Christmas Fun and a Happy New Year

Happy New Year!  Welcome to 2015!  Wow.  2015.  Hard to believe.

Casey, ready for her close-up

Christmas this year was spent in North Carolina with both my family and my husband's family.  It was great to see them both within a day of each other.  Usually, it's two separate weeks.  We normally spend Christmas with one family and visit the other in January.  This year, it worked out so that we saw both families in the same visit and it was great!  Everyone seemed to really love their gifts, including the fabric Christmas ornaments that I made.  But most importantly was getting to spend time with each other.  Being in Georgia for the last 14.5 years has limited our time with both families.  This is one reason why we are looking forward to our move to Charleston; we will be able to see everyone on a more frequent basis.

And speaking of the new year, earlier today we celebrated Christmas with our furbabies who were unable to go with us to NC for our family holiday celebration.  We decided to wait and do a separate celebration with them on New Year's Day.  They all seemed to enjoy opening gifts (with a little help from the humans) and getting new toys and treats.  I've included a few pics of them enjoying the morning.

I hope that you also had a wonderful holiday!

Max and Casey getting new toys

Sissy and Trundle checking out the stockings

Trundle has claimed his stocking of toys

Sissy decided it was nap time

Max, sporting his new bandanna and waiting for a treat

Pip, watching everyone and investigating the gifts

Happy Holidays!!!

Happy Holidays everyone!  I hope that you are having a wonderful holiday season!

It's become an expected family tradition for me to make at least one handmade item for the ladies in my family (and sometimes the men too) for Christmas in addition to the usual store-bought items.  This year I decided to make fabric Christmas ornaments as seen in an earlier blog post.  I really enjoyed picking out the various fabrics and even had a fabric swap with one of my friends, Kelley, who is also making a few for the holidays.  I ended up making almost twenty ornaments!  Boy, were my fingers sore from all those pins!  Even with a thimble.  Ha ha ha!  But they were a joy to make and I thought I'd share a few with you to celebrate the holiday season.  I will definitely have to make a few more just for my tree next year!  I do hope that everyone will love them when they open their gifts tomorrow.

Quilted Christmas Ornaments

A couple of weeks ago, I was looking for Christmas ornament ideas to make as gifts this year for my family and friends.  It's become a tradition that I give everyone at least one handmade gift each year for Christmas.  I knew I wanted to do something that people could use during the holidays but I wasn't sure exactly what it was that I wanted to try to make.  I love using fabric and I had a lot left over from the rag candle-rings I made for everyone last year.  I searched Pinterest (the best place ever to get ideas) and ran across "quilted" ornaments.  I located a quick how-to video on YouTube and decided to give it a try.

The first one I completed has a white center with black and white polka dots and a red and white Christmas fabric.  The lines are not exactly straight and the ribbon I used for the top of the ornament came out a bit floppier than I like; however, I think it turned out really cute for a first try.  I added a red pin to the center of the star on each side just to add a bit more color. 




I'm pleased with the second ornament as well. For it, I used a Santa fabric for the center along with red and white polka dots and a striped fabric in holiday colors.  (Can you tell yet that I really love polka dots?  They make me smile.)  I think that both ornaments turned out really well and I'm looking forward to working on the others that I will be giving as gifts this year.  They really do look "quilted" even though there is no sewing and no glue.  I have a huge stash of fabric that I get to use for my others but... I may still have to go shopping for just a bit more to add a bit of variety. :-) 

Scenic Bridge Update - 5.12.14

As I mentioned in my last post, I joined an online SAL through Facebook that ran from Friday, 5/9/14 through Mother's Day on Sunday, 5/11/14.  I did make a little progress but wasn't able to stitch as much as I wanted to.  However, it was for a good reason as my husband's family came into town for the weekend and a local barbeque festival held on Saturday.  We had a great time over the weekend and it's always good to see my in-laws.  I'm lucky that way! :-)  On the down side though, I wasn't able to complete as much on Scenic Bridge as I had wanted.  The good news is that I believe there is another online SAL coming up very soon so I'll keep stitching away on this one.  You can see my progress in the photo below.  The top picture is my "Before" and the bottom is the "After" photo.

Progress as of 5.8.14 (top) and 5.11.14 (bottom)