Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Double Delight

Happy New Year's Eve everyone. I have decided to do Bonnie's Double Delight, the latest Quiltville Mystery, even though I have plenty of other projects to work on. One thing for sure is that I decided to use fabrics from my stash, so at least I don't have to feel guilty about making any new purchases.

I still have not decided whether or not to take Judy's Stashbusting Pledge. She has a great though provoking post about stashbusting here. But, I am weak and there are so many great sales right now, with more to come I am sure! So I decided to take the coward's way out and start a new quilt with stash fabrics.

This is what I chose below. The red, black, blue and whites are all from a coordinating bundle designed by Alex Anderson that I purchase about 4 years ago. I think it is called Remembrance. The yellow I bought some time ago, just because I liked it. I am going to use the yellow where Bonnie uses the double pinks, so I will have only one print here instead of a variety. I don't know if it will work but we will give it a try.

I made a few blocks this morning. So far so good. It will take a lot of trimming time, but hopefully it will be worth it when it comes to matching seams and not cutting off points. I don't have the ruler Bonnie recommended, but this little Omnigrid works pretty well.

Back to the sewing room.

Donna

Friday, December 26, 2008

Thank you Kate!

Well it was sure fun on Christmas morning to open my SCSS gift. There were so many lovely surprises inside. Thank you so much Kate! First there was this darling Christmas hanging. There are red bells at the bottom, but I cut them off when I rotated the picture. It will hang in my family room on my quilt rack.

Then there was this magazine and a postcard from where Kate lives. Oh those beaches look so lovely. I adore all of the Australian magazines and I am looking forward to enjoying this issue. One of the things I have been wanting to learn to do is stitching.
Kate sent me the goodies below which should put me on to a great start. Little does she know she may have to get me started with email instructions! There was also a yummy bag of cookies that I think my son already ate before I could get a picture. Finally not to be outdone this is the bundle of fat quarters my hubby got for me, along with lots of other gifts. He is well known at the quilt store. He always buys fat quarters, two of each pattern at a time. It is great for stash building and since I love to make scrap quilts, these always fill in for missing colors or patterns to add that extra touch. They are special too since I know he picked them out when I look at the finished quilt.
I hope you all had a lovely Christmas. It was wonderful at our house.

I am pondering whether or not to continue my blog. I started out with great intentions, but always seem to have a long time between posts lately. I do love to see all the other blogs out there though, and it doesn't seem right to lurk but not participate. We shall see.

I hope you all enjoyed the SCSS exchange. Thanks so much to Donna for organizing this. It must have been a lot of work for her.

Happy Holidays,
Donna

Saturday, December 6, 2008

My SSCS gift arrived this week. I was out of town on business, so it was a nice surprise to come home and find this waiting for me. I will wait patiently until Christmas to open this parcel. Thank you Santa.



I have only done the minimum on Christmas decorating so far. My tree is up, sadly without any ornaments. My teenagers do not have time to help and I have not been home. Maybe we will just have twinkly lights this year. It seems like I only just put those ornaments away a few days ago!
I have hung a few of my Christmas quilts. At least I have a little bit of decorating done.


Donna