I got Grandma Quiltin!!

So you all pretty much know that the mother-in-law is living with us, and she helped sew pajama pants so I decided to try and get her quiltin'.

She made one heartstings style block last night, but I think she's up to making more. Here's her first block ever! OK so I have lots of Thimbleberries leftovers.

From 2009-01

When you come to a stop?

Yesterday, I got three quilts prepped and stitched on the zippers ready to be loaded on the machine. I'm finally getting Susan's quilt on the machine. She gave it to me in Sept/Oct and said it wasn't needed until after the first of the year. So of course, it got delayed until then. Well, now it's on the machine and the beautiful fabric that she picked for the borders doesn't work with any of the thread I have here in the studio. So... I had to order some more thread! And so now, I'm stalled until the thread arrives. What should I do? I thought about unzipping it and putting another quilt on, but that quilt probably won't be finished by the time that the thread gets here and I'll feel like I need to get Susan's quilt back on. So I decided that I get to work/piece on the Happy Ric Rac quilt that I've been working on.

What do you do when you get stopped in your tracks working on a project????

Another quilt for Niquie

My Quiltin' BFF could probably keep me in business by herself with all the quilts she makes. I have a pile of her quilts waiting to be quilted.

From Drop Box

Then she'll throw another quilt my way saying, "Could you get this quilt done for my friend's daughter who is getting married next week, and I made this for her?" So I don't know if I'll ever get caught up on her pile between customers who actually expect their quilts to be finished and the emergency ones that Niquie has me quilt.

This one didn't make getting quilted before the wedding, but she presented the top to the bride at the reception, and I got it quilted 2 weeks later. That's soon enough right?

From Drop Box

The back was a solid black, so I put variegated in the bobbin and it was so fun to see what the backside looked like when I finished.

From Drop Box

Wedding Quilt Success!

My friend got on the plane to Ohio today with her Gi-normous quilt neatly tucked in her luggage! Woo Hoo. I quilted it all in one day. Whew! The next morning pulled out the ping pong table to put the 102" x 106" monster on to trim. It was right next to my sewing machine, so I left it up there and got it bound too. She was major HAPPY!

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

A Helping Hand

My good friend Ronnie's hubby stopped me at church a week and half ago and told me that she could use a little bit of help getting her quilt finished for their daughter's wedding, and would I mind calling her. So I dropped by and she was putting together an Eleanor Burn's Trip Around the world. She got a couple of strips in the wrong order, so I brought that half home to unpick and put back together while she worked on the other half.

From Drop Box

Finishes. (I stole that from Mary)

A lovely lady in our neighborhood is making quilts for her 7 grown children and I had the privilege of quilting the first 2 of them. Aren't they beautiful?

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

Now back to Quilting!

So I had a very special request during my Holiday break. The Lizzie Be Cre8ive gals asked me to quilt a quilt for their upcoming book!!! I was so excited, not just to quilt for some pretty terrif quilters, but my first quilt to be in a book! It did make the week between Christmas and New Year's kind of crazy and a few days after New Year's. But it was definitely worth it. I had so much fun quilting on their way cute quilt. I got permission to post a small Picture! Woo Hoo! I hope you'll check out their book and all it's cute projects when it comes out for Spring Market.

From Drop Box

Breakfast and Presents

Another Tradition - Crepes for Breakfast.

From Drop Box

So after the picture on the stairs we go around the corner and see what Santa has brought and then we eat breakfast. I know I'm a mean mom and we've done this ever since the kids were small. I hate for Christmas to be over so soon, so we eat breakfast before we open the rest of the presents. Oh and did I mention? We don't get up on Christmas morning until 7? I think that's how the everyone sleeping in the same room began. So when they do get up early they have someone to talk to while they wait til 7. This year however, Dad and I woke everyone up!

Amanda, Jason, and baby Nora arrived in time to help scarf down the crepes and then we opened presents.

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

Christmas Morning

Another Christmas tradition is a Picture on the stairs before we head around the corner to see what Santa brought.

From Drop Box

I left most of my wrapping until the day before Christmas which isn't a good idea because you might run out of wrapping paper and then what do you do. Well, if you have lots of fabric like I do, you discover that you have reusable wrapping "paper"! I also discovered that a 1/2 yard of fabric is just about perfect for wrapping a shirt box!!! Unfortunately I didn't take close up pictures of my fabric wrapped boxes. (I had plans to, but I forgot after I was done) However, I did take a picture of how the 3 year old stacked those packages in front of the tree! We have a tower!

From Drop Box

Christmas Eve

When the kids were younger we used to have them act out the Nativity Story and it was a bit hectic. As they got older we resorted to just reading it out of the Bible. This year I was trying to get them together to read, and they weren't cooperating. So I said, "We can read it or you can acti it." Guess What? They opted to Act it. So in less than 10 minutes they pulled together costumes and decided who would be what.
So I tried to load the video which is really quite cute. But I guess my video isn't supported by Blogger, or I just don't know what to do. So I'll keep trying. It's just frustrating because I don't have hours to figure this problem out.

Somewhere back a few years the kids created their own tradition. Everyone sleeps in one bedroom on Christmas Eve. So they moved mattresses into the biggest kid's bedroom and squished in.

From Drop Box

I've Decided To. . . .

Well, after the suggestions, I'm following Mary's advise. I am using my blog as a journal of sorts, and I love how she keeps us up to date daily. Mine was unfortunately not daily, but I'm going to catch you up in a daily manner.

So Dec. 22nd.

We have had a family tradition of making Pajama pants for the family at Christmas time. Opening them on Christmas eve and wearing them on Christmas day. It ends up all day because we're too lazy to change out of our Pajama pants. Then we all have matching PJs for the rest of the year. Well, in years past I've been the primary cutter, and sewing person (I put sewer, but that looks like sewer and I'm not a sewer. :o}) This year I had a brilliant idea to involve everyone and create an assembly line. Let's just say that I think it was easier doing it all myself!!!! Enjoy the slideshow.

OK, so I did the slideshow on Rockyou and everytime I tried to copy and paste the code to my blog someone elses slideshow ended up in my blog!! FRUSTRATING. Any suggestions on how to do a slideshow? I've done the picasa YouTube one, but I don't like their linking movies from my blog that I have no control over. Suggestions????

So did I mention that we also dipped carmel chocolate pretzels this night also??? Too MUCH!

From 2008 - 12

Amanda and Jason cut out the PJs

From 2008 - 12

Nora jumpied around and did an Aunt Jemima impression

From 2008 - 12

We got Grandma Rosy in on the action! Woo Hoo look at her go!

From 2008 - 12

the Kung Fu kings and princess

From 2008 - 12

Patrik and Morgan on the sewing machines

From 2008 - 12

Ooops! Now how did that happen??????

From 2008 - 12

What to do. . . ??

I know I haven't posted for almost a MONTH!! AAAHHHH! How did that happen. Well the holidays and family happened, and I guess I'm just not talented enough to keep up with the family stuff and blogging. Maybe it's the same reason I can't keep plants alive!! It's either the kids or the plants, but I'm not talented enough to keep both alive!!!

So then, everytime I turn on the computer I have Blogger dashboard as one of my start up tabs, and I've just been ignoring it because I have so much to get everyone caught up on. So what do you do? Do you try to post all the past pictures and get everyone caught up on what's been happening or do you jump in and just start in the NOW???

i really need help! someone tell me what to do. . . .