Thanks for the "Snowy" comments!

Well, I am just amazed at the "blizzard" of comments that I have received so far. Turns out most of you have seen snow and most of you like it until there's too much of it!!! I would agree!! More snow is expected here tomorrow and I am sure it will be lovely as it falls. And I am just glad I have no where to go!! So if you are like me and you're staying home while it's snowing outside, here's a little project you can try. This is a pattern I gave to my friends a couple of years ago when we gathered to stitch in January. I led a group of friends in a block of the month at my church and we had a great time stitching together. The group was called Hearthside Quilters because we met in the Hearthroom at the church. Wow, the quilts the gals made were amazing. Show and tell was a big part of the gathering. And there was often food, too. And laughter. All the things that friends enjoy!
Many times I draw a design and never get it stitched - this is one of them, but I bought some Kona cotton last Friday and I am going to put it to good use. I'm thinking I will do this design either in Redwork or else I'll color it and then highlight with embroidery stitches and probably some glitter. I love a little sparkle in my life. ;-) If you do stitch this up - totebag, pillow, whatever - send me a picture. Have fun!





Tomorrow I'll be posting the Block of the month project for this year. I had a tutorial I was going to post yesterday and had taken all my photos except the last one when I realized I had made a serious error in my sample. I think it might be because of this cold I have. My brain was just not fully "engaged". I'll fix my problem and get it posted as soon as it's fixed.
Have a good day all!
Sandi

P.S. To print the pages, just save the file to your computer and then you can print it out. I can also e-mail you the PDF file so just send me a note if you need that. Sorry but blogger does not have an option for loading a PDF.

One hundred comments and counting!!!

Oh, fun! I am thrilled at all the comments and love to read them. I will try to respond but no guarantees here. My cold is better but I am still "not fully engaged". Example........I was getting ready to start a little project but my mind is just a bit fuzzy and then I realized Kaiser was missing. I went in search of him and found him by my nightstand. Every once in a while he reverts to puppy behaviors and he managed to chew a pencil and eat my "faux pearl" earring. My pencil must have had traces of cookie on it. Last night, I forgot to take my earrings off and put them away and when I realized it, I just put them on my nightstand. I was too tired to get up and put them away. Not wise on my part. In the rush to get to the pencil, Kaiser must have knocked the earring on the floor and then scarfed it up. There is no trace of it. It's not the first time he's eaten one of my earrings. Good thing I don't wear large hoops or anything or we'd be off to the vet. Ah, this too shall pass...........Sorry, couldn't resist. Blame it on my addled brain and the cold, flu thing that has it's grip on me. :-)

Anyway, just wanted to pop in and say "THANK YOU" to all of you who are leaving comments. Obviously, there are a lot of places with a lot of snow this year!!
I'll be back later on with a little something to share.
Sandi

P.S. My "Block of the Month" will begin on Saturday, January 3rd. I had planned to post it on Dec. 30th but this cold "threw me for a loop" and it will take me a couple of days to get "back on track"! This will be a "two-part" BOM and is one I shared with friends who joined me at "Hearthside Quilters" in 2002 and 2003 to make these blocks. They are tried, true and simple blocks that are "ready to go" so stop back on Saturday for the first block. :-)

Happy New Year! and time to "Whirl into Winter"!!!

It's December 31st and time to usher in a new year! Here's wishing you warmth, friendship, shelter, food and all that will make you happy in the coming year!

*H A P P Y *N E W *Y E A R *! ! !

* * * * * * * * * *

It's also time to post the items that I have gathered for the ......

"Whirl into Winter Giveaway!!"

And here they are! There's a little something for everyone in this assortment. For those who enjoy scrapbooking there's a pad of pretty blue and white papers and some envelopes for creating custom cards. There's a little snowman photo/scrapbook to journal about favorite winter memories and some stickers to decorate the pages. There are some candles to light the night if a winter storm leaves you with a power outage (not fun) and if you live where there is no snow, well, I have provided you with a giant glittery snowflake to hang that will remind you of all of us who are knee deep or more in snow and ice this winter!!! There are little boxes filled with sweet treats and a tiny tin filled with some little surprises. And then there are three matching snowflake tins filled with more surprises!! The tins may match but each is a different size and each holds a different surprise. Are you wondering what might be in the tins? Here's a clue.......soft and nice to touch. No, it's not a rabbit in a tin but if you want to find out what is in the each one, check back on the days I'll be posting their contents and each one will be a "Snowflake Surprise"!!!! I'll reveal what is in the tins on separate days - Tin #1 will be revealed on Jan. 5th, Tin # 2 on Jan. 10th and Tin #3 on Jan. 15th. So, how can you win this batch of goodies? Well, here are my rules..............

1. Leave a comment on this post for one chance to enter. Your comment must include a link to your blog or an e-mail address. If you do not leave a contact link, your comment will not be entered in the drawing.

2. You may begin leaving comments at midnight tonight - in other words when Dec. 31 ends and Jan. 1 begins, you can leave me a comment. I will be taking comments through midnight Jan. 15th and will draw the name then and post it on Jan. 16th.

3. Your comment must include the answer to the following question - "Have you ever seen snow?" Then if you want to tell me more, I'd love to hear it but that's all it takes to get a chance to win the goodies you see in the picture.

4. If you check back on the 5th, the 10th and the 15th of January to see what is in each of the tins, you may leave a comment each of those days and so you can get your name in the drawing at least three more times!

All bloggers - U.S.A. and International - are welcome to leave comments. Hope that covers everything!! Oh, one more thing!!! I will be posting some free patterns, tips and things every other day or so between now and January 15th so stop back often and see what's new!!

Have a safe and *H A P P Y *N E W* Y E A R *! ! !

Sandi

******

P.S. We are staying in tonight, too cold to go anywhere

although my husband has gone to run errands and get

more cold meds for me. Bummer to have picked up this cold.

I have a winner, Mary ..............."The Needled Mom"!!!

Christmas 2008

Since tomorrow will be New Year's Eve, I decided I better get the photos from Christmas 2008 posted before the year comes to an end!! So here are some of my favorite pics from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day....................

On Christmas Eve our daughter, Collette, husband, Daryl and grandson Jacob joined us for dinner. Steve cooked up the ham and I made my potato soup and we enjoyed lots of other goodies along with it. Then we were off to church service at St. Paul's. Steve didn't go along so we told him he got to clean up! And he did! The weather was very crisp and cold but a really pretty night. The tree at the church was so pretty and I love the group singing of the old carols. I got to share music with a solo of "O Holy Night" and "Some children see him...". I especially like that last song as it's not a traditional carol but the words to it are so lovely and true.

There were pretty packages like the stack on the right that awaited us at home so Jacob and Collette delivered the gifts to each of us and the unwrapping began.

Kaiser didn't get a gift. Can you tell? He got some biscuits so he wasn't totally left out.

Collette and Jacob are reading the tag on this gift that says "For making Christmas memories". Inside I had packed three Snowman patterned soup bowls and matching mugs, a tablecloth, matching napkin rings, napkins and a really pretty ceramic holly patterned bell to use as a dinner bell. I told them to use it all for their breakfast on Christmas morn after Santa had come. And they did. Collette thought it was a cool gift. And Jacob got something called Magnextics (spelling?) and they were fun to build with and our only concern was that we hope his cats don't eat them!

I asked for "tunes" from my kids and C, D and Jacob got me a 3 CD pack of Patsy Cline which I am listening to as I type this. And on Christmas eve I got Colbie Caillat from Devlin and Stacia. Gotta have tunes. Music makes my days.

Kaiser was still feeling a little left out and was not at all interested in the book on Beagles that Steve is reading to him in this photo. It was a gift from C, D, and Jacob along with a book on making your own doggie treats so Kaiser may yet get something tasty!! They also got Steve a "toy" for a guy who has engineering blood in him - it's a thermometer/barometer/will measure anything-ometer!!!

About 10:00 p.m. Jacob asked what time it was as he was worried about getting home before Santa arrived and he wanted to make sure his list was left out for him. I love it! Recalls days when my kids were young and waiting for Santa. And when I was a kid, too. Gosh, I still leave milk and cookies for Santa 'cause you never know what a good deed might get 'ya!! :-)

On Christmas Day our son, Devlin and girlfriend, Stacia, came for dinner. Juggling Christmas get-together's gets interesting doesn't it because no matter how hard one tries, everybody can't make it at the same time! There are in-laws to visit and work schedules that factor in and that's just life. So, this year our kids weren't able to be here on the same day. I didn't mind as much as Collette did but I was just glad they were able to be here and we all had a good Christmas. Can you guess what we had for our dinner? ........ yep, more ham and another batch of potato soup and more goodies. And then there were more gifts to open and lots of laughs and fun surprises.

Devlin and Stacia are opening a gift from Collette that is for both of them - a cookbook for Italian Pasta which they both enjoy. I found mugs for Stacia that said "Latte" and "Cappuccino" and some perfect coordinating fabric. I was going to make a table runner for her, then thought "what if she would prefer placemats or potholders?" so I just gave her the fabric and told her to tell me what to make .......and it will be potholders and a mat to go under her coffeemaker. As the kids have gotten older, we do the gift card thing or cash which can be kind of impersonal but I always find thrift shop things or some little gifty to put it in and it makes it so much more fun. It was a great Christmas! For Kaiser it was very tiring. He loves his sleep and with so many people around he wasn't getting much sleep so his sign that it's time to turn out the lights and go to bed is to stick his head under the couch or a blanket or, in this case, the footstool. The day after Christmas, he slept almost the entire day! And speaking of sleep, time for me to get some, too. The "sore throat/stuffed up nose thing" is still with me even though I am "doctoring". It's just got to "run it's course" and I hope by tomorrow it will be near the end. Had so much I wanted to do today and every task I tried required a rest and then a nap before I could move on to the next one. Tomorrow, I am doing almost nothing. That's "almost nothing" as I will be preparing to post the info on the "Whirl into Winter Giveaway" on Wednesday evening. It's going to be fun for sure!!!!

Christmas in Iowa

Okay, so I should go to bed but my nose is stuffed up now so blogging is easier than sleeping. And anyway, it's about time I posted pics of that Christmas trip to Iowa that seemed more like a visit to the North Pole........so here goes..........

You may remember that I was a bit blue earlier in December thinking how this would be a sad Christmas with my dad gone. I figured out a way to have Christmas be a bit different, not so sad and something my mom would really enjoy. She's always talked about going to a hotel for Christmas and that's what we did! We went to the CountryInnAndSuites and it was very nice and very comfortable. It was a little nervewracking getting there through all the blowing snow but we made it. She was given a great room with a good view out her window (we had a view of a fence). That's her in the picture with Jacob, my grandson, and her great grandson. He's opening his card from her and it had money in it. He was very excited to get a twenty dollar bill. :-) And then he didn't want to part with it when we went shopping. :-)

To make things a little festive, I added some touches to her room with Dollar Store and Thrift Shop finds and a couple of things I made. I tucked ribbon candies in a fancy box, bought some little games for us all to play...........that's my husband trying to beat the Pyramid game. Several tries later and he succeeded.
I made a make-up bag for her and placed a pretty Christmas towel in the bath, set a mug and hot chocolate mixes out for her, and added a string of bells to the TV and so on. It was fun to do and she enjoyed it all.

We ventured out to do a little last minute shopping and then we all went to Hickory House, a really good place to eat in Fort Dodge. It was just a couple blocks from the motel so we didn't have far to go. Only one other couple was dining that night. The weather was just too cold and too snowy for anyone to venture out in!!
We had great food and enjoyed remembering that it was my dad's favorite place to eat. He loved their barbecued ribs!! Back at the motel, we had time to visit and look at photos and relax. It was so nice because someone else had cooked and there was no clean-up and someone else was going to be doing the laundry when we left!

Collette (our daughter) was putting the finishing touches on that cross stitch piece for my mom (it's the one she was working on at our retreat) and had worked on it all afternoon while we were out shopping. And she finished it and my mom/her grandma loved it!!!

We exchanged our gifts over hot chocolate, cookies and other goodies in the dining room of the motel. There were little gifts, things we found at the thrift shop or something special that was perfect for each person. I loved what Collette found for me - a boxed set of Christmas carols on parchment paper, really pretty and if I had been thinking, I would have taken a picture of it for this post. Here's the little cutie, I wrapped for my mom.......a snowman creamer by Pfaltzgraf that I was going to fill with some flowers from the local florist but the weather problems kept me from getting there. I found it at the thrift shop, of course (I will reveal my source - there are four great thrift shops in the Mankato area so if you live in Minnesota, check it out).

Sunday dawned with more blowing snow and even colder temps than Saturday but we could still smile by the warm fire at the Comfort Inn. We had a great time and my mom is looking forward to doing it again!!

Our drive back to Minnesota was slow going but we arrived safely, although tired. I had to get up the next morning and get going on mailing out my cards and finishing my goodie plates. If you recall, I felt they needed fudge, so I whipped up a batch.
Unfortunately, I forgot to add the last cup of sugar so the fudge was chocolatey and rich and also soft. So what do you do with fudge that is to soft to put on the plates. If you're lucky, you'll have little cupcake liners with holly on them that have been in the cupboard for at least ten years and when the fudge was cut into tiny pieces, it worked just great! I finished putting the plates together and delivered them all on Christmas Eve morning, much to the delight of several neighbors! (Hi, Kathy!)
That's all for now. Nose is less stuffy so think I can sleep. Family photos of Christmas Eve and Day coming Tuesday afternoon. :-)
Night all!
Sandi

P.S. That's one of several trees in the picture that I kept meaning to take a picture of.......it's my "Cookie Cutter Tree" and has about a dozen small cookie cutters hanging from the branches all ready to use in cookie baking. :-)

I'm here......

but I've picked up a wee bit of a cold/sore throat thing so it's kinda slowed me down. Trying to finish a little cleaning project in the closet in the room that my Grandson sleeps in. And then my "reward" is time in my sewing room and some blogging. Tomorrow I'll be posting about my block of the month and then there are only a couple of days until the "Whirl into Winter Giveaway" starts that Debi has organized. Here's a clue to the fun - think snow!! Yep, that's right, I have some fun stuff planned for the entire Giveaway - 15 days of snow-themed fun to be exact!!! So be sure to check in on January 1st so you can "read all about it"!!!
I'll be back later on tonight after I finish this closet and finally post some of our Christmas pictures! :-)
Sandi

Remembering Christmas Past

The hustle and bustle of Christmas is over and there is finally some time to relax. I promised that there will be pictures from "Christmas Present" but first I have to remember "Christmas Past".

Several years ago, my mother and dad gave me a vintage quilt for Christmas. It's the one in the picture with my dad that you will find on the right and in the post when I first began blogging. The quilt is a child's quilt and only slightly worn. We gave it the nickname "The Puzzle Quilt" because at first we couldn't quite figure out how it was constructed. I took it to my quilt club for show and tell and no one there had seen a quilt like it. Then one night at Crazy Quilting my friend Carol (in the picture below) brought a project to work on that had been given to her by an elderly neighbor. The project was "in progress" - a little box full of cotton print squares and then slightly smaller flannel squares (pajamas scraps most likely). Carol said that her neighbor lady called it her "Depression Quilt" and was made during that time when every bit of fabric was used for quilts, clothes and any needs. Finally I had the answer to the name of my dad's quilt! The name "The Puzzle Quilt" has stayed with the quilt because it just seems to fit. So, how do you make it?

Well, it's quite simple but you must love to do handwork to make this one! A few months ago, Carol brought the box of quilt pieces to our Crazy Quilting meeting and I asked if I could take a couple of pictures to post here on my blog. And, so here is Carol with the pieces that are still "in progress"!!

In this photo you can see that Carol has two stages of strips that make up a "Depression Quilt/Puzzle Quilt".

To begin you will need to have flannel squares and cotton squares. Cut the flannel squares that are 3 1/2" x 3 1/2" and cotton squares that are 4" x 4". Then as you can see in the picture above, you place a flannel square in the center of a cotton square, fold over all the edges and baste them in place. You sew these together as seen below (length of your strips is up to you).

When your strips are finished, you fold them over and slipstitch the triangle edges together. This will give you long strips as you can see in the picture above. My friend, Sue, made a tablerunner using this technique and my friend, Carol, made a full-size quilt for her bed using this technique!!

This past summer when my mother got out quilts to share at the library quilt show, she had two that she shared that belonged to my Grandma Goldie. One was the autograph block quilt made for her by the members of her Ladies Aide group. The other quilt was, of all things, a Depression/Puzzle quilt. I knew that my mother had another of my Grandma's quilts but I didn't know it was one of these. So, perhaps the reason my dad was drawn to that quilt he bought for me at auction was because he recalled Grandma making one when he was young. We will never know as Grandma Goldie passed in 1994, but I think it is interesting how things happen. I've had a couple of those "interesting/serendipitous moments" this Christmas and it just makes me smile to think of them. That's all there is for now. It's not really a tutorial so if you have further questions on this technique, just send me an e-mail.

Sandi