{ holiday traditions }

{ building snowmen }

{ putting out favorite decorations }

{ mixing handmade and bought treasures }

{ wreath, birds and jingle bells }

{ the best tradition of all, decorating the Christmas tree }

There's nothing like the tradition of decorating the house and tree in preparation for the holiday, especially with small children, their joy and delight is a pleasure to watch. We got our tree yesterday, and tonight we will be getting out all the familiar ornaments from years past to trim it with. Another tradition is receiving a new ornament each on Christmas morning that can then be added to the tree, fun indeed to see what Santa brings.

Here's to the Holidays, whichever one you celebrate, it certainly is a magical time of year! ♥

It's my turn again, woohoo!

It's my month in a quilting bee, and it's soooo exciting! It'll be like Christmas all month long, watching the lovely members of the Bee-Stitched quilting bee posting my blocks. I decided on a simple, but lovely, nine-patch half-square triangle block, using kona espresso as my background, and the lovely Innocent Crush in Petal palette from Anna Maria Horner's latest line.

I'll post another picture when I've got them all back. It's going to be a huge quilt, for my hubby and I's bed, the first one I'll have made that size! I may have to pay to get it quilted, we'll see.

I'm also making two more quilts, one for each of my sweeties. My son's is also a half-square triangle quilt, in kona ash and various green prints, and is looking lovely so far. My daughter's is going to be a pink and orange fairytale quilt, but haven't yet decided on the perfect block.

Happy Sewing! ♥

Scrappy Mug Rug rec'd!

Rec'd my holiday time mug rug from the lovely Anita {aka - rhubarbpatch}, along with yummy fabric and holiday tea, and how cute is the postcard she sent too, lucky me!

The scrappy mug rug swap on flickr is such a fun swap, you get to use up some of your smaller piece scraps to make what is effectively a mini quilt, then you get one back to put your mug on! Got to love that! If you're interested check out the link to the right ----> and sign up for the next one, in the new year. ♥

Featured Etsyblogger for December is...

...Pruitt Hand Crafts!

Congratulations Linda! Not only has Linda got an Etsy shop, but three no less! There's PruittHandCrafts, where you can find "all things fabric and fun", like ornaments, aprons and cup cozies. Then, check out her jewelry, like the pieces featured above, in her second shop, PruittDesign. And, then last, but not least, is PruittSupply, a shop absolutely chock-a-block with all the supplies you could need, like paper, beads, yo-yo's and fabric, a treasure trove indeed.

Linda is a lovely and supportive member of this team. She lives in the very creative Portland, Oregon, and is a breast cancer survivor, and a Grandmother to an amazing 24 grandchildren. An amazing lady indeed! So go check out her shops and then her blog and stay awhile. ♥

Handmade Holidays ♥

{ handmade ornaments }
These were great fun to make! I sent these out as part of the Trim the Tree handmade ornament swap on Flickr! I found the great pattern in one of Tilda's lovely holiday books! ♥

{holiday mug rug}

This was sent out to my partner in the Scrappy Mug Rug 2 swap. She loves hexies, as do I, so I thought a little holiday hexie flower was called for! I also added one of the ornaments, I hope she likes her goodies!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! ♥

November's Featured Etsyblogger is....

....Devine Designs Jewelry!

Congratulations! A whole month of lovely, and deserved, admiration from the rest of the Etsyblogger's.

Devine is from Florida, and fave place to be would be on a "desert island with a cool breeze, sitting under a palm tree on a soft cool sandy beach watching the beautiful colors of the sun as it sets and turns to nightfall." Sounds idyllic doesn't it?

In her daily life though, she happens to make beautiful, and unique, wire jewelry. My faves are the copper, but there are silver pieces also, check out her shop to see them all, still can't decide? Don't worry there are gift cards too, available in the shop as well.

Enjoy, and have a wonderful weekend! ♥

holiday potholders sent!

{ the total package }

{ the cute owl ornament }

{ one of the bear claw holiday potholders }

I had so much fun , as always, with this swap, Potholder Pass 5. It is the holiday themed version of this ongoing swap, so we also had to send along an ornament with our usual two potholders.
I was a little afraid of making such small bear claws, but using the Eleanor Burns method made it a lot easier. The colors were chosen by my partner, but happen to also be my absolute faves for this season, I'm feeling the red and white, and sometimes linen, of a Scandinavian Christmas.

It was hard to part with my little owl too. I have admired this particular Saffron Craig fabric from afar for a while, until another wonderful swap partner made me a mug rug using it, and sent me an extra owl along with it. But it went so cutely with the color theme, and the potholders. Such a fun swap, and now onto the next one! ♥

saVvy seasons sent and rec'd

{ mini quilt rec'd }

{ awesome package rec'd }

These are the handmade lovelies that were sent to me by the amazing {Safieh}
She sent me the most beautiful mini quilt using the Lumiere de Noel line from French General that I love, and in fact I have a jelly roll of it to make a holiday lap quilt with, how perfect is that?
Also, she sent a supercute bunting, and the most adorable embroidered hoop. Lucky me!

{Christmas tree table runner}

{total package sent}

To my partner, the lovely Erin, I sent a Christmas tree table runner, a hoop tree ornament, and a holiday mug rug. My inspiration for these were Erin's mosaic and preferences, she likes simple, modern lines, and trees! I hope I nailed it.

What are you making for the holidays?

recent bee blocks sent out!

{ the Fussy Cut Bee - October }

{ the Fussy Cut Bee - September }

{ Sew Fun 2 Bee - September }

Scrappy Pincushion swap

{ embroidered detail }

This was my first time in this swap, and it's second round. It was fun to make a big pincushion, especially with one of my fave AMH fabrics, and it's so nicely weighted. I had no idea what really went into these things, according to the swap rules, one of the best fillers is crushed walnut shells. I had to go find a bag of them, and who knew, it's lizard bedding!? Now I have a 5lb bag of it, so I better make some more pincushions! haha ♥

what I've been making lately......

{ my first mug rug }

These are such fun to make, I see many more in my future! I'm not sure who came up with the idea, but how awesome. A mini-mini quilt with a purpose, love it!

{ embroidered detail }

My last potholders to be sent for the Potholder Pass 4, you can tell I've been a bad blogger since I'm about to send out my holiday potholders for PP5!

What have you been making lately?

a wonderful mail day!

What's more wonderful than receiving beautiful things in the mail, sure beats the usual array of bills and junkmail!

From the glorious Ibmomof2 I received my half of the Doll Quilt #9 swap. Isn't it beautiful? Not only did I get the quilt itself, but also some awesome bunting in the same fabrics, a cute candy bar of moda fabric, Breakfast at Tiffanys, and some fabric it was all bundled in. How lucky am I? Loooove it all, and I can't wait to find a special place to hang it.

Also, I got my half from the Potholder Pass 4 swap, from the wonderful Claire WoffDiTo. Not only two beautiful potholders, but also a market tote bag, and a pretty fabric notecard, looove! ♥
***
Thanks so much Ladies, you really made my day!
Have a wonderful weekend! ♥

what bird?

Any ideas?

I know it's not exactly a great picture, my small camera has very limited zoom ability, and the birds weren't the thing it decided to focus on! Oh well, does anyone have agood idea as to what kind of bird these are? I've looked through all the warblers and none really match, the strip of color on their wings seems too yellow for most, like the pine warbler. It looked about the same size as the chickadees, so about 5".

thanks ♥
{ Yay, they've already been identified! They are female American Goldfinches! }

{ thanks to the forums at WhatBird.com }

Yay!

Upcoming swaps!

{ the savvy seasons - a modern swap }

{ the scrappy pincushion swap }

{ the scrappy mug rug swap }

Three awesome new swaps, these mosaics are my faves of each genre and the colors and styles that I'm loving right now, they also serve as the inspiration for my swap partners! I know they look quite similar, but how wonderful to have lots of coordinating goodies coming my way before the holidays, and I'm really loving the red white combo right now, especially with that screenprinted, woodcut look! ♥
I'm also doing a quilt along with the Fat Quarterly team, which I have to cut fabric into a million little pieces this week, and start piecing next week!
Tomorrow is back to school for my two lovelies, and a new schedule for us all will begin, it means not a whole lot of time to myself, but hopefully I'll be able to fit all this in!
Happy sewing! ♥

DQS9 finished and sent!

All folded up and ready to go, along with the goodies I made to go along with the doll quilt. I decided on making a cute needle case with hexies, and a pincushion, who doesn't need these things right! It was such a relief to be sending it out, fun to make but now the pressure is off and I just get the enjoyment of waiting to receive mine, from goodness-know where, sooooo exciting!

This is the front of the doll quilt all finished. It is a modified double wedding ring, pieced and then appliqued, after which I decorated with three rows of hand stitching around the whole shape, I really love this part. Then finished by quilting in the ditch, and adding a polka dot binding. The idea for the quilt came from my partners inspiration mosaic and flickr favorites, and a preference for fabric, brights with white.


My partner also expressed a weakness for hexagons, so I added a strip of them to the back of the quilt, again with the hand stitching. I love the way this quilt came out, it was my first time making this kind of small quilt, and my first time joining the wonderful Doll Quilt Swap #9, an awesome group indeed! I guess my only regret is not being brave enough to quilt the white parts of the quilt, I think it would have been better for it, but I'm not confident at all about quilting ( I guess I should practice ) and I didn't want to mess it up at that stage, I hope my partner loves it anyway, much work and love was put into it! ♥

Have a wonderful weekend! ♥

hummingbirds!

{ hummingbird in my backyard }

After reading this post on The Zen Birdfeeder blog, I went and found my hummingbird feeders and mixed up a batch of food for them. Then, I hung out their feeders and waited. My feeders hang on the log edges of my house, so you can't see them from the inside at all, and at first I thought they were not coming. Maybe they had already migrated to warmer climates. However, after just a couple of days I started to see them buzzing past the windows. Since then they've been a regular visitor, there's at least two pairs, and they take it in turns to fly from tree to feeder and back again. If you sit quietly in the corner of the deck they'll buzz right over your head, pretty cool hearing their little wings going so fast.

{ partaking of the waters }

some bee blocks finished and sent -

{ bee blocks for the 3x6 sampler quilt mini bee }

{ beehive 5 - 3rd quarter }

{ blocks for Mary - Bee-Stitched August }

{ blocks for Heather - Sew Fun 2 August }

a nature walk at Moreau Lake

{ beaver dam }

Last week the kids and I went to Moreau Lake and walked some trails, namely the nature trail and also the Mud Pond loop, about 3 miles'ish all told. it was a beautiful day, although in the morning we'd had a humdinger of a thunderstorm, and it kept threatening us with dark clouds on and off. There are many trails at Moreau, and I highly recommend the trip.

{ some kind of dragonfly/damselfly? }

We saw, and heard, lots of wildlife, ( if you can name any of the this posts inhabitants I would love to know, thank you! ) dragonflies, lots of birds, a heron, fish, millipedes, bullfrogs, lots of insects. We're going to start keeping a record in the form of a nature journal of all our nature walks, what fun! I certainly need to invest in some more field guides and get better at spotting different specis though, also next time we must remember our binoculors!

{ water lily }


{ deer having a drink }



{ unusual looking nest }

I wondered who they'd put this nest out for, do you know?


{ shelf fungi }

We all decided it was a great trail, and would definitely do it again, lots to see and hear along the way. Next time we may walk one of the overlook trails to get views of the whole lake and area, although this was just about the right length for the kids, especially since it was very humid that day. Happy trails. ♥

doll quilt in progress

This time around I'm taking part in the amazing Doll Quilt Swap, DQS9 to be precise. It is an extremely inspiring group of people, and it took me a while to decide on the design for mine. My partner's preferences, inspiration mosaic, and flickr favorites all came into play for my inspiration. In the end I decided on an abbreviated double wedding ring design, which will be raw edge appliqued onto a bright white background. I can't wait to get to that point, as I want to play with some hand stitched details, and I think hexagons for the quilt back, mmmm, decisions, decisions. Oh well, off to the LQS for supplies, happy wednesday! ♥