Merry Christmas

I want to apologize for my absence. It has been a busy month as I am sure it is for all of you. I can't even tell you where all my time has gone but I just know it is gone. Preparing for Christmas, working, shopping and travel to list a few. The most unfortunate thing about all of this is there has been no time for sewing. I do not see any changes in the near future so I am going to take a break from blogging until after the first of the year.

We are planning on traveling to Colorado to see Mark's family and mine. I am so excited because our grown kids are going to join us so we will all be together for the holidays and that makes me VERY happy..... Family is the best.

I hope all of you have a great Christmas and New Year! I hope to be able to have time to sneak a peak at what the rest of you are up to. ENJOY!!!

UFO - Western Quilt

I am working on hand quilting my Western quilt. It is proving to be a slow process. I made a template of an arrow and am adding them on each side of my blocks and I am also quilting cattle brands on the white squares. I have to apologize for the quality of my photos today but for some reason this quilt does not photograph well. Everyone who has seen photos of this quilt are amazed at how different it looks in person but I am not sure how to correct things.
I think by the end of all this I should be better at hand quilting but I guess this is a good place to start....
Now this is what I got up to this morning. When I finished working on my quilt last night I took the hoop off it and folded it and put it in the chair. My daughter's cat Juno (who is visiting until she can get into a place that allows kitties) was sleeping on the quilt. I did not have the heart to make her get off it. I am glad she is enjoying it for now..

I hope all of you are having a wonderful week.

Hexagons

For the last few months I have had two charm packs of Hello Betty by Moda. I decided it would be great as hexagons. I also was looking for something to work on while we were in airports and on the airplane that was easy to carry.
Here are a few of my basted hexagons. It proved to be a perfect project. I was able to complete the hexagons from one of the charm packs which are 60 now I only have 60 to go..... What was I thinking. Simple project not!

I want to stitch these together in a free form shape. Here are a few of them laid out on a red sheet. I think this will be a fun throw to cover up with. I am not convinced that I want a red background but while I am basting the other 6o I have plenty of time to figure this out. They will all be hand sewn together.

I hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving. Ours was wonderful. Our kids came home for the holiday and weekend. I enjoyed having them at home and now I am missing them. I keep telling myself that it is a good thing and I have to let them grow up. I am so proud of the people they are!

I am Thankful!

Here it is, the Dallas Cowboy's stadium. We took a tour of the stadium on our resent trip to Dallas, Texas. It is quite the place. I did not expect something so grand but it was really great. We visited the Stadium on M's Birthday with my brother and sister-in-law.
Then if you are doing a Cowboys vacation you have to visit their practice facility too. This is a photo of M and my sister-in-law. M says they are the true Cowboy fans. I am not sure what that makes my brother and I.
Tailgating before the game with Mimosas, MMMMM..... Perfect.

Here are the four of us before the game. It was a wonderful day, now not such a great game but as my son says "A win is a win". It was such a great trip. We could not have asked for things to be any better.

I am happy to say we will be spending Thanksgiving here at home with our kids. I love it when they are both home!!! I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Next week I will bet back to the jobs at hand and fill you in on my progress on my UFO's.

Dye Candy Giveaway

If you have not already been to Chris's blog, Dye Candy you must go and visit. She is having an incredible giveaway. Her fabrics and jewelry are wonderful. I know first hand because I was the lucky recipeient of a giveaway she had last year.

So run don't walk and go visit Chris.....

Hi there, I have been working on my unfinished projects these days and have not taken the time to write in my blog. I just have to visit for a bit this morning.

The piece in the photo is a small piece that is ready to be quilted but first I have to decide if it is the size it will stay. My photo transfer of the aspen tree as ended up in the center and I am not crazy about that so the size of this will probably change in the near future. I will be cropping and chopping soon. Then some machine quilting and possibly a few added embeleshments.

Now on to my real unfinished projects. I have been hand quilting my Celtic knot and it is coming along nicely but I have packed it away until next week when I am flying to Dallas to visit my Brother and Wife. Mark will be celebrating his birthday while we are there and I have purchased Cowboy Game Tickets and Stadium tour tickets for him. He is a big Dallas Cowboy fan. So the Celtic Knot will be the perfect project to work on while in the plane and airports.

I have also begun quilting the Western Quilt I have been working on for the last year or so... I have added several boarders to complete this. I am hand quilting this one also. It will have western brands quilted in the light color squares and Arrows in the sashing.

So now time will tell on what projects I finish by January first. It feels so good to have these further than just tops. I hope all is well with all of you and as soon as the sun comes out again I will post photos of the quilting in these .....

UFO's

I have decided to participate in Jacquie's challenge to finish UFO's by January 1st. I have come up with 5 things I need to finish:

1. Celtic Knot
2. Nine Patch
3. Aspen Mini Quilt
4. Western Quilt
5. Thread my Loom (This is not really quilt related but I thought I needed motivation and I am hoping this will get me going..)