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