Happy Thanksgiving To All!

Hope everyone is having a great Thanksgiving weekend! My aunt and uncle hosted the feast, and all the ladies in attendance contributed to the menu. My macaroni and cheese went over well! Thanks to everyone who made it a nice day. I ended up going to bed around 7:00 that night in a turkey stupor and woke up bright and early on Friday morning amazed that I had slept 12 hours.

I have gotten some holiday shopping done along with some holiday sewing. I love the internet and the opportunity it provides for comparison shopping. ***Here is a note of caution--do not buy items from the Apple Education web site thinking that you are going to get the advertised discount for educators, unless you are buying a computer. Even though the Education site sells all of Apple's products, there are very few items that are discounted for teachers. IMHO this smacks of false advertising. Buy from MacMall instead. (I'm just saying!)

****An update: After waiting on hold for a very long time I spoke to customer service about the higher price on the supposedly discounted teacher site and got my order price adjusted!****

Late last night, I tried to sew some bags with zippers. They are just small zipper totes, the kind you might put some make up into. I did not use a pattern, but did use a tutorial. I am not going to link to it since I did not do it correctly! The first bag actually ended up with a zipper facing in the correct direction and the seams to the inside of the bag. The second did not! I do not want to waste the zipper, so I am going to rip it out of the second bag and try again.

While shopping at 2 large fabric stores today I looked for a bag of assorted inexpensive zippers so I can play around some more with making zippered pouches. No luck at the store, but on Etsy I found this seller who is clearing out her stash of zippers at very reasonable prices. Check her out.

I hope everyone is enjoying the long weekend. Soak it all up, Monday will be here too soon!

Snowman Panel Wallhanging and Table Runner

Sammy L. Jackson is making sure that this project is all-good.

This is a work in progress-- a wall hanging/door decoration made with a panel. I just love this cute snow person with a cherry red coat. So far I have done some stitching around the image in the panel and also around the red border. I will do some more machine quilting with other thread colors.

The back is a festive red with white polka dots.

Another wip-- a table runner made with the faux log cabin quilt blocks and smaller snow people cut from the panel above. Yes, I mixed parts of two different panels. (I thought they looked nice together!)

I have machine quilted around the log cabin blocks and along the seams, but have not put a binding on this yet.

I love this red fabric with white stars. If I see more of it at Joann's I am getting it.

Patchwork Table Runner

This is the last piece of the plaid curtain panel from Goodwill. It was just the right size to make a table runner using more blocks cut from a Christmas design panel.

More of the small 2.5 inch holiday squares. I overlapped them on the edges of the larger blocks and sewed them on with raw edge applique. You can see here the fraying that happened after washing the completed table runner.

The backing fabric is this nice candy stripe cotton.

Patchwork Wall Hanging

The background fabric began life as a curtain panel. I have already used part of it to make a large Christmas Tree door decoration. This is a piece I trimmed off the original to make it narrow enough to fit a door.

The larger squares are fussy cut from a panel by Benartex which featured faux log cabin blocks and these country Christmas pictures. The smaller squares are from an assortment of 2.5 inch blocks in holiday colors which I obtained from an Etsy seller.

All the blocks are sewn on in raw edge applique with the aim of having some frayed edges when completed. I quilted around the blocks for more dimension.

The backing fabric is this deep red print. It reminds me of hydrangea petals, if they came in such a color.

This wall hanging has been washed so that the edges of the blocks frayed attractively.

Xmas Quilt in Wool

Here are the blocks after embellishment and sewn together in their final placement. I will back this with some nice soft flannel. Sewing through this wool was nice. The sashing strips were from wool slacks. Most all of this wool is from upcycled garments.

The ornaments are embellished with some cool metallic ric-rac.

The holly and poinsettia mini blocks were made to fill in a gap. I love the block with the teal and white stars.

Conner is lounging while I take photos. He got his rabies vaccine today and may be a little tired.

Flamingo Quilt

Almost twin sized.

Funny, crazy flamingos celebrating the holidays at the beach.
Wonder who is getting this one?

Wool Applique Quilt

My sketched design for a wool applique quilt.

Blocks before embellishment.

Clothespin Bobbins

Eye Candy!

Almost too pretty to use!

I saw on another blog that a crafty lady made her own bobbins using wooden dowels and knobs in order to keep her perle cotton neat and ready to use. I got the idea that I could use these clothespins. They are the kind that people use to make dolls from. I wound the yards of perle cotton around the pins and secured the loose end of thread into the split in the shaft of the clothespin.

Now I am sorry that I did not buy more than one bag of these clothespins. I have loads of perle cotton that I have already wound into little balls. I do not care for it in balls because the ends come loose and tangle with the other colors.

I popped these bobbins of perle cotton into a large glass pickle jar to keep them safe from Sammy L. Jackson (the cat.) He thinks that thread is for him to tangle and drag all over the house.

Conner Hates It When I Work Late

Here is Conner this morning as I was leaving for work. He has already taken over my chair for the day and looks so innocent.

Here is the bag of shells he tore up when I was 2.5 hours late coming home because of a meeting.

Not so innocent after all!

Christmas Tree Wall Hanging

Here is the top with the star pieced from golden batik scraps. I sewed the small scraps together until I had a piece big enough to cut the star from. Stitched down with yellow thread.

Detail of the overlapping fabric strips that make the greenery for this tree. Each strip is 8.5 inches long and is stitched in place using raw edge applique by machine. At first I used wider strips the whole way down, then realized there were gaps in the material and you could see the backing fabric through the tree. I went back and stitched more strips in place overlapping some with the others. The second set of strips were more narrow.

At the bottom I added a trunk and base cut from wood grain fabric. I may add a package beneath for extra detail.

This is pretty long. It measures about 50 inches. It fits well on the door.

The background fabric was a ready made curtain panel from the goodwill. It was too wide, so I trimmed some off and hemmed the side to make it usable as a door decoration. It has perfect Christmas colors!

This is not finished yet. I plan to add some rick-rack garland and some ornaments cut from fabric and stitched in place. It will probably hang from my door at school.

More Birthday Loot!

New CDs by Lyle Lovett and Joe Nichols.

Vera Bradley Wallet--I love these because my top stub checkbook fits inside.

Thanks to Mom and Dad for these! Love you!

Flowers I got for myself!

Shawl of Envy

Detail of the fan and feather pattern of this lace scarf. Lovely intricate work done by my sister. (Thanks, honey, I love it!) This yarn is overdyed with varying shades of deep emerald green. True to its name, it inspired envy in my room-mate Mrs. Eggleston.

Lord Help Me! I have posted a picture of myself modeling the shawl. 45 years old today!

Aussie Mini Quilt

This is a quilt I received this morning as part of a swapbot swap. My swap partner lives in Australia and made this for me after reading in my profile that I love the beach. It is hand quilted and embellished with shaped buttons and charms of an ocean theme.

Interestingly enough, it will be summer soon in Australia. Can you imagine celebrating Christmas in the heat of summer? Uck.

Double Sided Wool Stars

I cut stars using my Nested Stars die from Sizzix. The wool is felted and some of it is over dyed. Others are plaid wool from skirts found at the Goodwill. Once the stars were cut, I stitched them down in various color combinations onto a solid wool background. Then I cut them out and stitched them up so that there is a design on both front and back.

A couple of these will go out on a swapbot swap.