Progress on the mystery and OH WHAT A LOVELY SURPRISE

Before I went into work today I was able to get part 2 of the Roll Roll Cotton Boll to the point of pressing open and you can see the progress  in this photo as well as the strips I've been cutting from some neutral creams and whites for Part 3 of this mystery.  So much fun! Today Bonnie revealed what the quilt center will look like and it just makes me want to hurry up and get to that point. I'm planning to use this quilt on our bed. I'd love to have it completed before January 15th.

When I arrived home from work I was greeted with a tremendous surprise. Scott had installed the new fixture in the dining room and I'm thrilled with it. The light is so bright I could stay up all night quilting. I've been cutting at the dining room table these days as it's warmer in there than in the room I use for a sewing room. Mostly because we use a little electric space heater in the room we occupy the most (the living / dining room); to compensate from keeping the heat set at no more than 65* .

I had planned to stay up until midnight and welcome in the New Year but I was asked to work 9 to 3 tomorrow so I better turn in a bit earlier than planned. We went ahead and popped open one of the bottles of Champagne and announced... HAPPY NEW YEAR! At least I'm getting a few more hours and that will help with buying groceries. I also plan to sew tomorrow when I get home as they say what you do on New Years Day is what you will be doing all year long - sewing and working sounds good to me.

I hope everyone has a wonderful New Year!

2010 - A little Pictorial Revue

January - Additions to my "OLD" cook book collection - I ADORE Old cook books!

February - Nick and Tesla monitoring my progress on Robin's gown

March - Scott and I at the Clay pits - a muddy adventure.

April - Scott tried and tried to capture this butterfly and then I morphed the photos together

May - Kevin and Ronda's yearly Pig Pickin' - YUMMY!

June - Cooper River Bridge in Charleston, SC - MAGNIFICENT!

July - A Mother's Love - a surprise from my Mom arrived in my mailbox.

 August - A year of GORGEOUS Sunrises.

September - a Fall Butterfly - we had a year of brilliant butterfly spottings

October - The Congaree River has been so low this year.

November - Tesla and Nick enjoying the arrival of the space heater that we utilize when cold weather arrives.

December - sharing an evening with family 

 

REALLY!

My sewing room is a W-R-E-C-K!....

You've been warned.....

See I told you! Re-organizing will be a priority eventually... Right now I am working on Roll Roll Cotton Boll and I have a path to the sewing machine and I can still close the door. Here is part one of Roll Roll Cotton Boll...

I've got the pink rectangles cut for part two and will be cutting the brown's as soon as I post this so it won't be long until I have part two completed.

Yesterday Scott and I made Vegetable Beef Soup and Corn bread ( I made the soup and he made the cornbread). I used some of the left over beef brisquet that Greg's girlfriend, Rachel gave us and it turned out DELICIOUS!

We will have leftovers for lunch today.

Well back to playing!

A Start to Next Year's Projects

I've begun a couple projects to get this New Year started off; the first is this red and black scarf made with Moda*Dea - Fur Ever yarn that I bought on clearance for 50 cents each. I'll be using 6 skeins to complete this scarf. It's super soft and silky to the touch and will be quite long when completed. The colors aren't quite right in this photo; they are a bit deeper in value. I'm thinking someone may call it a Gamecock Scarf - now do I know any USC fan's? HHMMmmmm..... perhaps this will make it under the tree next year. 

Next I've begun cutting a bunch of 2" strips in pink and then in green for the Roll Roll Cotton Boll Mystery that Bonnie Hunter is running over on her Quiltville blog. I'm hoping that I haven't chosen colors that are too intense. Oh well - it will be MY rendition of her mystery so I guess that will be all right. I'm determined to get at least 3 quilts completed for us this year as we desperately need them with this weather turning so cold so much earlier in the season. And they will need to be WIDE as I'm tired of getting left out in the cold. I'm sure Scott would say that goes both ways - as I've left him out in the cold a number of times. 

My sewing room looks like something exploded in there and I will need to get it put back to rights before too much longer. It was just so much easier to shove things in there and close the door at Christmas but now reality has set in and WHAT A WRECK! I'm going to save you all the pain of seeing it like that. 

This afternoon I have to work 4 hours and then I can make my way home to cut more strips before it gets dark outside. I knit while watching old Adam 12's on Hulu in the evenings. We so enjoy the older shows on there. We also watch Alfred Hitchcock Presents on Hulu. I remember how they used to scare the bejeepers out of me as a kid and how I always loved how he would step into his line drawing. 

I guess I better get some breakfast made... Happy Tuesday everyone!

Christmas crafting

For SIL - Debbie a large tote, a make-up bag and a tissue holder

So now that Christmas is behind us I can show you all the things that I made this year.

Close-up of make-up bag and tissue holder

A dress for Abby

A necklace for Kandise

A necklace for Abby

A necklace for Kayla

Elf shoes for Austin

Elf shoes for Phoenix

Dinosaur back-pack for Dougie

Elephant for Phoenix

Chefs hat for Phoenix

A Monkey for Austin

SNOW at Christmas

The view out our front door this morning.

It NEVER happens - snow on Christmas is literally unheard of here. It's usually February before we even expect any but this morning we were greeted to a white yard.

After breakfast Scott and I took a walk by the river as the snow continued to fall from the sky.
By the time we got back to our car we were ready to be home and warm.

Scott is putting the finishing touches on a BIG pot of homemade chicken noodle soup and it's smelling DELICIOUS!

Scott and I near the Railroad Trestles on the River Walk

2010 Christmas Morning

We ate breakfast - opened gifts and then Greg took Rachel to Doctor's Care. She has some type of stomach bug OR food poisoning from the meal she ate at work yesterday. And she has to have a Dr excuse for missing work when all she really needed was a quiet day to recover from loosing her cookies all evening.

 We all have enjoyed this Christmas so much and have enjoyed the time together as well as the lovely gifts. Scott got me a large loaf pan so now when I make the Mexican Chocolate Cake it won't run over in the oven. And he got me a new keyboard and a mouse for my computer... it's AWESOME! OH and a new LARGE mixing bowl with a rubberized bottom so it won't wobble all over the counter when I am mixing something up. So many lovely practical things - just what I LOVE! Here are a few pictures from this morning...

Me with a book I had on my Amazon Wishlist that Greg gave to me

Scott with his joke gift - can't really list what they used to call these here as it wouldn't be Politically correct but he LOVES them!

Me being "CHEESY"

Greg and Rachel at the "Loot Table"

2010 Christmas Eve

 Last night we went to my Mother-in-law's for Christmas Eve with Scott's side of our family. It was a WONDERFUL evening with them all. Greg's girlfriend, Rachel joined us after she got off from work. We all thoroughly enjoyed the evening together. And they all spoiled us tremendously -it's good to be loved so much. I wish we could have done more for them. Perhaps if I start now I can have something EXTRA special made for each of them for next Christmas. Here are a couple pictures of what Scott and I received from them....

The envelope by Scott's pile contains checks from his Mom, His sister (Adele) and her husband (Tom) as well as his brother (Steve) and Sister-in-law (Jane) that will help us TREMENDOUSLY with our bills. We greatly appreciate their thoughtfulness. David and Debbie gave us a nice gift card as well and that will also be put to good use.

David and Debbie also got me a FABULOUS scarf - it's so soft and lovely and the colors will go with so much. And they found another quilting magazine that I haven't seen before. It has some wonderful projects in it that I want to make. They also got Scott a wonderful travel book that we will put to great use this next year.

Scott's Mom got me some bubble bath and she got Scott a lovely soft leather wallet. The wallet was like a miracle as Scott's is falling a part and he really needed a new one.  

We just had such a lovely evening!

Yesterday's Misfortunes

Misfortunes occurred yesterday morning while I was sewing - Sewed the elephants head on backwards and had to pull out the seam ripper to remove it and reattach in the right direction... THEN I sewed the monkey's head to his butt and had to pull out the seam ripper AGAIN. THEN I went to start stuffing them and found I only had enough stuffing to do the elephants head and part of a foot. SO off to Jo-Ann's with coupons in hand... yesterday AC Moore had emailed out a 60% off one regular priced item and I had a 40% off one for Jo-Ann's and used them both. I got two of the 32 oz bags of fiberfill regular price $5.99 a bag and used the coupons for a savings of.... $5.98 - it was like buy 1 get 1 free! I love that and now I have enough stuffing for maybe 4 or 5 more of these stuffed animals. I'm thinking that I could sell them on Etsy - still "thinking" I will open an account on there. Maybe thats something the New Year will hold.

I was told yesterday that they would like to keep me on after the New Year as a part-timer. Hours will be minimal at the beginning of the year as I know they always are after Christmas - it's just part of the Retail world. But I'm happy they want to keep me on. I do enjoy working there very much. Besides I will then have time to put in a fabulous garden this year. Now that the beds are all set into the garden and settled in we can finish filling them up and really utilize them this year. Right now though Scott has about 95% of them filled with garlic. We will have a LOT of garlic this next year. The seed catalogs have been arriving since October - I guess I better look through some and order some seeds. Our seeds are so old that they don't grow well. I'm thinking that I will just dump them into growing trays and see what comes up in February. They may surprise me.

Better get back to stuffing and stitching. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

MY SNEAKY Secret Sister!

 I received a box the other day with my on-line quilting friend, Diane's address on it and when I opened it I was amazed and then confused as I knew she wasn't my Secret Sister as I assigned them and then I got on-line and asked Diane why she had sent me a package she acted like she hadn't a clue as to what I was talking about so then I went to inspecting the OUTSIDE of the box  there was the postmark..... COLBERT, WA.... CLEAR ACROSS THE COUNTRY in Washington... sneaky CARROLYN! Carrolyn WAS the partner I was assigned to receive from... we all got a good giggle out of it! And get this DIANE KNEW!!! SNEAKY!

 Back to the INSIDE of the package. Well folks Carrolyn has REALLY spoiled me. There were three lovely hand knitted dish-clothes (LOVE THESE as they last FOREVER), 2 Fat Quarter bundles (1 cats and 1 Christmas/winter), 2 panels (1 cats and 1 Holiday), a really awesome shopping bag that fits over the sides of a shopping cart, and some GREAT cat buttons. I feel like a down right spoiled wretch. GIGGLE!

Yesterday I took the trays of cookies into work and you would have thought I had just shared a Million Dollars with them all. WOW! I guess people really don't bake from scratch anymore. One of the ladies in floral must have came up to me about a dozen times to figure out how I made the dipped pretzels. Perhaps I will post a tutorial on here on how I made them. It's SO EASY!