Mac and his sleigh

 

Mac is on pretending he's Santa. 

Henry is his reindeer.

The stool is his sleigh.

And they are riding it throughout the house.

Cute, loud, but cute.

It's the Winter Solstice

 

Yay! The days will now be getting longer. It's still cold, 😕 . I don't care much for winter. But I'm going to make the best of it.

This is my Lucy cat. She's a princess cat, aloof, but demanding when she wants something. Hence, a princess cat.

The final stocking is done. Just in time for Santa to cone. Above is the front, but the back is just as cute, if not more so. The back was just leftover strips, and so much easier.

Cookie Day

 It was cookie making day at my house with my two daughter-in-laws, and two of my grandchildren. It was great fun. And great eating. We try to do this every year. And now that I'm back on Ohio permanently I hope this becomes a yearly tradition.

It's Christmastime

 Not much going on today. So thought I'd have a picture show.

Another New Project

 Another one you may ask.

  But this one is for a really good reason. My friend's daughter is having a baby. Her original due date was February 14th. But she is high risk and they expect him to make his appearance the first week or so of January. She's going to name him Alexander, and call him Zander. So I needed to get busy on this one. 

  I picked a really easy pattern that I found on Pinterest. It's by onelaststitch.  It worked up really easy. I made a little more work for myself. But soon it will be a top. I will machine quilt this myself since it's so small. I bought the animal "focus" fabric and I had the rest. That little blue polka dot for the sashing and border was a booger, it frayed so much. I ended up staystitching the entire outer edge.

  And this is my helper today.

Quilting on a Friday

 I'm finally feeling better. Yay. So what did I do? I started working on a new quilt. This one will be for my new daughter-in-law. She said anything will do. But I quizzed her further, she likes blues and purples, nothing real fancy. I went through my scraps throwing in all the blues and purples, and even a bit of gray. I can see it now. It'll be scrappy of course.

  I really didn't need to start a new project. I have plenty of projects that need completed. Like 12-15 of them. I made a plan for next year. There's a blog that encourages quilters to make a list of their unfinished projects. Then once a month she draws out a number and you are to work on and hopefully complete that project. One a month sounds doable. One just needs binding, but it needs bias binding. I've never done that before. Some need quilted and bound. I don't quilt my own, too much strain on my back. Plus my quilter is very reasonable. Very. I like to piece the backs, it gets rid of a lot of fabric quickly. But two of these quilts have been waiting for at least two years. I suppose I'll buy some fat backs and get them off the list. I've added a list of 14 quilts that need finished. I really am hoping to get many of these off the UFO list.

  My nice neighbor just brought me a tin of Christmas cookies. Don't they look delicious? Yummo. Thanks Theresa. 

Time to be sewing for Christmas

   My son asked me (at last year's Christmas gathering) to make homemade stockings for his family. Of course I said yes. I had a whole year to make them. It is now the second week of December and I still need to make one more. I have three completed, they were the easier ones, my son picked a lone star pattern in neon colors, plus black. What?? For Christmas? It won't match the others. The lone star has been the only quilt project I gave up on.

 

I was fairly new at quilting and had taken a one day class at our local guild. But I just couldn't get the star to go together without a hump in the center. I ripped it out, three times, still a hump and now the fabric is stretched. and so I put it in the donation bin at the guild.

That was my Georgia guild. We had numerous teachers in the years I lived there. And I learned so much. My favorite teacher hands down is Bonnie Hunter. I love scrap quilts. Love, love, love. I mostly make scrap quilts. And mostly Bonnie Hunter quilts. 

When I moved to Ohio I tried out the local guild, and to be honest, they were quite snobby. After a couple visits I never went back. Bye bye snobby ladies. I do participate in a sewing/quilting group. We are not a guild, there's no dues or officers. Just nice ladies, like myself, who have a meeting once a month and have an informal sew in the next two days.

This was at sunrise this morning. Beautiful.