Goodbye 2010, part 1

I hope everyone had as wonderful a Christmas as we did! We kept it simple and really enjoyed the time spent with family.

Obviously, 2010 was all about the quilts! 1. Summer Lemonade Quilt, 2. Bird in the Woods Mini Quilt, 3. Rapunzel Mini Quilt, 4. Front Porch Quilt, 5. IMG_5460s, 6. IMG_5366s, 7. IMG_5373s, 8. IMG_5336s, 9. IMG_4427s, 10. Owl & Pussycat Baby Quilt, 11. Weekends Baby Girl Quilt, 12. Play It Up - modern baby quilt, 13. Play It Up - modern throw quilt, 14. It's A Hoot Patchwork Quilt, 15. Christmas Star Mini Quilt, 16. Winter Forest Mini Quilt, 17. Amy Butler Disappearing Nine Patch, 18. Colorbricks quilt front

This is just a sampling since I don't have time to track all the pictures down and put them into a mosaic. In total, I made 23 large quilts (mostly throw size and baby size but a twin and a queen as well), 7 table runners and at least 30 mini quilts! whew!

I'm hoping 2011 will be even better! There are two patterns I'm working on at the moment. Now that I think I've finally recovered from the craziness of the holidays I'm looking forward to getting back in the groove of things.

Next, part 2: knitting. Much less impressive, but still a source of great enjoyment!

Merry Christmas!

On the agenda for tomorrow (Christmas Eve):

• reading
• playing games
• watching movies
• napping
• oh, and making a pot of soup for dinner

It'll be a busy day!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

'tis the season

You could say that my house has been a bit of an gift factory lately.

My Aunt commissioned this quilt from me for a gift for her husband's niece. I fell in love with this Colorbrick quilt and found it to be the perfect last-minute quilt pattern. The colors feel like a day at the spa! LOVE IT!

This, of course, is a Toddler Backpack from Made by Rae. My sister-in-law requested one for her 1-year-old daughter and I had her pick out the fabric. Even though it is a home dec weight fabric I still added some cotton twill canvas on the inside for extra support.

This technically isn't a gift. I've been wanting a nativity set but don't really have the money for a nice set (especially with Jack being in the destructive toddler stage) so I bought this pattern to make one. It was very labor intensive but I'm so happy with how it came out! I added a small handful of beans to the bottoms after stuffing for extra weight.

My sister-in-law also strongly "hinted" that she would like an infinity scarf like the one I made for myself a while back. I didn't feel like I had enough time to knit one but I immediately thought on the Figure 8 scarf tutorial Anna Maria Horner recently posted using her velveteen and voile fabrics. I have to say I'm not totally loving it but each time I try it on it grows on me. The fabrics themselves are fabulous! but it's the fact that this scarf feels GINORMOUS on. When I look down I can't see the ground! It's a very dramatic scarf. There's more story on this scarf but I'll save it for another post.And lastly, still in progress, are place mats to match the commissioned table runner I made last year.

Whew!

Things are really coming together here and I'm going to start making Christmas cookies next week. I really love the week before Christmas, our shopping is done (well, mostly) and it's time to slow down and enjoy!

new family member

Meet Dozer, short for Bulldozer.

He's an 11 month old French Bulldog and we love him sooo much! I've always wanted a nice family dog but it was never the "right" time (worked too much and then we had Jack and I'm sure the work of a puppy and a newborn at the same time would have made me go insane).

My husband's aunt breeds and shows French Bulldogs and they were set to be in town 2 weeks ago so we asked if she had any she was willing to part with. In case you didn't know, these dogs are usually mega expensive and there was no way we could afford one but we worked out a trade. Three of my quilts for this sweet little guy. And she's already done most of the hard work of training too!

He's so playful and is a fantastic addition to the family!

I'm a busy little elf

No time for knitting. I've been slaving away on Christmas crafts, custom quilts, gifts and Christmas cards! I'm on the verge of finishing up a bunch of stuff and I can't wait to show you.

This is a stack of Tufted Tweets fabric I cut up yesterday. This project is totally unrelated to my list above, I've just been wanting to cut into it for a while now.