Christmas has snuck up on me again.

Of course I am not ready but I have a week to get caught up.  I am trying to quilt a quilt for a gift for my DH.  He has complained for years that I have never made him one so this is my chance, especially since I don't have any money of my own to buy him a gift.  I am keeping my fingers crossed that I can get it done. 

I have been busy trying to set up my Christmas village.  I saw a picture on someone's blog a couple of years ago where they had set up their village under their tree.  I thought it was a great idea especially since we really don't have gifts to put under the tree anymore.  I also like the fact that the tree doesn't look empty after Christmas.  

I think it turned out great.  I smelled like a locker room after but it is done.

Happy quilting

Finally some decent weather and 37 baby quilts.

Ha

     After such a long cold winter we are finally enjoying some warm double digit temperatures however things are not well with our little family.  DS has been struggling with bi-polar disorder, not properly diagnosed, and it has spiralled out of control.  He has been highly delusional these past few days and it has gotten worse with a desire to commit suicide to stop all the thoughts and feelings.  We took him to the crisis centre twice and they sent him away.  We finally had to call the police to take him in and after a whole day of my DH sitting with him there they admitted him to hospital.  I pray with all my heart they can help him.  He is highly paranoid right now and the bizarre things he has been saying scare the hell out of me. He has a long way to go before he is well enough to go back to work if he still has a job.  We will worry about that later, he needs to get well first.

Since this blog is supposed to be about quilting I better include some of that in my post.  The Thelma Wynn project has ended for the year and we had the tea on the 15th of May.  I have posted a few pictures of the quilts I made/donated.  One day I will get the hang of adding pictures to my posts but since this iPad has a mind of its own I doubt I will ever get there.   Some I quilted and some were tied by one of the ladies in the group that does not sew but likes to help out.  I made 37 quilts this year, three bibs and several burp cloths.  I am tired so I packed all the leftover fabric away for now and quilted a customer quilt for a change.  

     Another of my longtime customers, that no longer drives, wants a couple of quilts done.  DH, the dog and I will do a road trip and pick them up.  The customer is in her late 80's and she lives in one of the lake communities so we don't mind the trip since it is a nice area to visit.

I am hoping our son is recovering by then so we can take time out and not have to worry about leaving him alone.

More pictures.

Happy stitching.

Winter's Song top is finally finished and on the longarm.

I finally finished appliquéing and piecing the wallhanging and have it on the machine.  I drew out some quilting ideas on the freezer paper pattern and then started quilting the sky.  It looks like crap so far.  I can't even look at it right now.  I am going to let it sit a day and see if I still hate it, if is, I will pick it out but only after I have quilted most of the rest of the top.  I think I need to quilt the sky a little tighter with smaller feather fronds as well. I am not even posting a picture of it because I am so disappointed and discussed.  

I have decided to make charity quilts with my Celtic Solstice blocks.  The quilt is way too bright for me and goes with nothing in this house so making them into children's quilts makes sense.  I also would have to make more parts to make it fit on one of our beds and I had no desire to buy more orange fabric or the will to sew any more of the parts.  I can split them into either four or five tops depending on whether I want to make squares or rectangles.  The pattern is out of whack if I make a sixteen block square but I think it would not matter to the baby receiving the quilt.  We will see.

Well DS brought his laundry over because they don't have machines in his building yet so I better go put his next load in.  How come I get the honours?  Once a Mom always a Mom.

Happy Stitching.

It is the middle of January already.

It is hard to believe that this is the middle of January already.  The temperature was to be around zero but we ended up having blizzard like conditions and of course DS was moving today.  His 

box spring ended up being airborne and his mattress got wet.  Hopefully everything will have dried out before he goes to bed.

I spent most of the day finishing up the appliqué on WInter's Song.  I have it all done except I have to fix something I fixed.  Not happy with my fix so back to the drawing board tomorrow.  Sashng and borders go on tomorrow as well.  Yeah!

I have all my blocks done for CS and I am looking forward to sewing them together.  Maybe on the weekend I can get to it.  I have to take my mother grocery shopping Friday morning and then I have a sit and stitch with some quilting buddies.  We haven't seen each other for awhile so I am looking forward to it.  We all decided to do CS and are all at various stages of completion so we are looking forward to seeing what we have done.

Photos tomorrow.

Happy stitching.

Another frigid January day.

Charlie and I are still curled up on the couch not wanting to get moving this freezing cold morning.  Anyway, DH and DS have both gone off to work so I do not have to be quiet.  I think some major vacuuming and cleaning should be done while I have a chance.  I also want to head out to Target to get those flannel sheets that are on sale, they also have some gift bags on sale for cheap so I will pick up some more if any are left.

I am taking a break from my Celtic Solstice quilt for a couple of days to get caught up with Winter's Song.  I may change up my setting because of the design that someone posted on Facebook.  It looks great but only if all of the oranges are as saturated a red orange colour as in the design.  I will play around with the blocks later on and make a plan.  I am not ready to quilt it right now anyway so I can wait and play.

Below is the EQ design for CS that I am in love with.  Enough of sitting around.  Time to get going.

Happy stitching

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

First post of the year.  Hopefully I will post a little more often in the future.

I spent most of the day squaring up my Celtic solstice mystery quilt units.  Bonnie Hunter posted the reveal as a surprise so I made up two of the blocks to see how they looked.  I may put it together like someone posted on fb instead of the Quiltville setting.  Someone else posted a great border treatment as well that I may steal.  My units are all in a storage bin waiting for me to get going on the top, hopefully I can work on it tomorrow.

I put all of the fabric away and sorted all the scraps into their bins as well.  I feel good now that the mess has been cleaned up.  I need to get back to the appliqué so that I can it ready and quilted for the quilt show this spring.  Better get busy.

I also want to make a list of UFO's that I want to complete this year.  I say it every year but I want to try to not buy any more fabric this year unless I need it for borders or backing to finish up a project.  this is the year of using up my scraps.  I like the wonky stars pattern that Bonnie is working on, that should use up a lot of 2 1/2 inch squares and scraps.  I also want to work on Tumalo Trail and get rid of those little squares.  Good luck to me.

Happy stitching