Gifts

For Christmas I made my daughter Jen and daughter-in-law Victoria casserole carriers and potholders.  By now I should be used to the dark pictures my camera takes but alas, I'm not.  It probably has more to do with the lighting in my house and not the camera.  Anyway, here are the gifts I made.

Victoria's casserole carrier with two potholders.

Lining fabric.

Jen's casserole carrier with two potholders

Lining fabric.

The potholders were made using patterns from Lori Holt's book Farm Girl Vintage.  I didn't use her potholder directions though.  They were too large for my liking.  Basically the same just not as wide of a border.  The carriers are a conglomeration of a couple of free patterns I found searching the web.   Both sets turned out great.  And I certainly had fun making them.  One of Jen's potholders was supposed to be a sheep but it required some hand stitching and by the time I did that it was no longer fit to be a gift.  Some day I'll learn.

Happy sewing,

Julie

There weren't many posts written on my blog last year.  So I'll try to do a little catch up while I seem to be on a roll.  This is three posts just this month.  Wowza.  Anyway, one of the things I never blogged about was being a winner.

The second week of December was another Sew Mama Sew give away week.  It's where bloggers write a post about whatever they want but in the post they offer to give something away (often fabric) if you'll follow their blog on one of the many different ways you can sign up to follow.  Or you might just have to answer a simple question.  It's a good way to get new people to visit your blog.  I participate as one who visits the blogs not the blogger.  That may be one of the reasons I still only have 30 followers (and some of them are duplicates) and not hundreds of followers that many bloggers have.  Anyway - in December I was one of the lucky winners and I never posted about it.

This is the fat 8th bundle I received from Jayne at Twiggy and Opal.

Very pretty fabrics and a zipper pouch too!

The different patterns of fabric.

I was quite surprised that is was such a large bundle of fabrics.  It was a generous prize/gift and I appreciate it.  Now comes the decision on what to do with it.  These fabrics are not necessarily in my usual group of fabrics.  However, I've been looking to do something a little more current and this may be a good reason to figure something out.  Thanks again Jayne.

Happy sewing,

Julie

Another busy weekend.  Saturday we had a birthday lunch at the "manor" with mom.  She is 85 years old now.  Most of the family attended. There was too much food as always.  Mom has said that she never gets Mexican food anymore.  So we had a Mexican food potluck.  She appreciated that.

Sunday I spent working on my mystery quilt.  I switched the yellow for teal and love the way it is turning out.

close up

I'm pretty sure this one will be yet another one I want to keep for myself.  I have quite a bit left to sew to get the blocks together.  And since it's laying on my living room floor I may have some motivation to get it done.  I haven't decided yet if I'll put any borders on it. 

Happy sewing,

Julie

A New Year

How did it already get to be January 6th.  The last few days have just flown by and I have so much to get done.  Isn't that the way it always goes.

The holidays around my house were very busy.  We always have one place or another to run off to.  I'm not sure I would change a thing about it though.  I sure wasn't wanting to change anything this time.  There was just too much upset in 2015 to want to throw something different into the Christmas holiday.  And a great Christmas it turned out to be.

My grandgirls Grace and Allison and DIL Victoria like to buy me fabric for my stash. Nothing wrong with that. This time Victoria took some pictures of the girls picking out the fabric.

 

Allison was working hard to get those bolts up on the table.  It appeared that Grace was being a terrific supervisor.  It's great fun to have them show me which fabrics they picked out.  And this year was even better since I got the pictures that show the story to go with the fabric.  Several of the fabrics made it into my mystery quilt.  I'll have pictures of it another day.

I had so much trouble trying to post these pictures that some of the people that read it via bloglovin might not get the whole post.  I had to keep correcting and updating it.  Oh, well.  I'm leaving it, as is.
Hoping for a productive rest of the week.

Happy sewing,

Juliw  (I even spelled my own name wrong and didn't even notice it. Yet another update.)  Julie