On your mark

This is a Christmas Quilt I made last year or the year before. The pattern was generously provided on the Patchalot website, so I got busy and made a couple. It was a fun and easy pattern to put together during the holidays.

We are gearing up for our daughter's birthday on Thurs. She has declared no decorating or Christmas hoopla until we finish celebrating for her. I don't blame her. It is easy to rush into the holidays without really focusing on what is important.

It's a 32 Turkey Day

I looked out the window this morning and saw huge bunch of turkeys gathered under the crab apple tree in our back yard. I counted 18 and watched for awhile as they jumped onto the branches, onto the fence rails and just jumped up and down pulling the little berries off the tree. They stayed for about 10 mminutes and then moseyed on down a couple of house til they came to the chain link fence. When they returned I counted again as they headed into the woods and counted 32. I could not believe it! Where was my net when I needed it?

Little Houses

I finished this little wall quilt on Sunday. Even the hangers are on the back so I could use it right away. The patterns for the trees and houses came from a quilt-a-day desk calendar that a friend gave me several years ago. When I first got it for Christmas, I thought "Wow! I can do this. " There was a picture of a finished quilt on Monday and then each day of the week there were patterns for each block and additional settings. The next Monday a new quilt was introduced. I figured I could whip out a quilt a week easily.

January almost killed me and I got 2 quilt tops pieced and one of those got quilted. This is the 2nd quilt. I made up the templates for the quilting for the borders. The border at the bottom has the year. When I got ready to quilt it this past weekend, I saw that the year on the template was 2007. I guess it is a good thing I finally got it done! LOL.

I added little trees to the houses and some buttons for extra decoration. It still looks very plain to me, but I really don;t want to spend any more time on it. Now I can move on to sewing for Christmas.

Sneak Preview

I got busy quilting a small wall quilt that I pieced together several years ago. I had made templates on freezer paper for quilting the borders. I decided that wouldn't work so I then copied the templates onto tissue paper. I did all this several years ago and was amazed when I found most of the tissue paper templates without much trouble as well as the freezer paper ones. I got the borders quilted today. Each one is different. The one above says "home" and has little houses in a row. One border says "heart" and one says" hand." The fourth border has the year. I have started the binding. Then comes a few embellishments. I will be glad to have this finished and off my to do list.

I have started cutting out pieces for my next quilt which will be a Christmas gift. It's always so fun to start a new project and I do better when I have a deadline, so it shouldn't take too long to whip this one out.

Dear Jane Pillow

All of you Dear Jane fans, have you seen this pillow? My mother-in-law, who by the way is the greatest ever, made this pillow for me. It is a cross stitch pattern that she made for me as a Christmas present. I love it. I think it will even match most of the colors in my quilt whenever I finish it. Just don't ask me when that will be.

A Chilly Fall Weekend

This weekend was the Purdue- Illinois football game. Our son is a student at the University of Illinois and I went to Purdue. We drove to Champaign for the weekend and went to the game on Saturday. It was windy and cold, but the sun was shining and we were sitting in the Purdue section with lots of other Boilermakers. Purdue lost miserably, but it was still fun to see all the colorful orange shirts and watch the bands from both schools and just soak up the atmosphere. We even took in the women's volleyball game in the evening. Next year, maybe Purdue will have a comback!!