A Little of This and That

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas filled with the people and things you love most.

Sandra did a lot of shopping on Etsy this year and I wanted to share a couple of the quilty gifts she gave me.

I love this bookmark and it’s very appropriate, don’t you think?

She also combined my love of bears with my love of quilting with this little guy:

Ian had me in tears with his gift.  He snuck Ben out for a professional photo shoot and presented me with this picture:

I haven’t got as much accomplished as I hoped during the holidays as I have my asthma/cough/crud back – AGAIN.  This really is getting tedious and I am totally fed up being sick every other month.

I did get my Strawberry Fields top finished though.

Since I hadn’t touched Tillie for several months, I started with this little snowman strippy quilt.

If this looks familiar, it’s because I did one exactly the same earlier in the year.

After Tillie was all warmed up, I quilted this Quilt of Valour.  I didn’t do the piecing, only the quilting.

I used a panto called Maple Syrup but I don’t think the maple leaves show up as much as I would like.

Wonderful Surprise

Today wasn’t a good day.  I don’t talk about it on my blog, but my Mother has vascular dementia and I deal with the fallout of that condition pretty much daily.  I only had 2 hours sleep last night and was feeling pretty sorry for myself today.

Then, the mailman arrived with a parcel from my friend Joan who lives in Alberta.  Whenever I think I’m cold, I think of her – it was minus 42° there this morning.  It really doesn’t matter if that’s Fahrenheit or Celsius – it’s FREEZING!

I ‘met’ Joan a few years ago on a Canadian Quilting Forum and through Facebook we have become good friends and regular correspondents.  She regularly beats the pants off me at Scrabble.

When I opened the box, the tears started.

I knew she had been making these ornaments and I admired them.  I sympathized with her sore fingers sticking all the pins in but told her it would be worth it in the end.  I had no idea I was going to be one of the lucky recipients.  It is absolutely gorgeous and I feel so lucky.

When I dug a little deeper in the box, I discovered this:

At first I thought it was yardage that had been folded in a very nifty manner.  I absolutely love the colours – pink, purple, green – does she know me or what!  It’s what I would refer to as happy fabric – just looking at it makes you smile.

It’s not yardage as I originally thought, but a wonderful fold up bag.

It’s completely lined and folds into the front pocket.  I just love it!

Joan, you made my day and I treasure not only the gifts but our friendship.

More Strawberry Fields

I think I might have to keep this quilt.  I love it, although it still isn’t finished as there is one more border to go on.

This all came from one Bali Pop and the black background fabric.

Tomorrow I go for my annual mammogram and bone density test.  I can hardly wait!

Tuesday my Stitch N Chat Group are meeting for our annual Christmas lunch (Chinese food).  I have their gifts all ready, but they still need to be wrapped.  I think next year we are going to draw names as coming up with ten identical quilty gifts isn’t an easy task.

Two weeks from today Christmas will be all over and I won’t be sorry.  Those that know me, know Christmas isn’t my favourite holiday.  I wish I could get back the excitement of it all, but it just isn’t happening. 

Strawberry Fields Forever

I really like how this is turning out.

There are still sashing strips and cornerstones to go on – and the corners, of course, but I like where this one is going.

Sandra & Darren are having a Christmas Open House today so I spent yesterday baking to help them out a little.  They just came and picked everything up and that’s the way I like it – it’s all out of the house and the temptation is gone.

I have to work full time this week (moan, moan) so there probably won’t be a lot of progress made on the sewing front.  I still have Christmas shopping to do, haven’t wrapped a thing and so far the jury is still out on whether or not a tree is going up.

I laughed at Sandra’s Facebook status the other day:

3 cats + 2 trees = WORST IDEA EVER

Sounds like my little grandkitties haven’t been behaving themselves.  In fact, when I talked to her on Friday, she asked me if I wanted to adopt three cats – one that yawns on command.