Final Finishes for 2012!

To finish up 2012 - it's Morsel, the December A Year of Schnibbles!  I just decided Saturday night that I wanted to do some of these - love those .pdf files that you can purchase.  I wouldn't have been able to do these if I had to go out to hunt for the pattern, but clicking and printing is so easy.  The two on the left were made with a candy pack of Marmalade.  I added some rickrack and French knots to the left one, and added one of my grandmother's old buttons to the middle one.  The right one is made with leftovers from fabrics from the quilting cruise I took in August, so this is a remembrance from that fun trip.  I added some antique buttons to that one, too.  These were really fun to make, and I may make some more. 

Besides the holidays, we've been doing a lot of this:

We've had 21" of snow in the last week and a half.  The first 15" came the Thursday before Christmas - that storm was when this picture was taken.  Since then, we've had another 6".  We're about full up on places to put snow. Plus, I missed out on all the quilt shop after-Christmas sales, since I didn't want to drive on slick roads.  Probably a good thing for my wallet, though...

I made a couple new Christmas tree ornaments for this year.

The sheep is from the Primitive Blog Hop and is free here. The Noel ornament is a Primitive Gatherings pattern from a couple years ago.  I won't have much time to look at them on the Christmas tree this year, but I'll be really surprised when I open the box next year!  I'm sure I'll have totally forgotten them by then.

Hope everyone is having a nice New Year's Eve!  I've got to go do some internet shopping now, since my bricks-and-mortar shopping was thwarted by snow!

Design Wall Monday - December 17

It's December 17, so it's time to start some Christmas presents!  I did start a Christmas present this weekend, but in an effort to not drive myself crazy, I think this will be a gift for Christmas 2013.  I bought this pattern at Primitive Gathering's Christmas Open House, and have been chomping at the bit to start it. 

Here's a closeup of one end.  Don't look too closely - miniature piecing isn't completely my thing, but I gave it a shot!  The little corner connectors were only 1 1/8" square.  The friend this is intended for isn't a quilter, so I don't think she'll be too critical of the piecing.  I'm ready now to give the snowmen some blanket stitching and faces and arms.  This whole runner is only 12 1/2" wide, so it should be easy to machine quilt.  The ends of the runner are cut off at an angle after the stitching- you can probably see my chalk lines for that. 

So that's what's on my design wall.  With Christmas coming up so fast, I don't think my design wall will be seeing much action for a couple weeks.  Hopefully, I can show this as a finished product before too long!

A Christmas Party

SewCalGal is hosting a virtual Christmas party today, so I think I'll join in!  The party is a fund-raiser for Operation Homefront - go to her blog to check it out.

We're ready for our party - all the rabbits and bears have on their holiday finery!

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is our Cathedral Mouse tree.  A church in our area makes Cathedral Mice ornaments, with a different theme each year.  They've been doing this since the 1960s, so they've thought of a lot of themes!  This year's mouse was a Fitness Mouse - a girl with an iPod and earbuds, and a boy with little barbells in his hands.  Mouse Pickup Day is always the first Saturday of December, so that's when the Christmas season starts for me.  There's also a bake sale and craft sale there, too, so it's a fun errand. 

We have a small tree with just the mice on it - you can see the golfer, a Milwaukee Brewer, a jester, Santa, a railroad guy, and lots of others in this picture.   This tree creates quite an opportunity for our cat - she loves to bat at these and knock them off the tree.  Then if the dog picks it up to play with, the dog gets in trouble - it's a win-win for the cat!

The elves have been busy in Santa's workshop, too.  I've finished a few cosmetic bags for our guild gift exchange this Thursday.  This is a bag with a vinyl inset so that you can see what's in the bag.  I just love them, and I've even conquered my fear of zippers with these.  The pattern is "What's in Your Bag?" from Stitchin' Sisters.

A couple new ornaments are prepped for stitching.  When I was decorating our big tree, I pulled out an ornament I made in 2010.  I really like these ornaments, so I thought I would make a couple more to tie onto gifts this year.  These are a pattern from Primitive Gatherings.

And speaking of Primitive Gatherings, I finished the free pincushion from their Christmas Open House.  This is a Christmas gift for myself.  It was fun to make.

Thanks for dropping by my Christmas party!