More Show and Tell

Look at this beautiful wool quilt. This is the one our fabulous facilitator is making. She is in the process of hand quilting it with pearl cotton thread. The pictures just do not do it justice.
Here is what the original design from the book looked like. This was made by our facilitator too.
As you can see the original design was a square and it is a wall hanging but some of us were going to make a tree skirt. I added more blocks and did not want it to be a square so I got this idea from a magazine article. I wish I came up with the idea but I will give credit due to the person who did.
Here is a before picture of what my tree skirt looks like now. My mom made this a very long time ago. I think in the 1980's.
Here is what my tree skirt will look like in the future. So you can see where the extra points came in from the magazine article. I think I might hand quilt it. And when it is quilted then I will cut the hole in the center and the opening toward the back. I am very please with it and it looks good hanging on my design wall.
I am in the process of making wool ornaments too which I will show you later. The decorations of our tree will change when all the kids get married because since they were babies I have been getting them a Hallmark ornament each year. As they get married (one child is) they are each taking their ornaments with them so there will not be a lot left to decorate the tree. So I have been coming up with some other ideas.

After the show and tell in our group our facilitator handed out these little kits.

Here is what we made. Notice the S on the buttons. I could have turned it over but I like the S for snowman.
Someone left a question about washing the crochet table cloth that I showed at Thanksgiving. I wash it in the machine on the delicate cycle with cold water and dry it with a cool cycle in the dryer. That might be the wrong way to care for the tablecloth but I know my mom had washed it for years like that. Maybe someone can leave a comment on how they would do it.

With Passion, Carrie P.

Home Sweet Home

I am so thankful for a roof over my head. God is good. There have been a lot of lay offs around our town and my husband still has his job. I am enjoying my nice warm home with the smell of a fresh Christmas tree and the crock pot cooking a ham and bean soup. In a little while the aroma of corn bread will fill the house also. Home is a wonderful thing.

I am sure you have noticed that I have been trying to make my blog look a little more like Christmas. Here is a picture of a quilt I just finished getting the binding on recently. This was a 2000 BOM from Joanns. I just started quilting in 1999 and I thought this would be a good way to learn some piecing skills. My banner comes from this quilt.

Yesterday was my applique group. I made my fabulous facilitator a little Christmas present. It was this punchneedle snowman. The jar has chocolate in it. The pattern came from this book. There are a lot of really nice patterns in the book.








Here are some photos of show and tell from some of the ladies in the group. This blue quilt was made by our fabulous facilitator.






This was made by another lady and it a gift card holder made from wool. Cute idea.







Look at this fabulous applique. This pattern is from book called Birds of a Feather by Barb Adams and Alma Allen. The lady making this quilt is getting a BOM in the mail. Christmas every month for her.

Our fabulous facilitator is embroidering this beautiful Christmas design from Crabapple Hill. Parts of it are colored in with crayons and heat set. It is going to be so pretty when she gets done.









I leave you with some more images of Christmas decorations. A garden flag in my front yard.




Here is a wall hanging that my mom made for me in 2002. As you can see I am using it as a table cover. It fits perfectly.


And in the middle of the wreath on this table is this bowl of wool gingerbread men that I made. Notice the bowl that they are in. It matches the kitchen towels that I showed earlier from Martha Stewart.

With Passion, Carrie P.

Yesterday I mentioned I had already gotten my first Christmas card. I decided to get mine done and I took the afternoon to do them all. It feels good to have them done. I got my friend's quilt packaged up and a little birthday package for my mom. I got an envelope at the post office to send it in.

My mom was born in December and I would always make her some cross stitch ornaments for her tree. I have been doing two each of the twelve days of Christmas. This year I finished the last two. They are from a book that was published in 1985.


I am also sending her some of the calendar dish towels that have dates from the 70's and 80's. I found them at a giant, I mean giant flea market that is held up in Virginia once a year. It was fantastic! My mom asked me to be on the look out for them because she is going to use them in a quilt. Not sure how she will use them but it will be interesting to see what she comes up with. I don't know how many towels she needs but I am sending her six. Sorry forgot to take pictures.

Yesterday I was tagged by Mary. I am very honored to be chosen especially since I have not been blogging very long. I am supposed to pick five people to tag but you know what, I just can't do it. I am probably being a wimp but you can see from my blog list I read a lot of them. I really like them all and I keep adding more to the list which I need to stop doing because I will never get any applique done if I just keep reading blogs. I love to see how you all decorate your blogs, read your stories and see all the beautiful projects. Just know that I think you all deserve this award.Congratulations to you all.

Today I leave you with another Christmas decoration. My mom made this table runner in the 80's. Very simple but I like it.

Today was my applique group. I have pictures that I will share tomorrow.
With Passion, Carrie P.

Christmas Decorations

It is December and I know a lot of you are pulling out your Christmas decorations. I don't usually bring mine out until the first week of December but last week-end was a good time since my daughter did not have to work. I thought I would show some of them today. This is a wall hanging my mom made for us in 1997. This was before I even started quilting. This place is in my kitchen and I change out the wall hanging with the different times of the year. You can see I received my first Christmas card. Got it yesterday. I guess I will be working on my cards this week.
Here is a close-up of the little snowman. Isn't he cute?
Here is a close-up of the little plaque. It is to the right of the snowman. The detail on this tiny piece of wood is so great.

Turn on some Christmas music and have fun bringing out all your decorations.
With Passion, Carrie P.

Time Flys When You Are So Busy Or Having Fun Or Both

This has been a full week. So much going on that I have not been on the computer but one time since last Wednesday. Let's catch up. I have missed reading the blogs I follow but that will have to wait until this afternoon because I have several errands to run this morning. Here is what I have been up to this past week.

On Wednesday my husband and I had to take care of some paper work on some land we own in another county. After we did that we decided to drive home a different route and we stopped in a little town that had a great antique mall. My husband found several old tools and I found this apron for $4.00. I believe it is vintage but I am not knowledgeable in that area. Maybe if Nanette reads this blog she can tell me. She seems to know a lot about vintage fabric. The apron is in great shape and has one spot at the apron top. Even if it is not vintage I still think it is so cute.

On Thanksgiving Day we had a very nice time with our oldest son and his wife and our daughter. Our middle son was with his girlfriend and her family in Eastern North Carolina. We decided to go the theater to see the movie called Australia. It was very good. We enjoyed our Thanksgiving meal when we arrived home. We a had a Honey Baked Ham this year and the trimming. Yum!

On Friday we decided to brave the crowds on Black Friday. My husband really needed some clothes for his job. So off we went to our local mall. Neither one of us likes to shop so we had to talk ourselves into it. We parked in the outer perimeter of the mall parking lot because it was packed with cars. It wasn't too bad once we got inside. We knew what we wanted and we found some great deals. We went to some other stores and out to eat too. We were out from 10:00am until 6:00pm.

I wasn't really looking for much for myself but I did have to stop at Joann's like Stephanie. I didn't buy any flannel but I bought some embroidery floss to use in my needlepunch and a two other things.

While at the mall I went into Macys. They have a Martha Stewart collection in the housewares department. I found these really nice kitchen towels.
And I got these cookie stencils. You put them on top of a cookie and sprinkle cocoa or powdered sugar over the stencil and it leaves the design.
On Saturday we went to buy our Christmas tree. We went down the road to a little town at this house that sells them each year. When the kids were smaller our tradition was to go to a Christmas tree farm in the mountains and pick our tree and then shop and eat at a Cracker Barrel restaurant. This was our second year of not going to the mountains. We put the tree up and one tradition that we have is to watch the movie White Christmas while we are decorating. So all the decorations are up.
On Sunday I got to work on my number 9 UFO. This is block number 3. Only 9 more to go. I don't think this UFO is going to get done by next Monday for my guild meeting.
I am off to run more errands. The first of the month is always busy for me. I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving and I look forward to reading some blogs this afternoon. Here is a free Christmas wall hanging to check out.

With Passion, Carrie P.