my productive year

2010 has been an extremely productive year for my sewing. not just quilts, but sewing in general. i've made some skirts and dresses, 2 pincushions, countless bee blocks and swap blocks of every kind imaginable, a few embroidered tea towels, matching ties, a gorgeous pillow, a ton of hexies, a placemat and who knows what else inbetween... whew!!

but what i've made most of this year - QUILTS! lots and lots of quilts!!

these are my non-QOV quilts:

what's not included in the above are the WIPs. the 2 tops hanging in my closet, waiting and waiting... in one hoop, i have a quilt i started for the sisters outdoor quilt festival, but decided i wanted pearle thread instead of the thinner quilting thread. that one needs to be unstitched and redone. i have my wonky stars quilt put together and half hand-quilted, sitting in the hoop for months, neglected for the below quilts:

there are 10 QOVs in this group. that's TEN quilts of valor started and finished in 2010. not included are WIPs... like the "atlantic seas" QOV that is driving me nuts since i started it in march. by the end of this week when i ship a box to D.C., i will have donated 12 QOVs this year. that's an enormous amount for me to have made, but i had that request from the navy and i felt that i could do it. there are 4 QOVs left to make for that request and they'll just have to be put on hold.

after wednesday of next week, i will have to put all sewing, drawing, crafting, etc on hold for my shoulder surgery. i'm not looking forward to this. i know i need a break and rest, but 6-12 weeks of recovery are not my cup of tea, you know?

holy cow. i made 19 completed quilts this year. that's an average of 1.58 quilts per month. luckily, 9 of those were done by volunteer longarm quilters, but still! i need to get one more done before surgery for a baby due in late january/early february. looks like i'll be putting an IOU in the gift box.

happy holidays and happy crafting everyone!!

it's christmas eve

it's christmas eve and the house is ready for our holidays. we're keeping it a bit low-key this year since the kiddo is with his dad until sunday afternoon. but boo helped me decorate:

these little houses and cottages were all painted by my grandfather. he's sent me a few at a time during the last few years and this year he sent 3 for boo for his own collection. my grandfather wasn't able to paint a single one during this year since he's been ill and his hand shakes from the medicines. i'm afraid to say that it might be his last christmas with us and it makes this little village just a bit more special.

my tree is decorated with my hodge-podge of random ornaments. i love traditional and the oddest ones i can find. every year, i try to add at least one new ornament to the mix.

the rubber chicken is one from last year. isn't it fantastic? he's nestled in between parts of the traditional german "brides" ornament collection - the rabbit and the basket of flowers. oh! and that's a fortune cookie in glass behind his head.

and below are two of my new ones for this season:

however you choose to celebrate the season, enjoy it! i'm headed to church for our candlelight service later this evening and then spending a quiet night with snappy. maybe i'll finish binding that other QOV tonight while watching a classic movie.

holiday happenings

happy holidays everyone! tomorrow is the winter solstice and tonight is a full lunar eclipse, so there are all sorts of fun things happening during christmas week. i kicked off the weekend with baking.

boo and i decided to make some cookies to send to his dad's house before his cub scout pack meeting. here we're mixing up a batch of pfeffernusse cookies - lovely little spiced german cookies...but i used a new recipe instead of my grandmother's. not quite the same bite to them, but that's ok. boo loved them anyways.

i think i've shown you guys a picture of the lego advent calendar, right? well folks, here's the best one so far!!

yes, you are seeing that correctly. it's santa in the shower. boo made the shower on friday before school, then stuck the dad figure there (in the words of the kid: "he needs a shower because he's been on a long trip"). yesterday morning, i made the santa. he's naked. i made a naked lego figure (in the words of chickenfoot: santa scrubbing his butt). i can only imagine the blasphemy for making a naked santa in the shower on a sunday morning.

before i made santa, i was picking up a little bit of junk in boo's room while he's out. under a pile of homework, i found his wonderful letter to santa.

isn't he just the sweetest little boy?!? i love this kid. but no, i am not getting power a puppy to play with... one dog that pees on things in the house is enough. and he's not a puppy...and he's housebroken. the dog just thinks i brought him his outdoors indoors with the christmas tree. yesterday, he peed on the tree and tree skirt twice. we've cleaned. we've cut branches off the tree. we've steamed. we've yelled. today, power is locked up in the kennel while i'm at work for the first time in 2 months. ugh.

sewing is going slowly right now. i did finish binding a QOV on thursday. need pictues... no sunlight right now... i have one more to bind and make labels and presentation cases for both, then i'll ship them off to safe harbor and hopefully before new year's. i'd like to get these two on their merry way while it's chilly and our sailors need some warmth.

i get the results of my shoulder MRI today. we'll see if i need surgery or not. let's hope for the no surgery option!

HMQG - a group shot

look!! we finally have a group photo!!

it's not everyone from saturday's meeting/party, but it's a great representation of us... this is almost all of our original guild members in one photo! and we always have at least one furry friend at a meeting.

HMQG holiday party

this past weekend, the HMQG held it's monthly meeting and first annual holiday party. it was way more party than meeting, but we did bring in regular business.... after eating...

we kicked off the party with food. lots of food. what is in the picture below doesn't show a thing!! we had a couple of furry friends to help choose what we should eat while they begged for belly rubs (of which my little redhead and honorary jr. member was all too willing to oblige).



but after the first round of stuffing our faces, we did get down to business with show-and-tell and our row robin swapping. you can see a little of both in the below picture.

not all of our rows and rounds were swapped this month - we moved the meeting up a week due to the holidays and we're giving a grace period... those of us who brought finished rows did swap though. i saw another fantastic red cross row that will eventually belong to me!! i can't wait - they look awesome so far. 

then we started our secret santa swapping. boo was our elf for the day and passed out gifts from under the tree to everyone. we even had special extras made by scruffycat1970 - half-eaten gingerbread men ornaments and hexi needle cases.

snappy got a terrific ornament/FQ combo from utqtbry... 

of course, what else can you do when you post this as your mosaic? she really nailed it with this gift and it had boo talking the entire drive home on how we could arrange it on our tree.

after business was done and over, we had absolutely no sewing done. boo was a bit disappointed by that part... he was the only one who brought a sewing machine to the party and it sadly stayed in it's bag in the corner. he did had two dogs to play with.

the fun didn't stop there though! alcoholic whipped cream!!!

because everyone needs a little of this... and some of us had a little more than others... :) just watch out for that "woah! everclear!" moment upon tasting it.

it's december already?

i looked at my last post date...mid-november...sorry about that...

i've been really busy - honest! i made all sorts of bee blocks:

for xerxia in the scrapBEElooza bee

for namasbuzyquiltin in bee pieceful bee

finished my grandmother's birthday quilt:

and had a car drive up on my lawn and neighbor's lawn, taking my mailbox with them at 4am on a saturday:

i completed a few blocks for the QBE exchange, and my round robin round for the HMQG. oh! speaking of the HMQG!! we had our monthly meeting the same day as the car vs. mailbox incident and snappy's first ANG drill. at the meeting, we held our elections for the upcoming year and i was elected president of the guild. how about that!?! i have no idea what i'm going to do or what they want me to do other than just keep on doing what i've been doing... i did try to nominate boo for the position, but i was the only one who voted for someone other than myself. i didn't ask for it, but it looks like the group thinks i'm the right person for the job. i hope i live up to their expectations.

other than that, i've been plugging away at QOV quilt tops and christmas presents. i received a QOV back from the quilter 2 weeks ago and i need to finish the binding before i take pictures. that and there needs to be daylight a little longer... the scrappy string QOV top was sent off to the longarm quilter this week and i'm hoping to have it back before the end of the month so i can send these two off to D.C. there are 4 more to make to fulfill the navy's request and i've just about run out of ideas. anyone have suggestions?

pictures of christmas presents will just have to wait a little longer. there are some truly cute things being made, but not as many as i had hoped. i just don't have all the time in the world to sew, but wouldn't that be fabulous?

and... as boo said to me this morning: "happy 1st day of advent!"