MERRY CHRISTMAS

Wow ...have we been busy with working and getting ready for the holidays. I am attaching some pictures of some of the last minute gifts I made. The pictures were taken before the pieces were pressed and blocked but I wanted to give you an idea of what they were like.

The first is a sugar plum fairy wall hanging inspired by a pattern in Pat Sloan's book, Folksy Favorites.
The second is a checkerboard inspired by a pattern in Debbie Mumm's Quick Country Quilts for Every Room. The red and green candies can be used as checkers and the gold ones can be prizes or the recipient can just eat the candy!!




The third is one that I designed myself. The sugar plum fairy and the tree are embellished with beads from my stash.

Last week my hubby and I had another visit to an ER...this time it was him. He had a soreness in his chest so we decided to be on the safe side. It turned out well. The diagnosis was an esophageal spasm. The symptoms do mimic a heart attack. The spasm can be related to GERD (gastro reflux disease). The ER was great but it was a long night.

Friday, my good friend PAT and her hubby came for dinner and we had a lovely, relaxing evening. She also gave me a couple of the gifts she shows on her December 21 post. The towel with the blue goes so well with my Christmas Star wall hanging! She showed me a quick way to make quarter square triangle blocks and our hubbies talked cars and computers. Her husband created a wonderful light display for their yard that is coordinated with music. He bought a transmitter that broadcasts music over a limited-range radio station. Viewers who are inspired can leave food bank donations. Pat has delivered quite a bit of food to a local food bank! As for the quarter square block...Pat asked me how the math of the block works. It took a little figuring but it does relate to triangle geometry! I am going to try to write out a formula... it's been a while since I taught any geometry!

Pat also shared her quilter's resolutions for 2009. I think mine will be to quilt the hand pieced queen sized top I made three years ago. I also liked her idea of making things from the pattern books on her shelf. I love quilting books so that resolution appealed to me.

Pat blogged about our guilds UFO contracts. I am one of those who signed up for a contract so I need to get finished. I have two of my four completed and the other two shouldn't take too much longer. I only have a couple of weeks so I'd better get busy!!!

Yesterday, we had our family Christmas. Since my sons' jobs (environmental protection and medevac nursing) are such that they work around the holidays, Sunday was the day we could all get together.. ...so MERRY CHRISTMAS from all of us