Busy Busy December

First up, we took a trip to Disneyland.  This is my daughter Ashley and my granddaughter, Emily.  Living just a few miles from Disneyland, it seems we have several friends who work there and lucky us, we sometimes get into the park for free.  Woohoo.  This was Emily's first trip to the Happiest Place on Earth so Aunty Stephanie bought her a Minnie hoody to wear that day.  It was chilly for us sissy Californians.  :)

 

 

Everything is SO beautiful at Disneyland at Christmas time.  I have been lucky and have gotten to go the last few years.  I love Christmas anyway but add twinkly lights to the already amazing rides and castles...it just doesn't get any better than that.

 

 
I didn't think I'd get any holiday baking done this year with my little "distraction" but my daughter (and Emily) went to her in-laws for a week before Christmas.  That freed me up to do some baking.  There is something about a toddler grabbing your pant legs and "oohing" to be picked up while you're trying to work in the kitchen.  I can't say no and I know this time will be short lived so I cave.  Heck, this time next year, she'll be wanting to play with the dough so I guess I'll have a helper from here on out.

I bought a book from Current when my kids were little about some "gingerbears" who are like the shoemakers elves and help a couple prepare for Christmas by baking for the wife, putting a toy together for the husband, doing the baking and the dishes, etc.  I love that story (probably because I WISH I had gingerbears help me at Christmas!!) and I like to cut my gingerbread into little bears.  :o)
 

 

There's a lot of Emily in this post but tis the season to enjoy a 13 month old at Christmas.  We took her to see Santa even though she is being raised Jewish and celebrates Hanukkah, I wanted a photo for me so off we went to the mall.  She didn't cry which surprised us.  (We did bribe her with a candy cane.)

 
This is our tree this year.  I was a little worried about how dry our tree was last year so this year we bought a live tree from a tree lot where they cut it down after you chose it.  Five days after Christmas and it still feels good and it's still drinking water, thank goodness.  It was hard to switch from a Noble Fir to this Douglas but once all the decorations were on it, it looked good and to not be all dried up...totally worth it!

 

I made Emily's stocking when I went to visit my sister last month.  I made this one for her and my sister made two for her twin grandbabies using the same pattern. 

 

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas.  Have a safe New Year and let's finish some quilts this year!!  :o)



December Already???

It's been a long dry spell with no posts on my blog.  I didn't mean to neglect it so badly but I'm going to try to be better.  I have just been busy with life and traveling.  Things have settled down since my last trip to Turkey.  We celebrated my granddaughters first birthday last month.  My, how time is flying by with this little one.  She is such a character and I can't wait to see what the next year brings.

 

 

A few weeks ago I decided to actually attempt a quilt job on my domestic machine.  It's a queen size for our bed and I got all the stitching in the ditch done around the sashing and borders.  I got a few diagonal rows done and now here it sits.  Why?

 

 

Because of this!  The Bonnie Hunter mystery, Grand Illusion Mystery.  I am doing turquoise, red, and green as my main colors and following Bonnie's pattern with the black and yellow.  A mystery during the holidays!!??  What a glutton for punishment!

 

 

 I hope to have some updates on completed steps as the weeks progress.

Baby Quilt, Turkey bound

If you haven't yet, go to this post from last Friday and leave a comment to enter the drawing for some free goodies to celebrate my 500th post.  Now onto post #501.  :o)

 

My husband asked me if I could make a baby quilt for a lady that works with him in Turkey.  I was able to get enough fabric from my stash to make the quilt but ran into a little problem when it came to the binding....arghhh!

 

 

I wish I would've intentionally made the binding scrappy but since I thought I had enough and didn't think I would be short, I had to get very creative.  Ahhh, hindsight!!  I was able to piece scraps together and make it work but it wouldn't win any prizes.  It is a quilt to be used and loved and 'hopefully', the recipient's mommy won't see the flaws in the binding.

 

While I was quilting this quilt, my little granddaughter Emily needed a little babysitting while her mommy took a shower.  These pictures are from about a month ago and she has since mastered sitting up and doesn't need this little seat anymore but with that being said, she is "grabbing" everything in sight.  I doubt she'll be sitting on my sewing table from now on.  Well, until she wants to sew something.  I'm guessing that will be at least a few years from now.  :o)

 

 

Do you see the collection on the shelf?  She already stares at everything in this room and my paper crafting room.  She can't focus.  I think I give her eye-overload or something.  lol

 

 

 



 

The quilt was given the (Emily) seal of approval!

 

 

This was the finished quilt...minus the slobber.  lol  The quilt is from a charm book my friend bought at Road to CA.  It's a great quilt for charms but I used the same focus fabric in the center blocks and the border because I had enough.  I had already used this fabric before so it was nice to try and use it up and make a little room (very little) for other fabric.

 

Poor neglected bloggy...

Maybe I should start a holiday blog.  Just stopping in to say Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas!!!  I loaded these pictures about a week and a half ago but never got on to edit and write up a post.  So sorry friends.  Things should be looking up though with Christmas behind us now, I hope to be a little more blog-post-friendly.  :o)  Even though Christmas was yesterday, I'll still finish this post and then move on. 

Here's a picture of my Christmas tree with my many strings of lights.  It takes me a long time to put the lights on because I wrap them around each branch like the artificial trees are done.  I just love the way it looks so much better than just looping them around the outer branches of the tree.

 

Here is the outside of my little house.  I always joke about it looking like a 'runway'.  I got those big Christmas bulbs/lights from Michael's and I line the walkway with them.  I think it would be so cute to string them from the roof but I can't afford to buy that many.  

 

There was an itty-bitty bit of crafting done before Christmas.  I made this tulle Monster wreath for my friend's sons birthday party.  It's a Monsters Inc. theme and my oldest daughter saw this on Pinterest so I copied it.  It came out pretty good even though my glue gun melted the bottom of the eyeballs.  lol  I had to use tacky glue instead.

My son-in-law's sister bought our little Emily her first Christmas ornament.  Kind of funny because they are Jewish but she knows I celebrate Christmas and that we would have a tree.  Speaking of which, it is SO dry, I need to take it down already.  I want to be sewing but that has to take priority.  I think I'll sew a little, take down the tree, sew a little, take off the lights, sew a little....you get the idea.  hehe

 

Speaking of little Emily, here she is at about 5 weeks old.  She started to smile on cue.  My goodness, this girl has us all wrapped around her little finger.  This is the reason there were no handmade ornaments this year and a lot less baking for the neighbors.  lol

 

 

I "finally" started the Celtic Solstice Mystery by Bonnie Hunter.  I'll share some of that tomorrow.  I hope you had a wonderful Christmas!

A Little Pumpkin and A Big Pumpkin Have Arrived

This little bundle of love, Emily, arrived a little bit early.  She was due on November 10th but decided to show up on November 6th at 11:30 a.m.  She was 10 lbs. 2 oz. and 20.25" long.  We are so excited and have lost our hearts to this little wonder....just like people told me it would happen.  This is her first day in the hospital...

 

...and this was just a few days later.  Sigh.  Melts my heart.

Not a great photo but Richard surprised Ashley by a trip home from Turkey.  This had a few of us in tears!!!

I haven't stitched one little piece of anything because all I do is stare at this!  Her little onesie says "the best thing since sliced bread".  :) 

 

I'll try to get some sewing done soon to share something other than baby pics but I'm not making any promises!  lol