It's Getting to Look A Lot Like Christmas

My Main Nativity Set

I had the nicest compliment any one could pay me the other day about my house.  My friend said, "Your house looks magical for Christmas."  She thought my quilts added a lot.  WOW did that make me feel good!

I have always thought it did but it was nice to hear it.  When I told Mr. B. he agreed but he has never taken the time to mention it.  So I am going to share some pictures of my "Magical Christmas Home"

My Angel Area

The big Angel is a tree topped but it too heavy to place on the top of the tree, so on the table it sits. 

The sofa area

My little 3 candle holder, I like to put in the window of the front bedrooms but I would forget to plug them in, so this year I am trying the living room.  I still have to add the candles to the spinning creche. I only light these on Christmas Eve and maybe Christmas morning. 

Pyramid one lit

Lit in 2008 this one is from Germany

Jingle Corner

Santa in the kitchen

Tree and Stockings

You can read a post about my stockings and close up pictures of each one here.  This is from my Genealogy blog and Christmas traditions and memories.

Christmas Quilts

Under the main Nativity

Santa Quilts

Merry Christmas!!

On line Shop

One of my friends has opened a little on line store, please check it out.
Berryvine Quilts.

First Mini Quilt of 2010 Finished

I don't know why I agonized over this little class sample so much but I did. Now it's done and I will take it to the shop tomorrow. I'm happy with how it turned out. The next step is to make my handouts. I do have to redraw it in EQ6 since I changed it a little while I was making it today. Oh in case you are wondering what that little mark is on the bow of the large sail boat is, it is FL. If I was going to have a sail boat I would want to be in FL with it, not here in AZ.


Since I am going to the shop and I'll be teaching EQ6 in February I decided to remake my EQ6 class poster and take it down tomorrow. I like the layout of this one better than my original poster.

Now all I need is for students to sign up for the classes.

Quilting Goals 2010

Happy New Year to all my Blogging Friends
I sure hope everyone will have a good year and will be blessed with Health & Friendship and the Important Things in Life.

I have of course have been reflecting on the last year and the year to come. First for my quilting goals for the New Year. My list is longer than I thought it would be but as I went through by PIGs (Projects in Grocery bags) and WIP (Works in Progress) I kept finding more fun things I want to do. I had to rein myself in or there would be no room for surprises. I'm really want to resist all surprises this year. Some surprises are OK like quilting a quilt for a friend. Plus one of my friends wants to pay me to make a quilt, so I have to leave some room.
In addition to these quilts to start or finish I have some other quilting goals like learn to follow a pantograph on my frame. Increase my library of designs that I can quilt. And practice more, even if it is just yardage of fabric. Maybe between quilts I should just have yardage up and quilt a little every day, even if it is one pass. Now that I thought of that, that is a very good idea!!
The other parts of my goals are to use up my stash and not to buy fabric unless it is for a project, none just because it is pretty or I like it. I have too much as it is, so why add to it. Plus I want to use up the stuff I have. The not buying is going to be hard but the reality is I have lots of wonderful stuff already and I want to use and make, more than a life time probably.

My list of quilts is on my said bar but here are the pictures.

One More Mini Quilt Done!!

This is what I made yesterday. I only had to do six whiskers today. Isn't she just a Sassy Cat??? That is the name of the pattern by Patch Abilities.

Halloween Quilts

Well the quilts are all hung for Halloween. Except the new one which is now on the frame. Here they are for you to enjoy. There is one more at work that I have to take a picture of, it is off two ghosts coming out of a house.

New Books

While checking out the local quilt shops here in CO. I found some interesting books. Now I need another quilt book like a hole in the head, but I can't resist them. I'm really excited about the new techniques each these books demonstrate. The Shifting Perspectives really peaked my curiosity I almost have a block design in mind to do with this technique.

The Beyond the Block has a design in it I want to use for my Boo DJ Swap blocks. That one has really taken over in my mind and I have all the fabric for that one, so I just might have to move that up my list of things to do soon. This will be a more interesting quilt then the off center blocks I was thinking of doing. Plus it will allow me to use a larger variety of fabric and I have a lot fabric set aside for this project.

The Miniatures in Minutes looks interesting also but doesn't grab me like the Beyond the Block. So I will have to wait and see which one wins out but for now my bet is on the Beyond the Block book.

How to Sew in a Hotel Room?

As many of you know I'm in CO for 11 days for work.
So to answer your question..
First you need to have a good friend and co-workers loaned you a sewing machine.
Here is a picture of me all setup to sew. I cut my fabric into the big pieces before I left home, so here I'm just doing the finial cut and the sewing and the post construction trimming. So far I have made 60 of the 100 flying geese I need to make for my Washington Medallion. It's slow work and stuff I can get bored with, but a little at a time will get it done.

Here is my cutting area, small than what I have at home, but it works!

Sunday Quilting Upate

I have to tell you right off the bat that the new panels for the French doors worked wonderfully. No light to bug my slumber last night!!

Yesterday I was able to attach my floating border and the checker board border to my Washington Medallion, which I haven't worked on for the longest time. It's looking good, even if I do say so myself!

Today I worked on cutting the fabric for the next border, which is all flying geese, plus the fabric for the next section of the Block of the Month. I'm taking this with me to CO. One of my CO co-workers is loaning me a sewing machine, so I hope to get some sewing done after work each night.

I'll try to post from CO, but I'm not sure what my computer availability will be. But until I come back take care and stay cool!!

Both Sides Are Up!

 

I sewed the sleeves on and the binding, my honey drilled the holes and screwed the screws in and we have the second side up!! He also measured them so they hang the same. After I come back from CO on the 23rd I'll start doing the binding on the back side by hand. I'm happy for now! The room is a lot darker now!

I have one side up!

I am so excited!! I finally have one side of the door panels up. I just have to go get the binding and the sleeves on the other side. You might noticed that the binding isn't sewed down on the back. The reason why is I don't have time right now and I wanted to get them up to block the light out.
 
This picture is from inside the bedroom.
 

This picture is with the door open to the Hobby Room. That's the corner of my computer desk there with a pile of things to take to the sewing room.

I downloaded Picasa the other day and this is the first time I have used it to edit pictures and upload them to my blog. I need to figure out how to get them on opposites sides of the post like I usually do.

I was also playing with my signature, because my maiden name is Mary Hartmann, I used to be teased a lot when that show by the same name but spelled differently was on TV. So my friends shortened it to Mary Mary. Which I still like. Don't ask me how I got them like that in the program I was using, because it was a pure accident.

The year is half over!

I just thought I would mention that because everyone always rushes around at the end of the year wondering where the year went. So I thought I will let you know that the year is half over. Actually it was a couple of days ago and I was going to post on July 1st but somehow I was busy. I wonder how that happens? So I was taking a mental inventory of the quilts I have finished and what I still have on my to do list. I'm thinking I have to do a little adjustment to my to do list. Of course there is always next year.



So is my list I started with:
Winter Wonderland 9 Patch Pizzazz DONE
Festive Santa DONE
Dear Jane Boo Swap
Dear Jane Christmas Swap
Dear Jane Scrappy Happy
Dear Jane Nurses’ Swap
Horse for Krystal
Mystery Quilt DONE
SW Frog DONE
Valentine’s Mini DONE
Other Minis: Easter, May, July, Aug, Dec & Sassy Cat
Sea Breeze
Blue Moon
SW Batik Stars
Mystical Horse my own Design
One Block Wonder DONE
One Block Wonder for French Doors (adding borders today & plan to load on my frame today.)

I also added on the Washington Medallion and the Caribbean Sea Blocks of the Months to work on but not finish. Even thought it isn't on my list I have a Quilt of Valor I want to make and donate this year. Like the staying goes, "So many quilts and so little time!"

The way I see it today, I defiantly want to finish these quilts this year:
1. the One Block Wonder for the French Doors,
2. DJ Boo Swap,
3. DJ Christmas Swap
4. Mystical Horse
5. Sand Castle mini (Aug Mini)
6. Quilt of Valor
any of the orthers will be a bonus! Of course I am women and reserve the right to change my mind!

Have a great 4th of July! Freedom is a wonderful thing.

An EQ6 Moment

As you might know I like EQ6, I have used it to design and make a few quilts I submitted one of them to Electric Quilt Company and it was posted on their User Gallery. Here is the link EQ6 User Gallery. My quilt is number 26, Witches Undies. I scanned my fabric into EQ6 so it it hard to tell the difference between the two but the quilt is the one on the right.

Here is the original quilt I designed, but it still needs borders and to be quilted. I just couldn't cut up the Mystical Horse fabric by Laurel Burch. I only had fat quarters of all the fabrics. I only bought yardage of the black with the gold dots for the resting border and some of a purple and pink both with gold dots for the outside borders, also Laurel Burch fabric. I'm thinking I'm going to make each border a different color. The first picture is from EQ6 the second is the quilt center.
You might notice in the actual quilt I added another row of blocks, I wanted it longer. I hope to some day publish this quilt as a pattern. This darn full time job just keeps me too busy.

Now I'm remembered there is another quilt I designed but it was designed in EQ5. I was teaching a class on curved paper piecing. I was using the book by Jodie Davis on Curved Paper Piecing. She didn't have a sample of all the different blocks and I wanted a sampler for my class sample. So I designed one.
I designed this one and purchased the fabric I needed afterwards. Using the Fabric Yardage feature to decide how much fabric to buy.

You will notice that my design has an extra block in it. When I made the block it was a mess. I emailed Jodie about it and she replied that the Gizzards and Heart block did not loan itself to being reduced. So I have it in my copy of Jodie's book of learning examples of what not to do. Even after designing the quilt in EQ6 I do a lot of design wall work.

As I look at this picture of my quilt, I noticed it is upside down from how I would hang it. On the large block the light color travels down to the darker color. Not that it matters too much.