Happy New Year!

I hope everyone reading had a nice Christmas and New Year.   The ice is almost gone and things are returning to normal here, maybe this coming weekend I will get the decorations put away.

My daughter and I did the Polar Bear Plunge on New Year's Day for the second year in a row.   It was fun to do it together, but we didn't have a photo taker with us this year.  It's nice to have photographic evidence when you do something that insane!

I've been sewing but I don't really have any quilty photos to share.   I finished my Route 44 quilt from Carrie Nelson's class in September, and it's ready to go to the quilter.  I finished the center portion of Due South using Bliss, and it's ready for a border.   I'm working on a new quilt using Kate Spain's Central Park.

One project that I finished that I am finally able to show are these sachets/scissor fobs that I made for all my coworkers at the quilt shop.   I not only have the best part-time job in the world, but I work with 9 of the nicest women you could ever find.   Every year for our Christmas party, our fabulous boss Julie takes the group of us out for a nice dinner and after dinner, we exchange presents with everyone.  It's always a lot of fun.

Sometimes you look all year trying to find the perfect present for your coworkers, and everybody does a great job of either making something or putting together a cute gift.   This year was the first time I made the gifts - I cross stitched everyone's initials on linen from a pattern in the Blackbird Designs book Country Inn.   I used a red print from Rouenneries on the back, antique buttons for decoration and silk ribbons for the hangers.   I also filled them with lavendar buds so they smell divine!

Congratulations, Sue B!

The random number generator picked Sue B, who wrote: 

I would love a chance to when this amazing quilt pattern. I just love the old fashion feel of it with the bubbly lights GORGEOUS!

Posted by: Sue B. | December 19, 2010 at 04:17 PM

Sue - please contact me with your mailing address and I will send your pattern to you next week after the Christmas rush.

Thanks for playing along and Happy Holidays to all!

Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Carrie had an interesting blog post the other day about liking a quilt kit so much that she bought the same one twice.   Now I confess - I have bought the same pattern and often the same piece of fabric twice, but never two of the same kit.   Carrie must have really liked that quilt!

I went to a quilt expo with my friend last month and saw a sample of this beautiful Crabapple Hill design called Merry Little Christmas.   Seeing the embroidered and pieced quilt in person was amazing - the photo on the pattern just does not do this design justice.   I absolutely had to have the pattern!

When I got home and went to put my new pattern away, I discovered I liked that quilt so much, I bought the same pattern twice - doh!   So how about a giveaway?   You could start this in the new year and have it done in time to display next Christmas.  Leave me a comment before 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday, December 21 and I will announce one lucky winner on Tuesday morning.

Edited to add:   I would love to hear if any of you have ever followed in my footsteps - buying the same book, magazine or piece of fabric twice.   :)

Deck the Halls

It's the most wonderful time of the year - and one of the busiest, too!   I'm sure everyone is busy making holiday plans and preparing for The Big Day.   The Stashmaster House is no exception.  It is a big time-saver to have the help of my 3 (not so) little ones.  We've been decorating, baking and Mom's been shopping and wrapping.  Our larger tree has no room underneath for presents, so I always place the presents around this small tree in our dining room.  The tree is not normally so *blah* looking - this is a new addition to our decor this year.  It's got pretty fiber optic lights, but we haven't quite gotten the decorations on the tree yet.

Every year I take the kids and let them each pick out an ornament.   I usually end up with one or two new ones for myself.  Some of my favorites are made by Swirly Designs - I discovered them in a magazine a couple of years ago and I'm totally hooked.   Each Valentine's Day, Halloween/Fall and Christmas, they make a limited number of beautiful handmade polymer clay ornaments.  I think they sold out of most of their Christmas offerings in one day this year, and they were all gone by Day 6.  This adorable striped tree is my addition for this year - the ornaments are so beautifully made and sparkly!   They come packed in a well-protected box that you can use to store them.   Add yourself to their mailing list or sign up as a fan on their Facebook page so you don't miss out on their next collection of ornaments!

And I have still been able to sneak in a little bit of sewing here and there.  The current project on my design wall is Carrie's pattern Due South, made using Bonnie & Camille's beautiful Bliss fabrics.   It makes me happy to work on this quilt!   Oh and I forgot to mention what a pleasure it is to make flying geese now that there are awesome tools that make accuracy a breeze, like my friend Monique's Fit to Be Geese ruler!

I hope you are having fun decorating, baking and hopefully sewing, too!

Allow me to introduce myself....

What?   Oh yeah, I'm not new, but I haven't blogged in so long, you've all probably forgotten about me.  Let's see...   how can I sum up almost a month since my last blog post?

My SIL and I went on our guild's quilt retreat in early November.

I got tons of piecing done - all the blocks for Route 44 and all the blocks for Due South.

The last dinner there, I got sicker than I've ever been with food poisoning, so we left early (I had well meaning friends at work try and convince me I had the flu, but I learned at least one other person was as sick as I was...   I won't be eating spaghetti and meatballs for a very long time!).

Spent 2 days moping around the house feeling beat up and another 2 days before I felt fully back to normal.

Lots of work deadlines, so not much energy when I got home to do much sewing.

Snow hit Seattle the Monday before Thanksgiving.  I left work early Monday afternoon and didn't get behind the wheel of my car again until Friday (you don't want *ME* trying to drive in the snow!).

Tried a new recipe for Thanksgiving from Paula Deen - chocolate pecan pie - very yummy and super easy.

We had an awesome Thanksgiving celebration with my brother and his family, including new addition, baby Veronica (my brother is a Grandpa!!!).

My son Eric was absolutely smitten with baby V (aw - how cute is that picture?).

Finished a lot of chores in my sewing room, but nothing I can show you! (top secret gifts or I could show you all the buttons I sewed back on shirts that needed repair for a while!).

I hope to make some progress laying out the blocks for Due South this week, so check back for some pictures soon.   I am absolutely smitten with Bliss!

Cover up

I made an ironing board cover this weekend using a fun decorator weight Moda print.   Do you recognize it?  It's from the MoMo Wonderland collection.

I used this Moda Bake Shop tutorial for instructions, but I did not sandwich and quilt this, it's just one layer of the decorator weight fabric.

My "board" (hey du-u-u-de, do I sound like a surfer?) gets a lot of use and I like using lots of steam in my iron, so I imagine in a few hours, this will look as icky as the one I have on it now, so I will save this to take to my quilt retreat.   We leave one week from tomorrow and this will look great on my ironing board!

Luna Notte

I finished this Luna Notte quilt for the shop where I work.  It's made with a fat eighth bundle and a small amount of yardage.   The pattern has 4 different ways to arrange the blocks to get different looks, but I really liked this one with the dark chains running diagonally.

I had a very productive weekend in my sewing room.   I am cutting out a project to take to my guild retreat, which starts November 10 (yahoo!).  One new project and one I need to finish (2nd Story).

I'm working on my Route 44 class quilt now and if that's not finished, I'll take it with me, too.

I also made a new ironing board cover with some cute MoMo Wonderland fabric in a heavier weight cotton.   I didn't want to go out yesterday to get twill tape, so I will stop on the way home and pick some up, then I can share a photo.   It looks very cute, and I always like to have a pretty, new cover when I take my board to retreat.

We had a good Halloween.  We live in a newer neighborhood with houses close together and sidewalks, so a lot of kids come to trick-or-treat.  DH had to turn the lights off early because we ran out of candy within the first hour.    I took my DD and her friend out - they both dressed as Lady Gaga.