A new skirt.. for the Christmas Tree

Lately I have been wanting to make something with pinwheels.. and I wanted to make my own Christmas Tree skirt. So I went digging thru my fabric stash and found a Moda Glace Turnover that I forgot I had bought off ebay.. impulse deal. And I'm happy I did.. because this is what it become.

I mixed it with white and I think it really made the colors pop.

The finished size is approx 47 x 47

My husband loves it too.. he wants me to make a pinwheel quilt for our bed. That will have to wait until 2010.. sometime.

Another Friday Night Sew-In... Tell everyone! (and a Giveaway too)

Me and my sewing buddy, Bobbi, will be hosting ANOTHER Friday Night Sew-In. And once again.. we want everyone to join us!

Joining the Friday Night Sew-in is the perfect way to set some time aside to work on those projects you need to get complete for Christmas. And this time - it doesn't have to be a sewing project.. maybe you have a knitting project.. or some scrapbooking for someone special.. it could be anything.

So, join Bobbi and I - next Friday - December 4th.

Here are the "rules".

1. Enter your blog info below.

2. Make a post on your blog - letting all your readers know about the sew-in. Spread the word.. we could all use the virtual sewing support and encouragement.

3. On NEXT Friday - 12/04/09 - Get your house settled, put on your comfy jammies.. maybe make a cup of tea.. and sit down to work on some of those holiday projects (or anything else that you want to work on).

4. Then, sometime on Saturday - Make a post about what you worked on.. show us a picture or two.

Then - on Sunday 12/06, we will enter all participants into a GIVEAWAY for something fun! Maybe some fabric.. or a sewing gadget or two.

Pictures of my day...

Today was all about the kids.. no sewing.. no cooking (except breakfast)... nothing but fun. We loaded up our bikes.. drove to the Zoo downtown.. and spent all day. My legs are killing me.. probably won't be able to walk up the stairs to bed tonight. lol

Here is my oldest.. looking at the turtles.. getting ready to head into the Zoo.

I won't share all my pictures.. cuz I took quite a few.. but here are a few. Here is the Elephant..

And here are a couple monkeys.. er.. ah.. I mean, my two boys giving me their "hurry up and take the picture" smiles.

Here is my youngest.. the gagger.. he can't handle smells AT ALL!!.. needless to say, he couldn't go into the petting zoo.

And this is Fast Eddie... you can't tell from the picture.. but he was running!! lol

Time for a snack.. we packed apples and lil cutie oranges in the bag. Yummy. Then we were back on the bikes and rolling.

My personal favorite.. the giraffes.. I could spend all day watching them.

Hugging the Komodo Dragon.. ok.. this is the statue. The real Komodo Dragon is behind the glass. But looks real doesn't it?!

And the orangutans.. I love this picture.. it turned out great. They were so funny - we had fun watching them.

The exhibit had this bag "Daddy".. plus two women.. and one baby. He was adorable. And it really looked like the baby wanted to jump up to play with all the kids watching him. He kept putting his hand up towards the kids. I couldn't get a good picture of that though.

And.. when we returned home - "Buddy" had arrived. He comes to our house the day after Thanksgiving.. and he stays until Christmas. He flies back to the North Pole each night to report to Santa. And every morning.. he's in a new perch.

You can talk to him.. but he's not allowed to talk to you. The kids use him as a confessional.. it's pretty funny. They also occasionally tattle on the other one. Buddy is going to be a busy little elf the next few weeks.

Cool Hot Pads.. can they be both?

My favorite etsy store was selling these kits to make these super cool hot pads. Sweetwater is also the designer of the fabric line "Authentic".. which is used for the binding on these pot holders. So cute - not sure if I should keep them.. or give them as a gift.


And finally - here is a picture of the giveaway items that I am mailing to Maria. She won them for participating in our recent Friday Night Sew-in. I will be posting another Friday Night Sew-in in the coming days.

So tell all your friends.. and stay tuned!

Giveaway Winner.. and a funny picture

And the winner of the Giveaway is Maria Wilson!! Congratulations Maria.

Send me your address at hfoltz (at) cox (dot) net and I will mail you some fun stuff.

Now for a funny picture. Some of you may know that my youngest is a spunky 5 yr old - he keeps me very very busy. A lot of times when I sew - he's in my sewing room with his paper and crayons drawing pictures. Keeping Mom company. Well, on Friday night during the sew-in.. he drew this picture.. of me!

HILARIOUS!!! I only wish my.. um.. 'eyelashes'.. yeah.. eyelashes were that perky in real life!

Have a great week!

Friday Night results...

Well our Friday Night Sew-in was a big success - we went International!!! So exciting to know that we all decided to give ourselves the gift of time. Time to work on the things we enjoy so much!

If you would like to see all who participated - you can read the original post.

I did not know where to begin! I have so many projects in my queue. So I decided to think of them in terms of priority instead.

So I finished the top of the quilt that I'm doing for Quilts for Kids. If you haven't heard of this organization - you really should check it out.

They sent me all the fabrics and I just had to sew it together. I just need to get some batting tomorrow so I can finish it and get it back in the mail. Then it will be given to a child in the hospital.

Now the most important part of the Friday Night Sew-in - The Giveaway!!! I have some super cute things that I will be giving away. I will announce the winner tomorrow. Even I don't know who it is yet.. so stay tuned!!!

Reminder..

Don't forget that tomorrow is the Friday Night Sew-in!!!

Do you have projects that you need to get done for the holidays?
Do your household duties sometimes get in the way of your sewing, knitting or scrapbooking?
Do you love that feeling when you've finished a project you've been putting off?

If you answered "YES" to any of these questions - then you need to join some of your fellow creative bloggers tomorrow night.. for a Friday Night Sew-in!!!

Here is the original post with all the details and also where you can sign up and link to your blog. Trust me - you won't regret it!

I'M LATE....!!!!!

Sorry... this is not an announcement of the baby kind. At this stage in my life, the words "I'M LATE" have an entirely different meaning! Thank Goodness!!!! LOL

I finally finished my October Quilting Bee block for Anna. I'm so sorry that it's taken me this long! But it was my first such block and I hope she likes it! I wanted to get more creative with maybe adding a tree.. but I was afraid to mess it up. I will be mailing it tomorrow.

And now I just have to share something sweet. Nearly 12 years ago last summer, before kids.. we brought home a cute little white fluff ball... we named her Biscuit.

Then, for our very first Christmas with her, I thought it would be fun to get Santa hats for my husband and I and take a fun Christmas picture.

Well, when I pulled the first Santa hat out of the shopping bag.. our little Biscuit went CRAZY!!! We let her have the hat.. and after swinging it around a few times.. she settled down and started to suck on the white fur. Eventually falling asleep. So adorable.

Anyway... to make a long story short.. She gets a new Santa hat each year since.. I picked one up for her this past weekend.. and this is how she's spends her evenings.. suckling on her "mama" as we call it.

It just shows that you are never too old for comfort!!

I made a bucket.. now what?

I am hooked on Sweetwater - and I fell in love with these 'buckets'. I purchased the pattern and made one of them last night.. cute huh? The Sweetwater Etsy shop is addictive.. be ready to fall in love if you head over there.

So when I showed my husband he said "Nice.. so what are you going to do with it?" And that question literally stopped me in my tracks... Because I don't have a clue!

I have the labels from Sweetwater to make some for Christmas - I will use Christmas fabric and I might fill them with things like pinecones and use for decoration - or I might fill with cookies for a friend..???

Any other ideas? Please share.. I could use the help.

Also - don't forget to sign up for the Friday Night Sew-in coming up. If you can't make it.. maybe you know someone with a long holiday to-do list - tell them about it!!

Friday Night Sew-In!!! Join the Fun!!!

Me and my sewing buddy, Bobbi, will be hosting a Friday Night Sew-In. And guess what?! You can join us.

We are all very busy - especially this time of year with the Holidays knocking on the back door. I know each of you reading this post probably has a project that you need to get crackin on!

So, join Bobbi and I - next Friday - November 20th.

Here are the "rules".

1. Enter your blog info below.

2. Make a post on your blog - letting all your readers know about the sew-in. Spread the word.. we could all use the virtual sewing support and encouragement.

3. On NEXT Friday - 11/20/09 - Get your house settled, put on your comfy jammies and sit down to work on some of those holiday projects (or anything else that you want to work on).

4. Then, sometime on Saturday - Make a post about what you worked on.. show us a picture or two.

Then - on Sunday 11/22, we will enter all participants into a GIVEAWAY for something fun! Maybe some fabric.. or a sewing gadget or two.

Check off another To Do List item!

Sorry I haven't posted anything lately - It's been a rough week around here - we were hit with H1N1 at our house.. my oldest son came home from school last week complaining of a headache. By bedtime he couldn't turn his head - and by 2am we were in the ER. He started Tamiflu and will be going back to school tomorrow! It was a much faster recovery then we expected. Now the trick is making sure the rest of us stay healthy.

So in between the scrubbing and resting.. I was able to get one thing done. I gave you a sneak peak of this quilt in this post... and tonight it's finally finished!!

Above is a picture of the front.. I did the disappearing 9 patch pattern for the center. And above is the back of the quilt - I didn't have any yardage so for the entire quilt, I used a charm pack, jelly roll and a layer cake. I only had 2 jelly strips left over... and some other scraps.

The fabric is Tranquility by Moda. It measures 54 x 65 (before I washed it.. it's in the washer right now).

And - the next exciting thing I want to share, I signed up with a great organization called "Quilts for Kids". I learned about this organization from a fellow blogger - Sue. They sent me a kit pictured below - All I have to do is sew it into the quilt according to the pattern they sent me and then mail it back to them. It will be given to a child who is hospitalized. I can't wait to make many quilts for them - this is just my first. I will be sure to share photos of it when it's complete.

Pay it Forward

I am playing Pay it Forward! I threw my name in over on Sue's Blog.

So here are the rules:

1. You must have a blog to play.

2. The first three people to comment on this post agree to play Pay it Forward by posting on their blog and playing with the first three people that comment on their blog.

3. I agree to send, sometime withing 365 days, a gift to those same three people who commented on this blog post. (That is the "playing" part!) The gift doesn't have to be crafty, so don't worry about that.

Email me if you have questions! Have fun!

BOO!!!

We had so much fun last night.. we really enjoy Halloween (especially when it's in the 70's here in the desert).

I was lucky enough to hang out with Spiderman (3rd year in a row) and a Ghoulish Dracula. I had purchased an Ironman costume for my youngest.. and about 10minutes before we went out - he changed his mind and wanted Spiderman again. Oh well..

We have a Dentist that lives a few houses down - he offered Dracula some free Dental work. Hilarious!

We love to decorate our house each year. I almost forgot to take pictures - and then I was rushed because the kids were starting to come. So I didn't get pictures of everything. But here is a partial view of the house.

We use "CAUTION" Tape to rope off our yard - Adds to the spookyness. But the real reason for this is because we live on a corner lot and this is the time of year in the desert when you re-seed your grass. See it looking pretty dead? It will be a bright green in about a week or two. This stops kids from cutting across the new grass.

We have a FOG machine too - but that was still heating up when I shot these. The FOG machine is fun because it really spreads out.. and gives the air down the street a light mist.. makes it kinda spooky.
There is sound too.. that you can't see obviously. It's remote control.. so the kids make sure to push the button as the trick-or-treaters are coming up the path!

My oldest is always so worried about the little kids getting scared of his mask - he was constantly taking it off. While my youngest would always make sure to spook them when they came up to the house for candy. So I finally asked my youngest "Why do you insist on scaring the little kids?" and his answer... ready for this.. "Because they're so Scare-able".

We all got a good laugh out of that one! He's got a point!

Hope you all had fun too! Happy Halloween!!!