Christmas pics, Grandchildren

Our little grandson and I enjoyed making Christmas cookies. He likes making them, but it's pretty obvious what his favorite part is. He always hopes there will be lots of dough left on the beater and in the bowl.

We had our sons and their families at our house on Christmas Day for dinner and presents, and later games. We had such a good time; good food, nice gifts and best of all great company.

The first picture shows our younger grandson with the pajamas I made for him. The second picture is our older grandson with the scarf I knitted for him, and finally, our two granddaughters with the nightgowns that I made for them.

And last, here are our four darling grandchildren. This was taken before the great mess was created! What precious memories for us.

Christmas wallhanging

A while back a friend gave me the panel that appears in this wallhanging. I liked it so much, but just didn't quite know what to do with it. Then, what do you know! It is featured in a wallhanging in the current McCall's Quilting magazine. It's about 43 inches square. I like the way it turned out. Another plus is I could use our guild's 2009 challenge featured fabric for our winter project. The fabric is the white with silver. A friend calls the fabric the wet cat fur fabric!

Yesterday was a charity sew Saturday at a friend's house. It's fun to work on those projects at home, but it's a special treat to work on them with friends. We were told a while back that Project Linus often is lacking quilts for bigger boys, so I want to concentrate on that type of quilt for a while.


Our tree is up and the rest of the decorating is done. It feels good to have it finished. I still have nightgowns and pjs to sew, and I will get them done, but it's just not fun like quilting is. Oh, and then there's the house that needs cleaned. Too bad it doesn't stay clean for a while after cleaning.

Our dear DIL goes to the oncologist on Thursday to find out what the treatment will be for her breast cancer. We anticipate that chemo will start very soon. That will doubtless be a very hard time for her and her family. We are all so concerned.

Another Project Linus quilt

In October, some of our Charity Chicks made up kits from donated fabric, and a pattern that one of our group had designed. I took this kit and finished it a couple days ago. The quilting is supposed to be frog feet. The folks who made up the kids did a great job of finding fabric that would look good together.

I am reminded that I never did show the quilt that I made for a gift. It was for my sister-in-law and her husband in California. I'll plan to show that one in a post soon. We took it and gave it to them when we visited for a few days in November.

It has turned cold here - well, it's cold for this area. It was about 16 degrees this morning. Brrr! Hope your day is going well.!

Long time-no post

Well, I really haven't fallen off the face of the earth. We have been stricken with some very unwelcome news: One of our DDILs, age 36, found a lump in her breast. The doctor found another one under her arm, and after a mammogram and biopsy, it was confirmed that she has cancer. Following that came a mastectomy and removal of lymph nodes under her arm. They told her she will have chemo and radiation. Next is an appointment with the oncologist to find out just what the tests revealed from the surgery. She is holding up very well, and is very optimistic, but we are definitely concerned about how it will go when she starts chemo, which will be fairly soon, I imagine. This dear girl is married to our younger son, and has two darling children, a girl age 10, and a boy, age 5.

On a happier note, this sweet little lad is the one with the ill mommy. He played soccer this year, and the one picture has our son in the picture. He was the coach and did such a good job with the little guys. The boys were so cute and had so much fun, and even managed to learn a bit about soccer. The other picture is our grandson bundled up to go out in the cold a few days ago. We think he is just as cute as can be.

This quilt is for Project Linus. It stems from a quilt I completed in 2008 for our other grandson's 10th birthday. From the pattern I used for his quilt, there were approximately a million (well, more or less) waste triangles, so I sewed a BUNCH of them together and trimmed them, and came up with this quilt, that I hope some young man will enjoy. I didn't take a picture of the back, but it is football fabric.

Happy Thanksgiving

I haven't posted for a while, and a lot has happened, but more about that at a later time.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends. I love everything about Thanksgiving but the extra pounds that seem to come along with it. We have spent most of the day making pies, and they will be a hit, I'm sure, but before that we will eat more than our fill of turkey, stuffing, potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, and more. It makes me hungry to think about it!

Have a wonderful day!

Quilts from a few years ago

I don't seem to have much of interest to post about, so I thought I would show pictures of a couple lap-sized quilts I made for our sons and their wives a few years ago.

These quilts resulted from a class a friend and I took. These tumbling blocks do not have inset seams. They are constructed in strips. Anyway, this class was an experience. The teacher did not give us any written instructions or direction at all. She had some samples of the steps that she pinned up on a board, so I took my camera and took pictures of everything. I printed out the photos and labelled them, and believe me, I used those pictures repeatedly.

Our weather the last few days was absolutely beautiful, and yesterday was shirt-sleeve weather, and then there is today. Today started out pretty decent, and then this afternoon the rain and wind came. Our yard is covered in leaves again. It sounds like it will be rainy and windy for our grandsons' football and soccer games on Saturday.

I guess I'll go back to my quilting. My progress has been slow, to say the least.

Halloween and Aunt Millie

What do Halloween and Aunt Millie have in common? Well, nothing, actually. Those two things are what I wanted to include in this blog post.

I had mentioned in my previous post that our four DGC carved pumpkins (or in the case of the little DGC, he "helped carve") at our house the day before Halloween. This picture shows our sweeties with their creations.

Now, as to Aunt Millie, I bought the Piece of Cake applique pattern "Aunt Millie's Garden. A couple days ago I finished the first block. I did the applique with the back basting method, and I really do like that method. My friend Linda from http://lindaquilts-too.blogspot.com/ first demonstrated that method a couple years ago. I later found a tutorial on line and printed that out. I started on my second block last night. The predominant color in that block is purple. My current thought is that I will make four blocks and make a wallhanging, but that obviously is subject to change. I don't get these things done very quickly.

I'm baaaack!

I mentioned in my last post that I am taking a Quilt University class called More Machine Quilting. The first week we worked on different things, but mostly feathers, which I love! This week our lesson is on trapunto. I had never done it, and this is the first one I did. The actual flower pattern was provided for us. I found this one fairly easy. The stippling around it does get tedious. That's what is suggested to make the trapunto "pop."

The second photo is the next flower pattern that was provided for us. Now this one I really love, and I'm very happy with the way it turned out. I'm not so sure trapunto is for me, but maybe for something small it would be a good thing.

And then, kaboom, lest someone get to thinking too well of herself, is the third pattern we were given to try. We were to put another color fabric behind the bow, and I failed pretty miserably to get the fabric the right size. I'm not happy with my effort on it at all.

We get our third lesson tomorrow, and I THINK that one will be about whole cloth quilting. It should be interesting!

I also have been working on a quilt that I will show at a later time, as it is a gift, and I don't think the recipients view my blog, but just in case...

Yesterday our four DGC came over and carved the pumpkins we had gotten for them. Great fun was had by all, and today DH and I spent a lot of time drying and roasting pumpking seeds. Actually, DH gets almost all the credit, because he spent a great deal of time yesterday separating the seeds from the slime, and doing most of the work today.

Well, I did it again!

I had vowed I wouldn't let so much time pass between posts, and I've done it again. My main excuse was we were gone for a week and staying in a condo in Central Oregon at Eagle Crest. We didn't have internet access there, so, that's the best I can do for an excuse.

Prior to leaving, I did complete one quilt, another Project Linus quilt that I pieced a while back. For the quilting I used Rainbow thread that I got from Superior Threads. I am now in love with that thread. It's a verigated 40 weight polyster that has a very pretty sheen. Since quilting that quilt, I have ordered a couple other colors to use in other projects.










All routes through the mountains to Central Oregon are very scenic, but we decided this time to take a route we hadn't taken before, which is across the McKenzie Pass, which is a slower, very curvy, but gorgeous drive. The first picture is of the beautiful McKenzie River. Oregon has quite a few covered bridges, and this one is still in use.

On this drive we went from the lush greenery up to the stark lava fields, with beautiful mountain views. I believe the sign said that the volcano occured about 1500 years ago. It is so impressive to see mile after mile of the lava rocks, and be reminded that the mountains in the Cascade range are live volcanoes. (Remember Mt. St. Helens blowing in 1980?)


The last picture is taken at Smith Rock, out of Terrabonne, OR. We hiked there one day, and the path that is shown takes off at the bottom of the path down from the parking lot. Down was not so tough, but going back up was quite a climb. What a beautiful area this is though, and what a lovely day for a hike.

One other thing I have been doing is I am taking a Quilt University class - More Machine Quilting. I have already picked up several tips, and I'm really enjoying it.

Couple completions

These two items were close to completion in September, but were finally finished in the last couple days.

The witch table topper/wallhanging was a pattern a friend and I both decided to make. It was a fun one to do, and I am happy with it.

The knitted blanket I will give to Project Linus. It was an easy car riding and TV watching project, made with yarn that is verigated and makes those nice stripes with no changing yarn colors.

Life is good!

For some time I have wanted to go up the Columbia River Gorge and walk the Mosier Twin Tunnels trail. DH and I finally just decided we'd do it and what a wonderful day we chose. The trail is part of the old Columbia Gorge scenic highway, and it has been turned into a walking/biking trail. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. We had a lovely drive, and the trail is so nice, and we got some exercise! The area where we were is more arid than the area east of Hood River, which is heavily forested.

Our drive home was through Hood River, and around Mt. Hood. It all was just beautiful. Near Hood River we stopped at a farm stand and got a box of Jonagold apples and some pears and peaches. What a treat! There was beautiful orchard after orchard, and several vineyards.

Clouds partially shrouded Mt. Hood, which is the lovely mountain about 60 miles east of Portland, but we had some marvelous views.

DGC-again

We are so fortunate in that we see our four darling grandchildren often. They all make us laugh, and give us great joy.

This picture is of our sweet 10-year-old granddaughter. She just looks like a cute little buttercup!













This little 8-year-old pretty is pretending to knit. She has on an old pair of my glasses, and thinks she really looks swell, which she does.





Our two grandsons (ages 11 and 5) are being goofy (not uncommon) and playing karate.

More completions

Well, these aren't the quilts I'm most proud of, to say the least, but they are completed.

First is the next Project Linus quilt. I guess it's readily apparent that I have kind of enjoyed doing nine patch lately.









Next is a John Deere quilt. This one has a little story. You may recall that we went to Nebraska to help celebrate my uncle's 80th birthday in July. This same uncle has always been a farmer, and the table centerpieces, as well as the decorations, were John Deere based. It was so fitting for him. When we left my aunt's house, she gave to me a piece of John Deere fabric that had been used on a table. I decided then that I would get more and use it in a quilt. I started the quilt, and then about three weeks ago we learned that my uncle is facing some very serious health issues, so I hurried to get it completed and sent to him. It isn't the greatest quilt in the world, but hopefully he will enjoy it and know I love him.









Last is another crocheted towel. These make great TV watching or car riding projects, since I always like to be doing something.

September completion

For some time I have been wanting to do some hand applique, but just haven't gotten to it. I had printed out Anita Shackelford's Pennsylvania Plain and Fancy pattern several years ago, and finally decided to just buckle down and do it. I decided to go a different route on color and chose cream, red and black. And to top it off, all the fabric is from my stash!! Yeah! I definitely need practice, and plan to work on my skills, but I am pretty pleased with it. It doesn't have a label yet, but I'll get to it, really, I will. Why do I dislike doing labels so much? Oh, one other thing I did differently is the piano keys border. Her border was different.

Happy Birthday, Kurt!

Happy Birthday to our younger son, Kurt. Today brings back so many happy memories of him as a sweet baby and cute little guy, and now he's all grown up to be a fine man. Whatever happened to all the time that has passed? This picture is of Kurt with his two children,taken when we visited the fire station.

Weekend in Washington

We had such a lovely weekend. My sis and her husband from Tucson were visiting my niece and her hubby and baby this past week. It was easier for DH and I to go visit them than for them to travel to see us, so we went up on Friday and came home today. My niece is a top notch cook and spoiled us with delicious meals. While at their house, we visited Kayak Point park and went to Whidbey Island. The scenery was just beautiful, but the best part was being with family, and getting to know my darling little great-nephew Brayden. He is such a happy, sweet baby.

This is Deception Pass in the Puget Sound. It is really a breathtaking sight.






And this would be my sister, her hubby, and baby Brayden.








And now my niece, her hubby and Brayden at the Deception Pass Park.






And finally, DH and myself at Kayak Point.

Quilt show

Here are pictures of just a few of the quilts that especially appealed to me at our local quilt show over the weekend. I helped set up on Thursday afternoon, and then worked the morning on Friday. There was a nice turnout, and lots of inspiration. Now, if I could just get this business of needing more than 24 hours in a day figured out, it would help so much in getting things done!!