The Holiday House!

Welcome to our holiday house!  (My husband wants to be Santa when he grows up!)  Hope you enjoy the photos of our home and some other random stuff!

The blown glass tree in the music room.  18 years of collecting blown glass ornaments from great artists and from around the world.  The Sydney Opera House, The Empire State Building, Cinderella's Castle, The Eiffel Tower, and many more trips immortalized in glass. 

The Nutcracker tree or as my kids call it, the present tree because the gifts go under this one!  

Close up of the Nutcracker tree.

Nuts about Nutcrackers

One of the matching pair of Santa trees.  I promise we fixed that ugly cord stretched across there and cleaned up the buffet!

The other Santa tree

Close up of my white tree with all of the homemade felt ornaments.  I love this riot of color!

Prissy little bedroom feather tree

A stack of homemade gifts ready to be wrapped!

Homemade hotpad 

Homemade hotpad 

Homemade hotpads

Another quilt made for my friend's grandchildren out of her great grandmother's quilt squares.

And yet another quilt made for my friend's grandchildren out of her great grandmother's quilt squares.

The clean side of my happy place!  Let's ignore the other side because it's a hot mess!

New composition book cover.  Christmas present for a 13 year old!

So proud of this baby for running her first 5K last weekend!  Dad and both kids ran but I didn't seem to get a shot of Tucker!  They wanted me to run but someone had to hold their coats:)  (Not to mention the only way I could run would be if someone was chasing me with a knife!)

Where Did November Go?

It seems like I was just rejoicing over it being November and now it's practically over!  My mom says time speeds up as you get older.  I'm 38.  Is that older?  Here are some photos of the past week's projects.  I don't have tons to show because I've been busy decorating the house for Christmas and sewing costumes for our production of A Christmas Carol, and fixing Thanksgiving dinner, and shopping Black Friday sales!  I am, however, in the middle of an exciting project for a friend of mine.  She found a box of quilt squares and pieces that her great grandmother made and asked me to turn them into quilts for her grandchildren.  The squares have to be at least 50 years old.  They are kind of discolored and very dirty.  I've completed this quilt and have three more in the works.

Emma Jane Stamey-World's Greatest First Grade Teacher and my dear friend!

2nd quilt top backlit from the sun coming in my sewing room window!  My husband says he sees faces in this one!

I've also completed eight Christmas placemats that match my favorite Christmas dishes, The Twelve Days of Christmas by Rosanna Bowles.  I used these for Thanksgiving and only had eight at the table.  I'll get to the other four placemats eventually!

                                        

I've also completed a few more Farmer's Wife blocks but honestly, this may have to wait until after Christmas!

I know that this block is not right but it may stay this way anyway!  It's cute and I like it!

So that's about it for now!  All kinds of Christmas secrets are being kept at my house and I can't wait until everyone knows everything!  Things are stacking up to be extremely exciting!

Thankfulness

November is my favorite month!  It is the month where thankfulness is celebrated and I have so much for which to be thankful.  One of my favorite activities is to ask my students what they are most thankful for...When I did this last week, a second grader told me that he was thankful for his super powers:)  I'm thankful that no one has yet dashed his dreams and he still thinks that humans can have super powers.  I am thankful for so many things and people and the constant presence of God in my life.  I'm also thankful sewing!  It keeps me sane.  Here are a few projects from the weekend!

 New pillow for a Christmas gift!

 The beginning of a new string quilt!

My progress on The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt!

The Halloween Recap!

Well, Halloween is over again.  Somehow the costumes got made.  Macy's school decided to have storybook character day on Halloween so we decided she'd be Little Red Riding Hood and that could double as her Halloween costume.  The red wool cape with red and white polka dot lining was a BIG hit!  She said all the girls at school were begging to try it on which really made her day.

Tucker couldn't decide on a costume and was worried that he was too old for a costume and trick-or-treating so he dreamed up this orange shirt that says "costume".  I love his personality.  He's really learning how to be a smart aleck without being bad or getting in trouble (most of the time!)  I had an extra shirt and extra iron-on letters so I made Jerry this shirt!  He and Tucker went to The Freak Show at our church on Halloween night.  It is sort of a haunted house about the seven deadly sins and is pretty intense.  Jerry screams like a girl even when he sees a spider so I knew this shirt would suit him well for The Freak Show.

                                                         

In other sewing news, I did finish and bind this quilt last weekend and finish nine boxed make-up bags in laminated cotton for Christmas gifts!  That plus the Halloween costumes...I was on fire.  Lest you think I'm great, I totally ignored my family for most of the weekend and got aggravated when they wanted me to cook!

                                                          

Something New and Something New

This one is pieced... Maybe it'll get quilted tonight.  I've loved this red/aqua combo and these delicious little characters on Aneela Hoey's little apples.  Aneela's blog is fun to read too!  See the little hambone in my photo! 

And LOOK what was in yesterday's mail!  My Bonnie and Camille Ruby fabric!  It might be too pretty to cut yet!  This is destined to be a wedding present for someone!  Camille Roskelly's blog is another of my favorite reads!  All of her things are so matchy perfect!  Someday when I grow up, I'm going to be matchy perfect....maybe.

Gearing up for the weekend!  Hope yours is wonderful.  It's supposed to get cold here in beautiful North Carolina.  Perfect weather for sewing but I'm not so sure that I want to watch a double header on Saturday morning when it's in the 40s.  The life of a baseball mom!

A Productive Weekend!

This weekend was a great time of finishing things up!
The 4 pillow covers for the sofa,

 This baby quilt sandwiched, quilted, and bound!

 I really love the way the quilting looks on the plain yellow kona cotton backing!  The stars really show up with the light grey thread.

 And this new quilt is on the table!  It's a plus quilt made from Aneela Hoey's Little Apples Fabric!

Children at Play!

A more traditional quilt with a bit of wonkiness!  This quilt top is made from the super fun "Children at Play" fabric by Sara Jane for Michael Miller fabrics.  I only have a few of the "boy" prints which are included here but I have many of the girlie pink fabrics from this line and can't wait to start on them!  Maybe this one will get quilted this weekend (between baseball games and A Christmas Carol rehearsals!)

Have a nice weekend!

I've been wanting to do this for a long time...

Today marks the time when I finally got busy and started the blog!  It may look tacky for a few weeks but give me time.  I will figure all of this out!  Here are some photos of recent projects!

 This is me.  You won't see many photos of me on here.  I'm a little camera shy!

 This is a recent baby-boy quilt made with the sickeningly cute Pooches and Pickups fabric!

And finally, a close-up of my crooked seams!  Ah well, when you wash it the crinkly goodness is irresistible!