Ornaments of Christmas

This is an ornament a long time friend made for me. Her mother-in-law is in the Sampler Guild and knows I like anything with bees. So, she told my friend she had to make this for me. Wasn't that nice. It's sweet.

This is the ornament I got in the exchange at our guild Christmas party. It goes perfectly on my tree in the sunroom that has bird, gardening and natural themed ornaments. It's delicate looking. The fabric on the back has teeny tiny doves on it.

This is the ornament I got from my secret stitcher in the guild. Isn't it sweet? She knew I really like purses.

These are some of the fun things, Janice, my secret stitcher gave to me through out the year. It was a lot of fun and I loved everything.

Only a couple more days 'til Christmas. This year I have to work Christmas evening so, we will be celebrating on Christmas Eve. Everything is wrapped! That took hours and hours but now I'm all ready.

This was one of my grandmother's ornaments and the crocheted snowflake behind it was done by a friend who died a few years ago. Most of my ornaments have lots of memories.

Shared birthdays

Dana celebrated her 25th birthday on Tuesday! What a beautiful daughter she is. We didn't get to see her on her big day so we delivered her present last night. A new Vera Bradley tote that she seems to really like. My other pictures would have been awesome but I had my camera set on macro for stitchery picture taking and I couldn't figure out why they were fuzzy. Silly me.

Dana and Clark share their birthday days. Clark turned 6! When we were picking out our puppy we knew he was meant to be ours 'cause he had the same birthday as Dana. Here's his post birthday celebration picture. He had a haircut yesterday and is looking spiffy in his December bandana. Have a great day!

And the Winner Is...........

The winner of my first giveaway is ............................. Barbara of Mainely Stitching!http://mainelystitching.wordpress.com/ Congratulations! Hope it gets to you in time for some fun Christmas stitching.

Ornies and Give away

I've been busy getting my Christmas ornaments stitched and put together for our guild's Christmas party. They are hung on trees at the party. Here's a picture from last year's party:

If you participate in the secret stitcher program for the year, it is ended with an ornament exchange also. You give your ornament to the person you sent gifts to all year and that's how they find out who their secret stitcher 'gifter' is. It's a lot of fun. I had started a scissor keeper for my secret stitcher but I don't think the colors are right for her. I'll finish it later for myself or my new secret stitcher for next year. These are the two ornaments I finished for this year's exchanges.

They are a Hands to Work pattern. I did the smaller of the two over one. Both were done on linen scraps using NPI silks. A silk ribbon and button finish them off. The larger is open so I can put something inside of it but the little one I fused shut. It was giving me fits to try and finish open so I quit fussing with it. Love steam a seam. Here is a picture of each separately.

I took a class from Ellen Chester (With My Needle) and learned quite a few stitches. They will be incorporated into a needlebook. The needlebook goes with a Huswife but I want to do it as a framed piece instead. My queen stitch started off wonky but ended up pretty nice. I decided to keep the wonky parts in as it is a learning piece for me and will show me where I started. So, here's the start of that and what the finished piece will look like.

OK, you've stuck with me this far in the post so, now is the fun

part. I am going to give away a Stacy Nash Christmas booklet, 'A Simply Early Christmas'. Welcome to Stacy Nash Primitives

I ordered it for myself but it's just not my cup of tea even though

I like her work. I'm sure someone would love to have it all to themselves and make things from it. If that would be you, please leave a comment on this post. I will draw a name on the 1st of December. Be sure I have your email address so I can let you know you won.

Last pretty days of fall

Halloween was a beautiful day and evening. Here's Evan, my grandson, dressed as Ironman.

This is his family's pumpkin display - isn't it cute?!

Here's Ryan, my son, scaring small children when they tried to get candy. Poor little children. Actually, he always lifted his mask and spoke to them.

Guess what I did today?

Yeah, that's a lot of bulbs. I'm sure glad the weather is still warm. I was sweating by the end of it all. The best part will be next spring when they are all in bloom.

Only 3 weeks to Thanksgiving. Hope you're enjoying a beautiful fall too.

Fun at the pumpkin farm

Rich, Dana, Evan and I went to Blooms and Berries to enjoy a fall weekend. It was hard to say which was the most fun. The big vat of shelled corn,

the hayride in Scarecrow Woods,

Picking a pumpkin,

Sliding down the huge corrugated slide,
or, just fooling around.
Happy Halloween everyone!

Scaredy Cat

We had a chance to celebrate this weekend. Sunday night to be specific. Rich participated in the Columbus, Ohio marathon. He set a new personal record for himself. He finished in under 4 hours! 3 hours 59 minutes and 8 seconds, at an average pace of just over 9 minute miles. What an accomplishment. I made a pineapple sage pound cake to celebrate. Pineapple sage is one of the last plants to bloom in the garden - always right before the first frost. Their flower are perfect for hummingbirds, red and tubular. I was thinking that I should bring in the hummingbird feeders since I hadn't seen a hummer all week. While I was out picking the blooms and leaves for the cake, who showed up right in front of me - a hummingbird. So, from plant to cake here are some pictures.

While Rich was driving to Columbus to spend the night, I made some Halloween cards to send to my family.

In between chores, I finished a small Halloween stitch by Sisters and Best Friends - 'CAT'. He's cute and fits in between the bat and pumpkin on my kitchen shelf.

I didn't win the quilt

So, I didn't win the quilt, but it was fun trying.

Been looking at blogs again, nice way to wake up in the morning, and found this..... Pigtails and Snails So go leave a comment and maybe you can win a gorgeous fall quilt. (Except that I'm going to win it 'cause it goes in my new guest bedroom that's going to be painted in these exact soft yellows)

That's a lot of apples. They are from our own tree and they've never looked so good, especially since we don't spray them. Good thing I left the canning pot out and all the supplies. 12 quarts of applesauce later there were no apples left in Evan's red wagon. I also put up 12 pints of salsa. I haven't canned that much in years. It felt like a great accomplishment.



Sarah's wedding is today! This was from last Saturday. We enjoyed a lovely fall afternoon at Judy W's house celebrating a wedding shower for our coworker. We hope Jason and Sarah have a wonderful life together.

I finished my letter Z last evening. yeah! Now I can return to my other works in progress and start a Christmas ornament for our guild's exchange. I also signed up for a paper piecing class at the Quilt Cabin. I have a pattern from Crabapple Hill Studio that I can't figure out because it requires paper piecing (Wild Rose Sewing Wallet). I've read it and read it but I need someone to show me. Hopefully, after my class next Thursday, I'll be able to make it.

Have a great weekend.

Busy Day

I have a busy day, today. I took a 12 mile bike trip on the Little Miami River bike trail http://www.lovelandbiketrail.com/. It was a beautiful morning for a bike ride. Saw a lot of squirrels and a few chipmunks but no deer today. I was curious about wind damage as this trail runs along the river and is heavily wooded. Some trees had come down and branches of trees were snapped off. I took a few pictures so you could see.

After my bike ride, I stopped at the The Quilt Cabin - Home to pick out a fat quarter for my secret stitcher's Christmas ornament. It will be a scissor keep and I needed fabric for the backing and lining. It is the fabric on the far left. It was cheaper if you bought 5 so....... That pink is a wild card isn't it?

I need to stitch for a while on my letter Z for the sampler guild's quilt Queen City Sampler Guild. Thought you might like to see how that is going. This afternoon I am picking up my daughter after work and we are going to Kentucky. Our first stop will be the GAP outlet in Hebron, KY. Then a little something to eat and down the road to a co-workers house for a Stampin' Up 'Stamp a Stack'. We will be making 12 cards at her workshop. She had one in the spring and it was lots of fun. It's nice walking away with 12 cards all made and ready to use.

Now to show you Rich's brand new, just completed garage. It needs a little more dirt around it to level it off with the yard. It is really nice. It has 2 skylights, a garage door opener, and at least one window on each side. We really like it. He's going to paint the floor with an epoxy paint and then we can start putting stuff in it. Lucky we had the trees trimmed beside it before the storm came through.

Sept. 27th;

Thought you'd like to see the cards Dana and I made last night. There were 6 stations set up and we made two of each of these cards. The pop-ups aren't showing up in the picture.

A Mighty Wind

Last Sunday, hurricane Ike and a cold front collided west of us and created a monster wind storm. 40 - 84 MPH winds blew through for over 4 hours. It was amazing. While I was at the fabric store, the electricity started going off and on which meant the computerized cash register was having to constantly boot up. I decided I didn't need what I had in hand and high tailed it home. Our street already had a tree hanging in the wires that I needed to skirt. I knew our power was going to be out. Sure enough I had to dig for house keys that I never use since I always come in through the garage with the automatic opener. As the afternoon drew to a close, I gathered the necessary candles, matches and lantern. Raked off the driveway and patio of sticks, leaves and branches, got a good portion of 'Eat, Pray, Love' read for our next book club, opened the windows and went to bed.














Mon. we still did not have power. Well, what a lovely way to spend the day stitching on Hands to Work 'Harvest Blooms'. Evening came and my daughter's employer came by with ice and a radio to keep me company since my DH was in Miami missing the fun. Put some thought into 'what if....' the power was not on by Tues. It wasn't. By afternoon the freezer food would be done for. So, I got out the canning equipment and fired up our propane stove (thank goodness I insisted on a gas stove when we built this house). A friend had supplied me with pounds and pounds of concord grapes that I had stemmed and frozen for future use. The future was NOW. They were beginning to defrost. I spent the day canning 20 pints of grape jam. At one point, there was a foray for more sugar, ice and batteries. A ten minute trip was now a half hour avoiding all the road blocks from downed trees and power lines and finding stores that were open and supplied. It was a long day. The last batch was done by lantern light.


Wed. morning and still no power. What was left in the freezer - cherries that could be made into jam also. Got started on those and cleaning out the refrigerator and the rest of the perishable things from the freezer. 12 pints later and two garbage cans full a weird sound filled the air. ELECTRICITY! Whoo Hoo! What a sweet sound. DH and son managed to clean up the rest of the yard over the weekend and things are back to normal in our house. There are still some people without power. Piles of wood and brush are stacked in almost every yard. What a reminder of the power of nature. God bless the people in Texas that felt this hurricane full strength.