To you all

To everyone who read my posts and to those of you who commented, a HUGE THANK YOU! I do hope that you found something interesting and perhaps enlightening in them.

Best wishes for a wonderful, healthy and creative 2012.

Mug rug

 A mug rug with a difference. Mug rugs can be any shape so why not be inventive. I made this one for a friend.

Sorry that the colours are off but the photo was taken in the evening. If your friend is a cat person, you can draw a rough outline if a cat. Get creative and do your own thing. You don't have to use other people's patterns. I was inspired by Sonja's version. It really isn't hard - all you have to do is try.

Every Inchie Monday #52

Yellow: a color like that of egg yolk, ripe lemons, etc.; the primary color between green and orange in the visible spectrum.

And that concludes one whole year of inchies. Fifty-two weeks and 52 inchies. For those of you who want to try your hand at inchies, go ahead. They are fun little one inch pieces of art. There is a whole new series starting in the new year. All the word prompts are already there so you can even start early and get some done. Here's the link to the site.

Have a wonderful, creative 2012.

Merry Christmas

From my house to yours.

 This is the Christmas quilt that is now completed and delivered that my daughter Laila made and I quilted.

On top of the tree is a clay star that my blogger friend Gina made.Visit her blog here and check out her etsy site here.

 Here's the whole tree decorated. 

And here's little Luc with his onsie that says "What Santa doesn't bring me Grandma will."

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Happy Hanukkah or Happy Holidays for those who don't celebrate Christmas.

Something new for the New Year

I thought that since I had so much fabric in my stash, I should use it up. During this year, I came across the quilting book club (which no longer does anything) and they started a quilt along using a couple of books. These were mainly geared to beginners but anyone could participate. The first book they used this one.

I purchased the book because I wanted to see what all was in it. There are 13 different quilts and all of them are in different sizes. Some have a multi-size materials list in case you want to make a baby quilt size or a lap quilt instead of a bigger, single bed size. I decided that I would work through the book using only the fabrics in my stash. Hopefully I can get most of them done without having to purchase anything - including the backings, but that remains to be seen.

 This is the first pattern in the book. Easy peasy and basically a lap size.

 Since I needed a diversion from what I was doing, I went ahead and pulled some fabrics from my stash.

These are the fabrics I chose (light, medium and dark) - mainly because I had enough to make a lap size quilt out of them. We'll see how far I get. This will be an ongoing project for next year. I really don't think that I will be hand quilting these. Two of the patterns are done in solids and those ones I really like. I know all of the quilts can be done in solids but I did want to use up the printed fabrics that I have accumulated over the years and this seemed like a neat idea to do just that.

I hope you are all keeping well and not stressing over the holidays. You can only do what you can do and believe it or not, you really have no influence over how quickly or slowly the mail is being delivered if you have sent something and it has not yet arrived or you ordered something that has not yet come.

Relax. It will all turn out OK in the end.

Every Inchie Monday #51

Green: a secondary color that has been formed by the mixture of blue and yellow pigments.

 One of my original inchies. I just sewed a bunch of green fabric that I had on hand.

 Shades of green.

Every Inchie Monday #50

Blue: the pure color of a clear sky; one of the primary colours.

 Simple and subtle Blue acrylic paint with a blue gel pen.

 Strange how the background took on a blue hue. It's actually a pure white envelope. I was playing with a stamp pad and it gave me this great textured background for the inchie. Too bad that the glue smudged.

Champagne Quilters' Christmas

Last night was the end of our quilting for the year. Ann leaves next week to spend Christmas with her son and his family in Oklahoma. Ann's son is in the Canadian Air Force and gets sent to various locations in Canada and the U.S. Last year at this time she was on her way to Florida because that's where her son was stationed. 

 Anyway, we always have a special 'tea' after quilting and exchange gifts on our last evening of quilting before breaking for the Christmas holidays. I totally forgot to bring the camera to show you all how small the quilt is now. To us it is smaller even though there are still quite a few evenings left to work on it. I will take a photo in the New Year and then you can see our progress. Well, this is what I got from the ladies.

From left to right, kitchen towels, Ferrero Roche Collection chocolates, homemade shortbread, a package of

500 yellow headed quilt pins and a triple pin cushion.

I'm off to put the pins to work and I have already sampled the shortbread.

Have a great weekend.

Every Inchie Monday #49

Red: any of various colors resembling the color of blood; one of the primary colours.

 Red acrylic painted inchie with red glitter, red beads and sequins and a red button. All decked out for the holiday season.