The True Meaning of Christmas

To each of you I wish a very Blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Luke 2
The Birth of Jesus
1In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2(This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3And everyone went to his own town to register.
4So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

The Shepherds and the Angels
8And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ[a] the Lord. 12This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."
13Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
14"Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

15When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."

16So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told

Joy

This drawing is from the blog Homegrown Hospitality.

Christmas should be a time of JOY. But for many it is a time of sadness and depression because of events that have happened in their pass. I love the blog site Homegrown Hospitality,http://www.homegrownhospitality.typepad.com/, who can just boost my spirits when I may be feeling down. Hope you will enjoy it also.

A Very Merry Christmas to all.

Christmas Tote Bag

I love to sew Tote Bags. Sweetman calls me "the bag Lady" when we are getting ready to go someplace as I always have a bag full of projects or reading material to carry along. I found these two embroidery designs at Embroidery Library and incorporated them into these Christmas Totes. I love lime green. Never wear it but love to use it in quilts. These totes will carry groceries, books and quilt projects for the season

Blessing #3

This is the oldest of these three brothers. And he brought his friend, who happens to be a girl, to share Thanksgiving with us. Cute couple. These three young men are the children of our youngest son. Great kids who are so fortunate to have great parents.

We have truly been blessed with four exceptionally unique children who have given us two wonderful daughter in laws, eight wonderful grandchildren and from those eight we now have two great grandchildren. Blessings have been poured on us abundantly!

Blessing #2

This is another of our blessings. This young man is next to our youngest grandchild. Just a delight to be around him. He is a wrestler for his school and very, very good at it. Smart, good looking and we loved sharing Thanksgiving with him also.

Blessings

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. I love cooking for my family and sharing the day with them. This young man is our youngest grandchild. He is just a great person with a smile to melt your heart and those eyes will get him most anything from his Nana and Papa. He has been a joy to our family.

Celtic 9 Patch Workshop

Our guild had a workshop last weekend for the Celtic Nine Patch. In this picture the teacher is showing us how to use our bias bindings to create the celtic designs.
In the other picture you can see the three block table runner. The celtic binding is suppose to go around the oval inserts. The original quilt pattern is from Scarlett Rose and we only made three of the blocks rather than a wall hanging quilt.

Disappearing Nine Patch

I loved sewing this Disappearing Nine Patch design. So much fun sewing, cutting and resewing. And then I used it to experiment with the Baptist Fan quilt design and that was even more fun. This little quilt will be donated to our Cuddle Quilt program at the guild.

Blairsville Quilt Show

What fun we had yesterday in Blairsville. We, ten from our quilt guild, drove up to Blairsville for the day and attended the Misty Mountain Quilt Guild's quilt show. Beautiful quilts! Great company going and coming. And of course we just had to go by the local quilt shop. While looking at the quilts I spotted a face I recognized. I had never met this person, yet I knew her from her blog. It was Val from Life's Little Garden blog http://lifeslittlegarden.blogspot.com/. One of my favorite blogs with her stories of her sweet Granny. Val's sweet mom was with her and I also had the pleasure of meeting her. Val's blog is always an inspiration to me and just gives my day a little boost each morning when I read her writings. A pleasure to meet you Val and maybe we will see each other again.

Purse Workshop

We recently had a purse workshop for our guild members. Two of our members taught two very different purses. And this is the class I took. This is really a cute purse and by following Miss Ann's detailed instructions, everything went together perfectly. I have Miss Teresa's instructions for her purse and will get to it just as soon as time permits. Thanks ladies for doing a great job and thank you guild members for great participation.

Baptist Fan

Sorry, I don't have a picture for this blog. I have always like the Baptist Fan quilting stencil. I purchased several sizes when I went to Paducah several years ago and just never did anything with them. Then I made a small quilt, disappearing nine patch, and decided I would try to learn how to use the stencil. My friend Susan, gave me a quick lesson. I started the quilting and found out how to mark the top with a washable pen. After the first row across it just came in place and is looking great. I know I will be using this quilting pattern many times in the future. Will post a picture when the quilt top is completed.
Happy Quilting to all.

New Great Grandson

This is a picture of our newest great grandson, Vikter. He doesn't live close to us but we are able to keep in touch with his Mom and Dad in facebook. This makes two great grandsons for us. And I know there will be many more since we have eight grandchildren, seven boys and one girl. And now speaking of quilting, I finally finished the Bethany Reynolds Stack and Whack quilt top. It is hugh! And so heavy! I don't know if I will ever get it quilted. Picture will follow later. Now I am trying to finish up my UFO's. The Baltimore Album quilt top needs six more blocks before it will be ready to sew together. But this will be more of a lap quilt than a bed quilt. Hope you have a joyful day with lots of quilting.

A Blue Ribbon Winner in Knoxville

This is another picture from the Knoxville Quilt Expo. I love the colors the maker of this quilt used. And it won a Blue Ribbon! She did great work.

Another Knoxville Quilt

I enjoyed this quilt. It appears the centers were machine embroidered. The colors are wonderful. A great idea to use our embroidery machines and incorporate the designs into a quilt.

Knoxville Expo

Back in July a group of us drove to Knoxville, TN to attend the Knoxville Quilting Expo. Had a great time and saw many beautiful quilts. Some of the quilts we were not allowed to photograph. But many did allow photos. So over the next few days or weeks I will be sharing some of the pictures I took and hope you enjoy them. We loved the Expo in Knoxville because it was much closer to where we live than Paducah. But someday I would love to go back to Paducah. Enjoy.

The House Across the Street

This is the house across the street from my house. The house went into foreclosure several years ago and ended up being puchased by a retired couple from Florida. They did extensive remolding to the house and it was a very nice looking home. Well, there was that problem on the front where they took out the window in the bonus room to get sheet rock up to the bonus room for part of the remolding. The hardiplank boards they put back on the outside of the house when they reinstalled the bonus room window, some boards were new and they just never did get around to painting them. So the couple moved in with their seven cats and four dogs. Now the Mrs. did not want to leave Florida. So she was never very happy. And then there were other problems in our small town that she didn't like and then she had a run in with a neighbor, that would my household, when the pit in our backyard was being dug up. So this delightful, unhappy Mrs., couple bought some land and a house south of Atlanta and have been moving there for the past month. Now she decided to do something to cover those unpainted boards. So she had the front of the house and one side painted. She had a new roof put on after a hail storm. All of the roofs in our subdivision are black, her new roof is blue. And when she repainted the front of her house she painted the shutters, the front door, the porch, the railings and the bannisters ROYAL BLUE! So each morning I get up and said Good Morning World to a Royal Blue porch across the street. I hope it filled her with great joy. It is her house and she can do what she chooses to do with it. It is now up for rent and I cannot wait to see who my new neighbors are going to be. Maybe she will be a quilter and we can sit and quilt on that beautiful royal blue porch.

I think I Am Going Crazy

I think I will go crazy if we don't finish getting the sewing room moved downstairs.
The big hold up is getting the sewing machine cabinet moved from upstairs to downstairs. It is big and it is heavy. Too much for two senior citizens. We are waiting for our grandson to come up for a visit on Monday and I am sure the three of us can slide it down the stairs to the kitchen and then roll it out to the sewing room. No carpet once downstairs. Then I have to get everything in order. Right now I cannot even see the sewing machine with all the junk piled up on the table I am temporarily using.
Today, Sweetman put together a small computer desk for me to put in my bedroom to have a place for the laptop and a printer. Then we have purchased shelves to install in the sewing room to hold some of my fabric stash.
When my house and sewing area is messy I just feel like my life is going crazy. I like order and a plan of what to do next. Hopefully, when Timothy gets here Monday we can get everything straighten out and start getting some order to this mess.
Oh, and wait until I tell you about the house across the street. Must get a picture first. I need some Joy in my life.

Back from Knoxville

The trip to Knoxville for the Quilt Expo was wonderful. Had lots of fun, saw many, many vendors with beautiful merchandise. This was the first year for Knoxville to be the host city. Next year should be even better. No large purchases were made but did pick up more embroidery thread and a beautiful Baltimore Album block series which I am going to share with a friend. She also pick up six of the blocks which she will share with me. This Expo is only about a sixth as large as Paducah but still saw many new quilt patterns. Saw lots of tie-dyed wool fabric. Beautiful colors! Long arm quilting companies were everywhere selling their machines. One vendor was a man who had build a longarm in his garage and now is producing to sell at the expos. Next year I will make it a two night trip as one night just was not long enough to take classes etc. But had a great time, great company and a terrific driver.

Off we Go to Knoxville

Tomorrow morning we are off to Knoxville to the Quilt Expo. There are six from our Quilt Guild who will be attending and oohing and aahing over the beautiful quilts. I am anxious over how large or small this Expo will be in comparison to the Paducah Quilt Show. The Paducah show was just wonderful! I had never been to Paducah and to be honest I was overwhelmed. I wanted to buy one of everything! This trip to Knoxville I have a list. After quilting as long as I have, there aren't too many gadgets I need or want. But I do want a Q foot for my Designer 1 USB and there are a couple of books I would like to purchase, also. So I go with a plan. Will report back this weekend. Fabric is like Joy, it makes you feel happy on the inside.

This is a quilt, or part of a quilt, that I am currently working on. Seems to last forever sewing it together! It is from Bethany Reynolds, Magic Stack and Whack, book. I fell in love with the fabric and have really enjoyed sewing it together. But you really have to be careful sewing the blocks together as you have different blocks for different positions on the quilt. I study the block, lay it out to sew, sew it together, study the block instructions again (just to make sure it has been sewn correctly) and then label the block. I think I have six more rows and it will be sewn together. I will then measure the quilt and determine if I am going to add a border. It is turning out to be another monster quilt for the high queen size bed. Hey Ann---put me on your list for the longarm. A joyful noise is pleasing to His ear.

Mississippi Fern

Sometimes in the 70's my Dad and aunt drove from Mississippi to Georgia to visit us and Dad brought me a pot full of fern from his yard. One pot. We planted this one pot on the side yard of our house in Clarkston and it grew and spread all along the side of the house. Then we moved to Lawrenceville and in the contract to sell the Clarkston house we stated that we would have the right to dig up some of the fern to move to Lawrenceville. From Lawrenceville to Jefferson, the same thing. When we moved to our house in Jefferson in 2000 we hauled fern and planted it on the backside of the house that gets morning sun and evening shade. It has spread along this space. And this year, with all the rains it is taller than it has ever been. Sweetman measured a piece the other day--48 inches tall. This fern comes back every year and can be dug up and planted most any place that gets afternoon shade. I asked my Dad where he got this fern. With a grin on his face he said, "Some place where you are not suppose to remove plants from". Now he had that fern for years at his house so I am sure he "borrowed" it in the early 50-60's. In his later years I asked again and he told me the Natchez Trace north of where we lived. Today, you can go to jail for removing anything from a Federal or State park. Do you think that applies to the second generation? Need fern--call me.

Ohio Star Quilt

Finished, at last. This quilt is rather large as I wanted it to fit my high queen sized bed. My friend, Ann, at Circle Square Quilting Co. did the quilting for me and I just love the way she quilted the top. I loved making this quilt and have enough fabric left over to make a smaller quilt for the back of my wicker chair in the bedroom. Happy Quilting and may you have much joy in your life.

Sweetman Needs New Work Shoes???

Sweetman has a shoe problem. He has worked so hard until his shoes are coming apart. When I inquired about another pair he insisted there was no need to spend money on new workshoes he could just put duct tape around the shoe and it would last at least another year. O.K. (more money for quilt fabric!!!)

Cooler Sewing Room

We purchased an A/C for the sunroom/sewing room this weekend. After much discussion, reading and rereading instructions, taking in and out of window several times, the A/C is in the window and working. Yeah--a cool room to sew in. Thanks Sweetman for hanging in there to get it installed ASAP.

More Information Than You Want to Know

I am a retired mother, grandmother and wife of one sweet man. Quilting is my passion as far as my hobbies. I also love to machine embroidery. Life isn't interesting unless I have four or five projects going at the same time. Quilting has taken over our house. Sweetman asked that I leave him a bed to sleep in and a bathroom to use. So far, quilting is in the bonus room upstairs, the sitting room, my bedroom, the living room (for the quilt frame) and the sunporch.

When we moved into this house I claimed the bonus room as my sewing room. After 10 years it is full of fabric etc. Then I broke my foot several years ago and ever since my sweetman is scared that I am going to fall down the stairs and break the other foot. So this summer I agreed to move my sewing machine and quilting necessities to the sunroom to see how I liked using it as a quilting room. It's nice, bright and I have a design wall. But it is hot as there is no A/C. So I think we will buy a window unit and then this winter I can buy a portable heater.

Haven't moved the embroidery machine down, yet. But may do so later on this summer.

Have a joyful day.