Time to Make the Ornament

Now that Thanksgiving has passed it is time to make an ornament for my daughter.  I have made her an ornament every year since she was born in 1989.  This year is ornament #21. At the beginning I made ornaments from patterns made by companies such as Butterick, McCall’s and Simplicity.  Ten years ago the ideas from these companies ran dry since most of what they offered was made of felt and glued together.  Since I am a sewer/quilter I don’t really like ornaments made this way.

So I had to start designing my own ornaments.  After all the ones that I made from patterns it was not so hard beginning to creating my own.  We love the Tim Burton animated film “The Nightmare Before Christmas” so I decided to start making ornaments based on the characters from the film.  So far I have made Jack, Sally, and the Mayor.  This year will be the villain Oogie Boogie. 

I was checking Joann’s fabric site to see it they have the fabric that I need to make Oogie Boogie, but they seem to be down this weekend.  I guess all the traffic to their site caused a major computer meltdown for them.  Maybe I will stop in the store this week to see if they have what I need. 

I am also going to make kitty tents for our 2 kitties.  So I better get moving on these projects.  I have always had the ornament done before Christmas.  I don’t want to mess up my perfect record.

 

Chris

Yes, I am Still Alive!

Seems I am having a hard time finding time to blog these days.  The semester is in full swing and keeping me busy.  I have not even been doing any quilting....so I guess that does not leave me a whole lot to talk about.

Mostly I have been focusing on losing weight and getting healthy.  Since mid June I have lost 20 pounds.  People usually ask me what my "secret" is.  My answer to that is, "just a lot of hard work!"  I have been exercising like crazy and seriously watching what I eat.  I belong to a free online weight loss site called Spark People.  It is absolutely great.  You can track your exercise and your food consumption as well as join groups and get tons of support and inspiration.

At any rate I have been forced to buy new clothes since mine are getting way too big.  So that has been a lot of fun.  Tomorrow we are going to a anniversary party for my BIL and SIL.  I will be giving them my "California Dreaming" mini landscape quilt.  It was made based on a photo my daughter took of a stream on their property last Christmas.  I hope they like it...although I am sure they will.

This is the quilt I am talking about…

The main part of the quilt is only the size of a sheet of paper so many of the pieces are very small.  In the future I will keep my landscape quilts larger than this.

I still have to sew a sleeve on the back of the quilt and add a label to it.  I guess I will do that today while we are being bashed by the Nor'easter that is hitting the Atlantic coast.  At least I will have plenty to talk about on Monday in my Meteorology class!

Chris

Updated Kitty Pictures

We are really enjoying the kittens.  Here are some recent photos.

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Chris

The Whiskey Cruise Was Great!!

We had a wonderful time last night on the whiskey cruise. It was held on one of the Spirit of NY ships that sails around Manhattan. As soon as you enter the ship they hand you a map of where all the vendors for the different whiskeys are located. Mainly the whiskeys were from Scotland and Ireland. You get to taste and learn about what you want. The even had some tasting seminars during the cruise. I did not really know much about whiskey before the cruise.

In addition to the whiskey tasting there was some really good food for dinner....chicken, salmon, a wonderful salad, great vegetables, pasta. So it was not hard sticking to my healthy eating plans.

We were supposed to have really bad weather last night...rain and winds. But the bad weather did not start until our cruise was over. So we were able to go out on deck and see Manhattan all lit up. We went under some bridges which was great. I think one of them was the Brooklyn Bridge. Also last night they had the lights on for the twin tower memorial. That was really nice to see since I has not seen it before. We also went past the statue of liberty. I had never seen her at night before.

There were 14 of us in our group...mainly members of my husband's piping band. We had such a great time we plan on doing it again next year.

 

Chris

New Kitties in the House

My daughter raised 2 kittens this summer that were abandoned by their mother (a stray) at 3 days old. Initially she had to syringe feed formula to them every two hours. They are now about 9 weeks old and are a lot of fun. We have adopted them for her until she is done with school.  We have to keep them separate from our other cat since we are not sure how he will react to them. He can be really nasty.

My husband got a photo of the girl (Panini) tonight.  The boy is called Chowder.  He also took some video to send to our daughter.

Here is Panini sitting on one of my quilts.

Chris

Some Vacation Photos

Finally I got some photos from my husband from our vacation in Amsterdam and Bruges.  He did not take too many photos so I did not have a lot to choose from.

Bruges

My daughter, Kelsey, having a beer our first night in Bruges at a restaurant in the central square area.

A windmill in the Bruges area. We saw this on a bike ride.  Unfortunately this was the day my daughter’s camera was stolen.

Amsterdam canals.

My daughter’s boyfriend eating pancakes in Amsterdam.  Imagine how many calories these are…yikes!  I did not eat much of mine and managed to lose 2.2 pounds on vacation.  We did a tremendous amount of walking.

All of us outside a dive bar called Gollem.  We went to this bar twice while we were there and had a few beers.

Chris

Back From Vacation

Just got back yesterday from our wonderful week in Belgium and Holland. I did manage to stop briefly in a quilt shop in Amsterdam and I pick up a pattern with canal houses on it. They had the quilt on the wall of the shop and my husband really fell in love with it. Fabrics were pretty pricey so I only bought the pattern. Besides my husband does not have a lot of patience when it comes to visiting quilt shops so I did not want to spend any time really looking. If I had been there by myself I would have looked a lot more. Probably would have bought a lot more as well!

Here is a link to a blog about the pattern and a photo of the quilt.

Little Amsterdam Quilt

Chris

Going on Vacation!!!

We (my husband, daughter, her boyfriend and me) are leaving tomorrow for Holland and Belgium. I hope to get some great photos of windows and buildings for future quilts. I think my quilting inspiration is starting to come back and I will be motivated to do some creative work when we get back.

I will post when we return.

Chris

I Know That it Has Been a While!

I don’t know why I have not been blogging much lately.  I am beginning to think I am burning out on blogging and internet stuff in general.  I think several things have contributed to this.  First off I have signed up for and have done too many online exchanges.  Some of them have been disappointing.  A few people have not sent what they were supposed to send and some of the things I have received have not been as nice as what I sent out.  I guess that is the way that exchanges go and I should not be disappointed, but I am.  I am not signing up for any exchanges for a while to regroup from my experiences.

Second, I have also had several weeks of really bad poison ivy.  I never had it this bad in the past. I had it all over my arms and I didn’t even do any quilting for 3 weeks.  It is finally going away and I will get back into some quilting this week.

In one of my groups we are doing a secret sister exchanges which involves sending something every 2 months.  The last things I sent in June, I have not even heard on group whether or not it was received by this person. She has not posted lately so I am not even sure she is still in the group.  Since this is supposed to be secret, I am not supposed to contact her directly.  For August I was going to send her a quilted tote bag that I made, but I am not sure if I should send it.  I think I will send her a card without revealing my identity and ask her to post on group if she received the card before I send the tote bag. I guess if she does not post on group, I will break the rule and contact her directly because I don’t know what else to do.

Chris

New Miniature Quilt Finished

I am still working my way through my sewing closest and trying to use up things that are in there.  I had this kit for a miniature quilt that I completed this morning.  The size of the quilt is 16 inches by 16 inches with the size of the half square triangle blocks being 2 inches square. 

 

It now resides with my antique bear and dogs.  I have placed it on my dresser and they are happily sitting on it. You can’t tell that some of the blocks are crooked using the quilt in this way instead of hanging it on the wall. I love my antique bear.  I think he is from the 30’s or 40’s. The Halloween planter is from my MIL.  She bought it when my husband was born in 1955 because his birthday is near Halloween.

Chris