Christmas Crackers

I participated in the annual Christmas Cracker Swap on Crazy Quilting International this year. I wanted to last year but had too many things going on. Christmas Crackers are an English custom. You could sign up from 1-3 to swap, and I chose 2. What you do is take a paper towel cylinder and cut it to 7" and then stuff it with all sorts of CQ goodies and wrap it with either a plain fabric or piece a block, and embellish it or not.

This was the contents of the cracker I received from Aida.  She made a lovely pieced block which wrapped my cracker on the top, and the rest were the contents, all soft of luscious ribbons, fabrics, trims lace and lace motifs and even a tape measure, of which I can never have enough.  Thanks again Aida. I had so much fun opening this!

The next cracker I received was from Janet.  This was the wrapping of the cracker, it is even gorgeously embellished!

And these were the contents of this cracker.  It was chock full of beautiful fabric, lace and charms.  I had such a good time with this swap, I am so glad I participated this year.  Thanks again Janet, for a lovely pieced and embellished block and all the wonderful goodies inside!

SSCS Christmas Swap

As I mentioned before, I was in Chookyblue's Christmas Swap again this year.  This was the  gift I received from Kate.  It is a wonderful little primitive quiltlet, in my colors, my style, and I love it!  The beautiful ornament and quiltlet were great additions to my wonderful Christmas!  Thanks so much again! 

Happy Holidays

I just wanted to take a minute to wish you all Happy Holidays and a peaceful New Year!

I think I am just about ready, 1 or 2 more things to finish up.

SSCS Christmas Swap

I joined Chookyblue's SSCS Christmas swap again this year, and received my package about
10 days ago. I am absolutely in love with my ornament. I am still trying to figure out how to make some. It involves folding ribbon and pining them onto a styrofoam ball I think. I love the pattern of this. My Secret Santa is Kate Webster from Western Australia. My main gift is under the tree waiting for Christmas. Thank you so much Kate again, this is such a lovely ornament and it will be treasured!

I have been quiet for awhile, a lot of stuff has been going on besides my work situation. Today we are attending the funeral of my son-in-law Jeff's grandfather. This happened suddenly after he was taken in to have heart surgery last week. He was a very dear man that we loved and his death comes as a deep loss.

My father also has had critical issues. He was supposed to go on an Alaskan cruise about a week after John and I. On the way to the airport, their car was rear ended and totaled. Because he is on blood thinners, and bumped his head, he had bleeding into his brain. I found out all this while
I was on my cruise. He came home, and the next week was on the way a doctor's appointment, when he had a heart attack. They took him to the hospital, and found he had a heart attack, plus more bleeding in his brain, which they had to put a drain in, to let it out. This stay was about 5 weeks and was touch and go there for a while. He is now back home but is having problems with balance, and falling and has had several falls since, including flat on his face. I told him he couldn't afford anymore bumps to his brain, and he said he knew.

The other person we are worried about is John's mother. She has been on hospice care since John spent 5 weeks in San Diego with her earlier this year. She had a cancer on her ear, that was removed, and has apparently spread. She didn't tolerate the radiotherapy very well, and it really messed her up. They talked about extensive surgery to clean everything up, but she is too frail to survive that we feel. A chaplain came and talked with her last week and told her the time was near. She is on morphine now.

Wool DYB, Christmas RR

My work continues to be causing havoc in my life. Previous projects I have started, and not posted are the Wool round robin. I decided to make baskets for mine and asked the participants to decorate my blocks and baskets.


These were all hand-dyed wools or over-dyed wools. The picture does not really portray the true colors.

The other project I last worked on was Rose Anne's Christmas DYB. The first block was the one I worked on my own. The second block, I needed to work on a portion of it, as we had 1 of our participants drop out before we started. So we decided to also share a block.

Summer DYB, Lotto

I have had an absolutely horrendous couple of weeks at work, and have a day off to get caught up. It also happens to be our 34th wedding anniversary, and I got up and made DH some banana bread. I need to get over to Joann's when they open and get some drapery fabric. I had gotten DH some new shades for his media room, the room he spends the most time in with his movies and games. I need to made some decorative drapes and a valence to coordinate with the new shades.

I have finished a couple of projects, a couple of weeks ago. First, I finished my block for Arlene's Summer DYB.



I used some braid as the arbor, and twined some wisteria up it, with some hollyhocks and violets off to either side.

The other item I got done was a block for our circle of quilting friends. It was Molly's month last month, and she wanted us to make a block out of reproduction fabrics. I can't remember how many pieces were in this 7" block but it was a lot!

Fibreart Montage-Judith Baker Montano

Two days ago, I received a package from Dragon Threads. I couldn't for the life of me remember
what I had ordered. Well it was Judith Baker Montano's new book Fibreart Montage. I cannot praise this book highly enough, it has wonderful photographs, lessons on painting silk fabric, crazy quilting, stitches. I love it, and have only had a chance to read part of it.

Last year, right before Christmas, I was contacted by Judith, having been a student in 2 of her classes at Asilomar. She wondered if any of her students had completed, or were near completing their class projects, as she wanted to include a student's section in this new book. She gave us a deadline of the first part of 2009. I worked frantically for about a month to finish up my Pigeon Point Lighthouse project I had started in my second class, a landscape crazy.

As being one of the students who submitted our work for this book, I received a copy, with a lovely note from Judith. My work appears on page 158. Also on page 8 she has an introduction, with pictures of some of her classes. My class is the 2nd from the top, and I am sitting right
behind Judith.

What a wonderful mail day. I have been anxiously awaiting this arrival since I found out the
books were released in late October.

Flower Fairies, Ritva's block

This week I had the pleasure of working on Ritva's Flower Fairy blocks. I chose the Rose Fairy to work on. I added a little ribbon skirt, and enhanced her wings a bit, I also added some fine curly yarn for her hair and couched that down and featherstitched over it.
I added the beaded seam and the hand-dyed dragonfly and the reddish looking lace above.

I also added a spray of rosebuds.


This is the whole block I am sending off.