Sister's Choice Quilts

Season's Greetings

Checking in with greetings of the season, and my best wishes that you are having as much fun as I am!  This may be one of our best Christmases ever, with both of my children under one roof, and my little grand daughter full of excitement and anticipation.  Santa will be coming for sure, and we are ready for him.

The tree is trimmed, the packages wrapped, the cookies baked, and most important--all my sewing done.    I  made zippy bags for the girls I work with, and a Sew Together Bag for a special someone.  Would you believe that just a couple of days ago I discovered the most perfect little gift I could have made for everyone on my gift list?  Here is a link for those of you who still have time:  Microwave Bowl Cozy.  Next year for sure, I will be cranking these out for everyone.  Easy, cute and so practical. You know how when you heat up a bowl of soup or stew in the microwave and it is too hot to really handle when you want to take it out?  You just place your microwave dish full of food on the cozy and heat it through in the microwave.  It serves as a potholder and bowl holder both.  Brilliant.

My sewing room has been turned into a guest room for my son until New Year's, so I can't even get close to  my sewing machine.  We are having too much fun with other activities right now anyway, so it is no sacrifice.  Today Eva and I made frosted shortbread cookies.  I rolled out the dough and guided her where to put the cookie cutter down, and let her do the decorating when they came out of the oven.  The frosting turned out a bit lurid in color and she was a bit heavy handed with the sprinkles,  but Eva is completely satisfied with the results.  Memories, we are making memories.

Hope the memories you are making are splendid too!  

I am looking forward to getting back to regular posting in the New Year, with lots of quilty projects and ideas.  Happy holidays everyone!

The Happiest Place on Earth

I bet you can guess where I am this week.  Yup, Disneyland.  All decorated for the holidays, the Magical Kingdom has gone all out with their festive decor.  My husband and I are in Southern California for a few days, and had to make a visit to the park one of our stops.

I think in the future we need to agree not to come to Disneyland without a child, in particular, our favorite child.  It just isn't the same.  We made a day of it, regardless.  In fact, we timed our stop there just before the worst storm the state has seen in years.  Today it is pouring rain, but it won't stop my plans for finishing up my Christmas shopping.

Yesterday my husband and I needed to rest our old bones frequently, and made quite a lot of stops to refuel  our flagging energy tanks.  Isn't that pretzel adorable?  I admit I did share it, but the lion's share was mine.

My husband was determined to stay for the Christmas light parade at the park, so as dusk fell, we killed some time by doing the Tea Cups ride.  Isn't it magical looking, with those pretty colored lanterns?  

I hope I never have to go to another parade in my entire life.  I am saying it here, parades are completely over rated, even the spectacular ones Disneyland is known for.  You stand around for ages waiting for the thing to start, you cannot see a thing if you are under six feet tall, strangers are pushed up against you (WAY too close), and none of your photos ever turn out properly.  The entire experience takes far too long and is completley unsatisfactory.  I hate parades.  Never again, I swear.

My son arrives this weekend, and I am so darned excited to see him, and have him get all reacquainted with Eva.  It has been two years since his last visit to the States, and that is a long time in the life of a three and a half year old.  He is certain to be enchanted with her.  We will sit around and drink tea together and have lovely long chats.  We had a huge snow fall in the mountains near us, so I imagine some snow related recreation will also take place.  

Hope you all have a great weekend and are staying dryer than we are!

Sew Together Bag #2 Done

My second Sew Together Bag is finished, just in time.  In a few days, my sewing room is going to turn into a guest room, so my sewing had better be out of the way until after Christmas.  This second bag turned out pretty well.  I used a thicker fusible batting in it, and it is a bit stiffer than the first one I made.  Also, I oriented my exterior fabric more successfully, so the little bird on a branch is better showcased. Aw, isn't he cute?

The inside zippers were a breeze.  The binding is tricky to sew on because the fabric layers are so thick.  The longer outside zipper is tricky to put in, again because the fabric is thicker and you have to turn the binding over and stitch it by machine.  The end tabs are horrible to put on and stitch down.  

All in all, I am super pleased with this second bag.  After I made the first one, I think I said I wasn't sure if I had another one in me.  I feel the same way about making a third one.

The results are adorable, super functional, and people seem amazed by them.  They are time consuming and very fiddly to make however.

But gee, look how cute the inside is....

Busy Elf

SInce my Christmas gifts to others do not appear to be willing to make themselves, I got to work on Friday and Saturday.  I purchased this fabric at a wonderful shop called "Charming Lily" up in the Spokane area this summer, with some sort of half cocked idea to make a quilt with it.   Making the decision that I probably wouldn't really be doing that, I used the fat quarters to make zippy bags to give the gals at work.

I used an assembly line technique to construct the bags, and it worked wonderfully well.  I sure do love putting in zippers.  I have done so many of them, that my results are great every time.  Practice practice practice, if you are "zipper phobic". 

The pattern I use for the bags is called Zippy Strippy by Teri Atkinson.  I have a tutorial for putting in the zippers if you would like to refer to it.

I also started up another Sew Together Bag, but had to stop just at the point where I need to put in the long 18" zipper, because of course I don't happen to have a matching one on hand.  This is my second STB and it did go faster than the first one.  If you have ever made one of these bags, do you agree that the trickiest bit is attaching the side panels?  The layers of fabric are so thick, and it isn't easy to make everything line up according to the proper places.  I did learn to trim down the seam before attaching the side binding, which helped.  There is a great tutorial by Quilt Barn for constructing this bag.  I don't think I could have done it with just the pattern alone.

I promise to show a photo when I get that last long zipper in!

Shopping, Check. Decorating, Check.

I spent the entire day yesterday decorating the house. I tell you, that is a job and a half.  I am very happy with the way things turned out though.  My new discovery this year are micro mini lights that have a battery pack.  I love these little lights and have them in a half dozen places throughout the house.  My first visit to Ace Hardware, I neglected to wear my eye glasses, so I ended up with two sets of micro lights that twinkle by accident.  My son in law tells me I am likely to trigger epileptic fits in some unsuspecting guests, but for now I am leaving them in place.  You see the fire place and mantel above, and in the lower left corner I have a bowl of red balls with twinkling micro lights.  A bit frantic perhaps, but I am going to see if they grow on me.

The photo above is my buffet in the dining room.  I have my crazy expensive snowman collection and more micro mini lights.  These stay nice and calm, no twinkling at all.

My Murano glass Christmas tree collection, given to me by my generous mom, over the years.  More micro mini lights.  Of course.

The library, close ups of Santa collections below.

 

The Snowman collection is below, also in the library.

The Tree.  I am not sure this is "finished".  My husband has an extensive Radko ornament collection and he is happy to have that front and center starring on the tree with no other distractions.  I want more however, to fill in any sort of blank space.  We shall see how that plays out.

This photo is kind of dark, but the vignette may be my favorite.  I have had these two little crystal trees for years and years, and have not even put them out the past couple of years.  When I unpacked them, Eva was very taken with them--the sparkle, the bling etc.  Well, I have these micro mini lights on my brain, and wound two strings of them around the two trees.  Awesome.  I have them on a table at the end of a dark hallway, and it is just a show stopper to see those pretty things all lighted up.

The front hallway, much the same as last year.  So glad I posted a photo of it, so I could re-create it!  Micro mini lights are a 2014 addition of course.

The coffee table.

Eva is completely entranced with the snow globe, and I suppose it is a matter of time before she shakes it and drops it, but I am hoping for the best.

There is more to share, but that is enough photos for one post!   Hope you enjoyed this little home tour.  I have most of my shopping done, which is a huge load off my mind.  I still have my husband to do, and a few odds and ends, but I think I am going to be able to sit back and enjoy this holiday season without too much stress!

Still Laughing?

Are you all still laughing at me?  Ha ha.  What a dummy I am.  "Anyone know the block pictured here?"  "It sure looks like the one on your blog header Nicole..."  Honestly.  Sometimes when I put these posts together it's late and I am definitely done with my day.  I swear chardonnay had absolutely nothing to do with my confusion.

So, on to another project.  This is Eva's Christmas placemat, one she "helped" me put together.  The pattern is one from Lori Holt's recent Christmas Sew Along.  She gives you the instructions for making the individual blocks and you can put them together to make a Christmas themed quilt or use them however you would like.  I thought the gingerbread boy and cocoa cup together made a cute placemat.

Eva chose the buttons for the Gingerbread Boy, proudly informing me "These are just perfect".  She is such a sweetie.  This year everything is even more fun that it was last year.  She has been enjoying opening the envelopes for an Advent calendar her mom got for her--last year it would have been beyond her.  This season I think we are going to skip the whole Elf on the Shelf thing.  We all found it a bit creepy last year, and there are other tradtions we like more, so that is that.

We are slowly getting the holiday decorations out.  We have two trees up, but no ornaments.  I put out a few table displays, but my husband needs to bring in a lot of heavy boxes for me to really get into my decorating frenzy.  I took all the autumn pumpkins to the dump this morning (our trash service won't pick up things like that), and the attendant kept exclaiming "You are the third woman this morning wanting to dump pumpkins".  I patiently tried to explain to him that of course women want the pumpkins gone, now it is time for Christmas decorations.  It was a very troubling concept for him.  He kept shaking his head like there was some kind of Appocolyptic Event causing this strange phenomena.

Today was Eva's first day at the new preschool, and hello, there was her BFF from the old school, plus her favorite teacher Kelly from the old place.  I arrived early to pick her up and sat at the lunch table with the kids and teachers.  It was a nice way to get to know people and the routine.  Getting involved with your kids' teachers and schools is never a bad idea. 

Monday being Cyber Monday, the shop where I work was slammed with online orders to fill. Today and tomorrow I will be up to my eyeballs filling orders and packing things up for mailing, so things will be quiet on the sewing/blogging front.

Thanks for all your well wishes due to my flu.  I am happy to say I am much improved, but there is sure a lot of stuff rattling around in my chest.  I have what they call a "productive" cough.  At least I have some strength back and don't look quite so much like I should be in the infirmary.

Anybody Know What Pattern This Is?

Isn't this a cool block pattern?  I found a link for this quilt on the internet.  The link went to Lovely Rita's blog:  http://lovelyritablog.blogspot.com/2012/04/flower-posts-and-sashing-machine.html.  The blog is called Lovely Threads, and evidently Rita does long arm machine quilting (beautifully).  There was no pattern source given, and although a reader inquired what the pattern was, there wasn't a public response.  It may be that it is a client's quilt and she doesn't have the information.  So, I am wondering--does anyone know what this pattern is?  It sure could be a Bonnie and Camille one, couldn't it?

I love the colors and fabrics that were used, and also Rita's quilting design is lovely.

**Added shortly after posting:  Um, yes, that pattern is the exact same block I have on my blog header, which would be Paganini, a Carrie Nelson pattern I have obviously made and am enjoying.  Just goes to show you how different a block can look made in different colors and turned on its side...I was kinda tired when I wrote my post last night, that's all I can say!**

 Did you all have a grand Thanksgiving?  Me too.  Except for the flu thing.  I decided the "thing" I had wasn't just a cold.  Too many days of fever, wanting to crawl under the covers and sleep, loss of appetite, lack of strength etc etc.  I still had to work Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday though.  It was torture to drag myself out and rise to the occasion.  I had no choice though.  Due to a traffic accident, there were no other employees available to do the job.   I had to work instead of going to my dad's 89th birthday celebration, and that was hard.  That's ok, my paycheck will take care of my Christmas shopping just fine, and I can't wait to get started.

Oh, here's a funny story.  My husband's boss gave him a $40 certificate for a Diesel Turkey.  Diestel is known for their beautiful fresh turkeys.  He had to drive out to the country to the actual turkey ranch to pick it up, and when he got there, he saw fields of white turkeys, black turkeys, brown turkeys.  All beautiful, all seemingly quite happy,  He presented his $40 certificate and was told, "That gets you a 14 pound turkey".  Well, that wouldn't do, for the 25+ crowd we were expecting.  He asked if he could upgrade and get their finest large turkey.  No problem.  The lady recommended a 26 pound Heritage Turkey, and my husband said "Excellent, let's do it".  She disappeared for a bit, then came out with a big box the size of a small steamer trunk, containing the turkey.  The price?  $120.

I know.  I would have laid down on the ground right there in the office and asked for a glass of water.

My husband didn't bat an eyelash and, not knowing what a turkey should cost, pulled out his credit card.

It turns out "Heritage Turkeys" are a very special type of turkey, costing two or three times what a normal turkey costs.  It is an historical breed (or breeds) and  is much like the wild turkeys the Pilgrims had.  There is less breast meat, and the flavor is supposed to be great, more like a wild bird.  It turns out that these turkeys are *really* happy, being free range, and allowed to reproduce naturally, rather than by artificial insemination like all the other turkeys.  They are actually sort of rare (maybe the whole reproductive thing is complicated to them).

Well.  I think it was just ok.   Not at all worth $120.  It cooked in three hours--!!! a 26 pound unstuffed turkey!!!.  The flesh was flavorful, but a bit dry for me.  Next time I will get a regualar Diestel fresh turkey.  I also had a chance to try a frozen turkey from Savemart this year, and was hugely disappointed.  What a lack luster, boring bird.  I have never cooked a frozen turkey and was amazed at how long it took to unthaw in the fridge.  And the taste and texture were off.

So that's my Turkey Story.