Yeah!

Yeah, I have my Google Reader down to 999 unread posts. My brothers will be here to visit any minute, and will leave tomorrow afternoon, so it will be back up over 1000, but at least for a short while I am below 1000.

Gratuitous baby picture:

First Great Grandbaby and Step 4 Carolina (Iowa) Christmas Mystery - Bonnie Hunter

Here is my first great grandbaby ever, now I really feel old, lol. She is a little cutie, born December 16th, 7 pounds 3 ounces, 19 1/2 inches long. this picture was taken on someones cell phone, and she looks much bigger and older in the picture for some reason. Mom and dad and baby are all doing well













Step 4, finally finished. Now it is time to start putting things together in step 5, and that is pretty exciting. I just hope everything goes together well, all is not perfect, there may be a few chopped points, but hopefully since it is such a busy quilt, they'll be hard to spot.

Step 3 Carolina (Iowa) Christmas Mystery - Bonnie Hunter

Many have already finished step 5, but I of course am a lagger. For me, being finished with step 3 is great (I also have step 4 cut out and ready to be sewn), but I have a couple of other things that are pulling me. One, a lady who is ill and lives alone, and I feel like quilting one of my tops for her (it's not one of the 9 that are assigned to various kids and are still waiting to be basted and quilted). The other is my basket of leftover half square triangles. I have bought dolls for our 2 smallest granddaughters and I thought that Christmas doll quilts would be really cute made from them.
I guess that I can decide while I take a break from quilting and clean the house and decorate a little for Christmas. I still have my Thanksgiving things out.

Step 2 Carolina (Iowa) Christmas Mystery - Bonnie Hunter

I can't believe it, I'm sort of keeping up and not lagging behind in the steps (yet). I am ready now for step 3, and it's a biggey.

Bonnie had miscalculated the neutrals a bit and so I made a trip to the LQS and got some Christmas lights on sale. There is still not much contrast between my lights and my gold, but I hope that the fact that the gold is not scrappy will still give it some contrast. Time will tell, that's the fun of a mystery.

Step One Bonnie Hunter Carolina Christmas Mystery

I should be cleaning the house, or decorating for Christmas, maybe even finishing the 9 quilt tops with backs and bindings prepared and ready to go. I should be, but instead I have started the latest Bonnie Hunter mystery. I am not too crazy about my gold or my neutrals, but hopefully when it is all finished it will look good. I love some of my reds and greens and am excited to add them to the mix. It is mostly the same fabrics as in the Strip Unroad Christmas quilt that is a recently finished flimsy, but I think both will be mine, one is a lap size, and the other a bed size. My mystery quilt will be Iowa Christmas, in honor of my mother who thought that Iowa was the best place on earth.

Second Nine Patch

This is the second of my Crazy Mom Quilts nine patch tops. Here is my first one. Just one more to go, a bigger one with the original plan of white sashing. That one I think will stay at my house.

A Little More Progress......

A little progress for me, I have the back finished for my Christmas Strip Road, it looks more Christmasy in person.









(Sorry, I've tried and tried and I can't get rid of the gap, I guess Blogger is acting up.)















Quite a bit of progress for Tabitha. she has a couple of minor repairs to make, and then her final border, and she has her first quilt top. Not sure when she'll be back, but she is excited to see it finished so I think that she'll be trying to get back soon. She also wants to make bread, so that is on the agenda, too.

Quilting Lesson Number Two for Tabitha

Today I'm sure that I was the envy of many a "quilting lady". I got to give my granddaughter her second quilting lesson and spend the day with her. She came over early and since it had been between one year and two since her first lesson, we discovered that although we had figured that all her blocks were done, we were actually about 7 blocks short. To explain the gap I'll mention that she has had 2 or 3 jobs at a time since, or has been going to school and working a job in between. She most recently was juggling 3 jobs, working at two different Wendy's and a Cracker Barrel, and now is the "lazy" worker of only two, as she gave up one of the Wendy's jobs. This week, she is on vacation from her remaining two jobs, and is hoping by the end of the year to be down to only one job and back in college. She turned eighteen this
past June.
She started her labors by trimming her blocks and then cutting out the new blocks.










Then she assembly line sewed for an hour or two, and her grandpa came home from some errands and we decided that we needed a field trip. We went and had lunch out and visited with each other (in the South that means that we chatted), and then we went to BJ's and did a little shopping. I got two new towels, DGD got new red house slippers and DH got laundry detergent, lol.
When we returned home, it was back to the sewing machine, and then after awhile DH went to the chiropractor and we decided that after she had sewn the blocks into pairs and ironed the seams and had them ready for the next step that we would have an imprompto not very elegant tea party. Just as we sat down, guess who came in the door, so I got him a cup too.










Below, are five of the seven rows, I think she did a great job. Tomorrow, she will be back and hopefully we will get the top finished. I told her she had 3 choices for finishing, send it out to the LA'er, quilt it herself on my Juki, or tie it. She is leaning toward a poofy bat, and tying it.

By the way, the pattern is Yellow Brick Road.

Tea Things Tuesday IV

I'm writing this on Monday to be sure that I'm ready for tomorrow, and it started out being dreary and drab here, so I thought what would be a good day brightener. Red is what I came up with, so today (tomorrow) I am sharing some more of my Royal Albert Old Country Roses. I have had it for forever, as I had mentioned before, I'm lucky enough to live near outlets where deals are to be found. The scale of my display is pretty improper, but I like my miniatures and like to include them. The chicken is my only red one, and it is very dark, but I enjoy my little jewels, which is how I think of my chicken collection.













The Fenton cranberry glass vase is a new to me recent addition that I got off ebay. It was a very good buy, and I have been wanting some cranberry glass for years.














For more Tea Things Tuesday posts please visit Kim at Shabby, Pink and Pretty, she is our gracious hostess.

Christmas Strip Road

I took part in a Cyberquilters 4-C-Bees special project week-end before last, and miracle of miracles, I have finished the top. It is supposed to look very different, but due to my fabric choices, it is what it is. It is from a pattern generously shared by Benita Skinner, called Strip Road. Mine is more like a Strip Unroad though. The only purchase that I made was for 2/3 yard of the red cranberry fabric, and I'm going to use some Christmas fat quarters that I got from Connecting Threads for the back, so it is almost all from my small stash. I have wanted a Christmas quilt, and I'm not hating it even if it was supposed to look different than it does. It will be another miracle if I get it finished for this Christmas, but miracles do happen.