Christmas Day With Family

My husband, daughter, and son's girlfriend had to work on Christmas Day. Every one's schedules were different. As a result, we ended up having our Christmas turkey dinner at 5:00 pm and then we opened our gifts later that evening once everyone was home.

In the afternoon we watched a couple of classic Christmas movies.

Once the gift unwrapping started, the paper quickly piled up in the center of the room.

I made my aunt pillowcases from the cutest Christmas cat fabric.

My aunt was able to join us this year from Saskatchewan. This year the weather was very cooperative making her journey stress free.

My daughter's boyfriend was without a stocking so part of his Christmas gift was this Christmas stocking that I made.

This is my son with his new quilt. He had asked for a quilt big enough to fit a queen size bed for when he moves out on his own in 2010.

My mom was surprised when she unwrapped her Daffodil BQ2 quilt.

We all had a great day--hard to believe that Christmas is over for another year!

Christmas Eve With Family

Last night--Christmas Eve--was spent with family.

We were able to see and hear my brother thanks to Skype.

My daughter and her boyfriend.

My son and his girlfriend.

My parents and my son.

My daughter and her godmother, my aunt.

My husband and I.

Reindeer and Lights

Last night we visited a local garden supply store to see the reindeer and light display.

Last night was the last night that Dancer and Vixen would be visiting our community before they had to head back home to the North Pole to go back to work with Santa Christmas Eve.

This was my first time seeing reindeer. The two reindeer on display were both females--a mother and daughter. Usually the female reindeer do not shed their antlers. However, one of the reindeer was without one of her antlers because our climate is warmer than she is used to.

In past years, the light display had been set up outside of the garden supply store. This year, the lights were indoors and interspersed amongst the plants and displays. We really enjoyed walking through the store looking at the lights.

After enjoying the lights, we had a nice supper at a local restaurant and then headed home. What a perfect low stress way to spend an evening enjoying the sights of the season.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Quilt, Quilt, Quilt

I have been busy in my studio since we came home from our holiday in Alaska this fall. I have quilted 9 quilts for customers and 4 quilts for myself (Fall Warm Wishes, Daffodil BQ2, Rooster Strip Twist, and Dryer Sheet Diamond String).

Most long arm quilters would not feel that quilting 13 quilts in 3 months is that big an achievement, but keep in mind I have a full time day job on top of my quilting.

These are pictures of the customer quilts.

All quilts except one were quilted using Circle Lord's templates.

The squares on this quilt were quilted in the ditch using my Bernina dsm.

I still have some customer quilts to finish, but thankfully, everything that was required to be completed prior to Christmas is now finished! I am now working on deadlines for after New Year's.

Birthday Celebrations

My birthday was November 24th. Since I was out of province on business on the 24th, we celebrated my birthday on Saturday night.Tradition in our family was always an angel food cake for on your birthday. This year was no exception to that tradition.

This is my DH and me. The photographer was my son.

After supper we retired to the family room. It was a nice relaxing way to celebrate a birthday.

Current Projects

Although I have not been posting to my blog lately, I have been busy.

I finished a fall table topper for my mom. We purchased these fabrics at an Oregon Wal-Mart this summer. I have enough fabric to make myself one of these toppers as well. I have only finished one so far and that one is currently on the table in my mother's kitchen. Maybe I will have mine done for next year. I have been busy quilting customer quilts and it seems that I don't get an opportunity to work on quilting my own tops much. This fall, I have started inserting my own projects between customer quilts so that I can move my own projects forward. This plan seems to be working so far. This picture was taken Friday night and it is a top made from strings foundation pieced onto dryer sheets that I finished piecing August 1st.

I am also working on the binding on my Daffodil BQ2 quilt. I only have one corner of the quilt's binding hand sewn to the back of the quilt so far. If I am looking for a handwork project this is the one I can pick up.

These are the fabrics that I recently purchased to start a new project. I fell in love with the floral fabric and coordinating stripe. The light green fabric in the middle will be used as background--a departure from the usual white or off white background that I usually gravitate to in a project.

These fabrics will be used to make a Terry Atkinson pattern, "Got Stripes?" from Terry's new book, "Time Out Quilts".

I work on the reward system to stay motivated as I work through some of my UFO's. The reward for working on a UFO or other challenging project is to work on something new. Working on Got Stripes will be the reward for the next while.

Having several projects at various stages of the process also helps to keep things moving forward. If I feel like piecing or quilting, or doing handwork, I have something ready to go.