some things--my Quilted Table Yahoo Group had a Fall/Halloween Topper Swap and Mary in Canada and I had each other in the swap and had to send out the fabrics we wanted used in the swap.  I send Mary a group of gold metallic Fall colored FQ's and this is the beautiful reversible table topper she made me.  And it looks so pretty on the table I keep my two antique sewing machines on.  It's perfect for that spot.

Thanks, Mary!   I love it! 

Mary sent me all Oriental fabrics for her Halloween tablerunner, so it took me a while to come up with a design, but I finally decided on blocks from the FabricShopHop Halloween quilt.  I was going to do a variety of those blocks, but unfortunately I found a number of mistakes in the cutting directions so I gave up after 2 blocks. (I'm not 100% sure if they were all my errors or theirs, but  I gave up in frustration!)  I decided to use another block from Marcia Hohn's Quilter's Cache and put the black cat Halloween block between two of her blocks.  So this was the result. Then I made a little candle mat from the witch's hat block I had made.  That turned out pretty good.  Mary said she like them, so that makes me happy.

So until next time...
Happy quilting from Sharon and Katie and Patsy Cline