January 2012 has NOT been a good month.
On January 24th we had to say goodbye to one of our special family members.
Mysty was a little stray that came into our lives over 20 years ago on a very cold December night . . . so very tiny that she fit into the palm of my hand.
She wrapped herself around our hearts and into every part of our lives - our house is so very quiet without her.
We miss you, Mysty.
Is 2012 treating you well?
Or are you feeling a bit like Mysty and me?
We would just kinda like to throw our arm over our eyes and bury our heads in the blankets and stay there for a while.
December brought us Mysty’s 20th birthday and a few new health problems to go along with old age.
And then . . .
A good friend of mine ran into some HUGE issues in December and we’ve been trying to make sense of these and work through them with her. Non-health related but very life changing for her and her family, and just about everyone around her! Sometimes it’s that slap upside the head that makes you look at everything just a bit differently around you. But . . . life still trudges on whether you accept it or not.
The quilt mo-jo almost left the house as well . . . although I did dredge up a little ambition to pull out some leftover bright colored prints to make a little baby quilt.
It did kinda make me feel better for a while. Then I made another one and another one – maybe the mo-jo is back?!?!?!
I received an email this morning from a very talented quilter in California. Barbara from the Pointless Quilter made this quilt from my recipe on The Moda Bakeshop – she even made it bigger with more borders added . . . amazing! I love how this email showed up at the same time as I was using the leftovers of the same fabric – this made my day. Thank you Barbara!
How is your January so far?
2012 is gearing up to be interesting if nothing else! Have a great week everyone . . .
All those tempting sales that have been going on for the past month have just been too much for me!
Fig Tree put together this lovely package of Christmas colored prints . . . I couldn’t resist.
And then there was the scrap bags that she had put on sale – those just sent me over the top and I had to have a few of those bags. There are some of the strike-offs from California Girl and pieces of Buttercup and all kinds of other big and little lovely prints from other collections. The nice thing about buying scrap bags from the designer is that all the scraps blend . . . bonus, or what?!?!?
I finished another little miniature quilt for a present – tick another one off the list.
The finished measurement on this one was 10” x 10” and the corner blocks were 1” square finished. That makes the other ones about 3/4” finished. Talk about using up scraps . . . now I know why I have been putting all the scraps from previous quilts into baggies!
Oh, and then The Fat Quarter Shop had a 50% off sale on Reindeer Games a few weeks ago . . . couldn’t resist that one. I also ordered the background cream and the two border fabrics on spec. Not sure which quilt to make with this line, but I do have my eye on this free pattern over at the Moda Website –
from the Basic Grey Jovial collection or maybe this one . . .
All Wrapped Up made with
Flurry by Kate Spain.
(click on the red link for the pdf pattern pages)
If you haven’t been over to the Moda site for a while (or ever) – head over and have a look at the collections and some of the free patterns they have to offer. I found a couple new ones that I have added to my collection – just what I need!
Have a great week.
The days have certainly gotten away from me.
I know I’m not the only one that is stressing over this but as long as we are all participating in this full blown holiday season we will muddle through. Why don’t I just start sooner?!?!!? It sounds so simple.
How come we can think of great gift ideas during the year for people, but once December hits the brain goes blank. I know . . . make a list. Easier said than done sometimes. There are already too many other lists on the go!
I really do enjoy getting the house in order and all the preparation that goes into the season. This will be the weekend that we try and get all of the decorations done up and hopefully finish off the shopping, wrapping and other organizing. Need to get some parcels in the mail early next week . . . I better put that on a list.
I am longing for some down time to quilt and create but maybe there will be a snowday to take care of that wish. I sure hope so, because I’d like to make a few more of these little cards to use as tags – they are so simple and easy to make – once you get the graphics done up.
Here are some links to find the letters to use . . . some free, some not . . .
or
are great places to start looking at how you might like to use these alphabet letters in gifts. Be warned though – this is time consuming, but hopefully a very appreciated Christmas gift.
I have managed to make a couple of big mittens to give as gifts . . . and I’m just in the process of getting my ingredients together to make up a few gift jars.
from Paula Deen
and
from Tip Junkie
and then maybe make up a batch of these to wrap up and put in the mitten also -
For some other great ideas for Christmas gifts head on over to My Pinterest and take a look around at my pins as well as cruise around and see what everyone else is up to as well.
I’m just finishing off this little miniature quilt (10” x 10”) for my MIL’s Christmas present. She downsized this year and moved into a very small apartment so I thought this would be the perfect “little” giftie that would fit just about anywhere.
Plus these pieces make great conversation generators and I think she’ll really enjoy it.
I’m also trying to work on a couple of techie gifts that are very time consuming and I’ve also started another miniature quilt for a friend who may be moving in the next while.
Always something going on . . . have a great weekend.
So . . . as hard as it is for me to believe . . . it has now been three weeks since we held our Super Sleuth Soiree Mystery Quilt Workshop.
I know I had some recuperating and adjustments to make because of my age . . . but really – three weeks!?!?!
Well let’s get started here and get everyone up to speed on what our little “Soiree” was all about . . .
First of all it was optional to come “dressed up” and we had some amazing outfits make an appearance for sure!
Lise absolutely blew me away with her hippie outfit . . . anyone who knows Lise, knows that this is sooooooo not her – but ended up just perfect.
We had gals in housecoats, Super Sleuth attire, old women, old men . . . the list went on and on. It was amazing to have everyone come out prepared for a good time.
After everyone got settled in and a “wicked” cackle and poem greeted the forty-seven participants we started with the clues.
Clue #1 was in a painted pumpkin tin with tissue paper and the ladies headed off to start their project.
The community centre that we were able to rent ended up just a little tight on space when it came time to “hide” our clues, so the newly renovated Men’s Bathroom ended up being Clue Central. Have you ever tried decorating a Men’s bathroom before? Very interesting concept – at least there was no urinal to deal with!
Another clue was attached to the back of these scary little skeletons. Some people may have needed glasses to read the details on this one! It was really just a guide for putting on the first borders, so not a big deal – I didn’t hear of any eye-strain accidents anyway!
Of course you can’t host a workshop without having lots and lots of food. This is a quick shot of the one corner of the dessert table. Before everyone got to this part they had pulled beef on a bun, cheese, pickles and coleslaw and . . .
. . . hot apple cider and hot apple/cranberry cider with creepy heads floating in the brine.
Decorated sugar cookies,
Mummy cookies, more decorated sugar cookies and candy corn cookies,
and three different cheesecakes – this is a photo of just the one, but there were two others that were just as gorgeous. Seemed a shame to cut into them! After all was said and done, there was about 1/2 a slice leftover and a few crumbs – tasted as good as it looked I think. I didn’t get a piece!
Here are a couple of more clues. Everyone got a treat inside the cello bag clue and everyone got a specially designed charm square inside the envelope clue. A “subway” style design was created with the names of all the towns that workshop participants came from. This was then uploaded to Spoonflower and the fabric was ordered. A small mug rug pattern was also included with the clue and the charm square in this package.
The clue inside these little boxes was rolled up and put on a spider ring along with another little piece of chocolate. We didn’t want anyone to go home hungry.
The final clue was put into this little fabric goodie bags all decked out in Halloween prints. Boy that was fun putting together 50 of these little creations! Thank goodness for amazing helpers that dug right in and got ‘er done.
Here is everyone hard at work – we really did have an excellent space to work in. Before everyone got there for the day we were able to get a few quilts hung up on the walls to make it a bit cozier and provide some eye candy as well.
Before everyone left for the day we had them take their partially finished quilts up on the stage so that we could get some photos of their projects. We also discussed some of the finishing ideas – yo-yos in those centre squares or maybe some appliquéd flowers; in some of the outer borders we discussed adding vines and flowers or crows and bats like in some of the ones from the previous post. Lots of ideas to make this quilt their own.
As you can see from the photos, everyone was able to get the centre and first borders put on.
Plus you can see the different impact that the fabric choices are making. The only instructions they had for choosing fabrics was that they had to choose 12 fat quarters that they loved.
I would have loved to get a photo of each individual quilt up close . . . they seem so far away, but at least we can see the different color values and how much they got done.
There is one lady there that has another border put on . . . that’s looking good too!
Quite surprising to me is that the gal on the far right hand side there used the same fabrics as my original quilt that was in the magazine. So she knew exactly how her quilt would look when she was all done just by looking at mine. All the fabric lines that are available out there and we used the same one! I bought my package of fat quarters over a year ago so I know we weren’t shopping in the same place.
There is a Christmas print one on the right and a “make mine pink” one on the left. There was pastels and brights and hand-dyes and flannels – it was so much fun to see the combinations.
And then we had a table of gals that obviously were drinking way too much coffee . . . they all had their second borders on and that really bright colored one even has her third border on. Amazing!
This was a HUGE undertaking, but so very satisfying and tons of fun. We have now started our idea files for the May, 2012 workshop and we’re pretty sure it will be just as much fun and the projects will be just as amazing. We have not made the announcement yet as to who we have coming as teachers, but we have people registering anyway . . . they say they don’t care who’s coming as long as they are on the list!!! No pressure there . . .
