Preparing the Arnold Sleigh

Many years ago our family began a tradition where we cook goodies and then go out on Christmas Eve and deliver them to our friends. Over the years we have taken as many as 20 food parcels in any one year.

Several years ago, Betsy (our daughter’s best friend) proclaimed that “Christmas doesn’t start until the Arnold Sleigh has arrived.” Thus, the tradition now has a name…..the Arnold Sleigh.

SO, today (the day before Christmas Eve) has been a cooking day. I started at 9:00 am and finished at 5:00 this afternoon. In the interim I made 2 cookings of Peanut Brittle, 2 cookings of Fudge, Peppermint Bark, Poppycock, Rum Balls, Divinity, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Peanut Butter Cookies, and Pecan Sandies. As I was cleaning up from the marathon session, I realized that I had forgotten the chocolate covered pretzels….Betsy’s favorite…… so I guess that I will finish them up in the morning.

Here is the photo of the finished products…..

Now I have a question to pose…..how did I ever bake cookies without one of these baking mats?????

It keeps things from burning, is easy to clean between batches and has GREATLY improved the success of my cookies!!!! It also works great for biscuits!!

So here I sit at the end of the day with my body tired from standing all day and my teeth on edge from being around so much sugar, but happy in the expectation of a fun sleigh trip on the morrow.

I hope that your Christmas Eve Eve has been wonderful too!!!

Christmas Lap Quilt…..only 15+ years in the making!!!!

Yesterday, I had an entire day in my studio and my goal was to finish a UFO that I started about 15 or so years ago. I posted about this on 12/29 of LAST year, and here is a recap from that post…..

It started out as a full size Christmas quilt for my bed. It was in the days where I hadn’t done a lot of machine quilting and had never tried quilting anything as large as this one, so I decided to hand quilt it…..GULP!! I used a “quilt-as-you-go” technique where you put sets of blocks together, baste and quilt them and then put all of the sets together to form the final quilt.

I had made the first two strips, each consisting of three blocks. Life then got in the way, and I lost interest in the project. It was relegated to the top shelf of my bedroom closet….in my mind, it didn’t even qualify for placement in my studio. I had even thought several times about throwing it away.

In 2009, I made a list of my UFO’s and suddenly remembered this one so I added it to the list. This was how it looked at that time……

As I looked at it, I decided to turn it into a lap quilt of three rows of 2 blocks each. I have thought about this project over the last few days and kept trying to come up with a grand plan for doing this, but finally decided to just START the project and let it take me where it would.

It has taken several “finagles” to make the design work, but I am pleased with the overall results. There is still some quilting to be done on it (by machine) and a bit of hand quilting to be taken out, but that can happen later when I am looking for a quick project to fill a few hours.

OK…fast forward for almost a year and you will see that my “few hours” never materialized. I REALLY wanted to get some use out of it in the few days before Christmas, so I pulled it out and finished the quilting. I even put the binding on by machine….that is how badly I wanted to get it finished today!!!!

As I said in the previous post, technically it is not a great quilt, but I LOVED being able to snuggle under while watching “Muppet Christmas Carol”.

AND….I can mark it off that I completed ONE ufo in 2010!!!!

Post Christmas

Well it is 8:30 on Christmas evening and here I sit reflecting on a glorious two days of fun. Come and reminisce with me…..

Christmas Eve began with an announcement that our son Brian was ENGAGED to lovely Amber!!!!

We are SO excited for them!!!!

Our first full family photo!!!!

Christmas always begins with the “Kids in the Santa Hat” photos

“Santa Marley” got into the act as well

Hubby, Michael, with one of the MANY books that he received….we are honestly going to have to build more bookshelves!!

Me, holding up a piece of stained glass art that will go in the window in front of my sewing machine….great inspiration!!

Son, Brian, enjoys the day.

Daughter, Jenny, LOVES what Santa left in her stocking

Now that the day is over, I am ready to get the decorating down and try to find some sewing time between now and January 4th. At that point, the sewing will have to take a back seat to Income Tax Time!!!!

I hope that your day was merry and bright and filled with fun!!!!

Bedtime Bears on Christmas Eve

This post is about a quilt that I made in 1992 for my daughter, Jenny. She was never into Dolls, but she LOVED her Teddy Bears, so I decided to make her this quilt for Christmas.

I found wonderful patterns, many that reminded me of Jenny’s pursuits.Then there was one pattern called “Lonesome Bear” and I felt that he couldn’t be on the front with all of the other bears, so I decided to piece the back and include poor little lonesome bear. The idea behind the back was that he walked all around the edge of the quilt and then curled up in the window and fell asleep….

This quilt has been much loved over the years and has survived thru two disasters….the first being a black pen breaking on top of it (note the black spots) and the second being a can of pink hair spray leaking on the front. Jenny was horrified when these things happened, but I think that they just give the quilt more character!!!

As with many of us, I had planned too much for the holiday season and was running low on time to get it finished. The reason I remember this quilt at Christmas was because of a poem that I wrote to read when I showed the quilt at my guild Christmas Party……

Twas the night before Christmas and all thru the house, not a creature was stirring….except for Mama Mouse.

The stockings were appliqued, quilted and hung with care, in anticipation of the goodies that would soon be there.

The presents were wrapped before Turkey day and now law under the tree in much disarray.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of “Baby Crimp and Curl” and “Super Mario” danced in their heads.

Many hours ago, Dad had gone to bed, while Mama went searching for needle and thread.

And now she sat sewing binding on the sides of a quilt made for Jenny who was then only five.

The idea was born in September with much love and care and……”Yes Dot, your right. It must have a bear”

Or two or three or maybe eight plus five or whatever it takes to make the quilt alive.

That special brown print was bought from Melissa’s store and Dot and Dale sent bear patterns galore.

The patterns were enlarged to make the size just right and that polar bear block wouldn’t go together without a fight.

The Ballerina must have a Tu-Tu of net. Now the blocks are together, the top is finished and yet….

It still needs a border to set it off right. What about Bear’s Paws…..so I sew with all of my might.

The back of quilt must be special too. It needs a lonesome bear and more Bear’s Paws…at least a few.

But now it’s Christmas Eve and time is a slippin. Oh not another mistake…I dont have time for more rippin.

At last now it’s finished, the final stitch has been taken. Once it is all wrapped up, then the kids I can waken.

And so I exclaimed as I wrapped the present tight. “Merry Christmas my Jenny and may it keep you warm many nights.

I hope that you have finished all of your Christmas projects and that you can dream tonight of the many new quilts to come!!!!!

Star over Bethlehem

This quilt was made in 1985 and was my first foray into the world of machine piecing. The pattern came from a magazine, but the top part of the star was not part of the original design. I hadn’t done a lot of quilting at this point and was NOT at all confident that I could make the needed changes to the pattern. I knew that if I pieced it by hand, it would take a week to do and then I still might not be able to do it. SO, without really know what I was doing, I set out to piece it one the machine.

I did EVERYTHING wrong in this process….at least based on what I know now. I prepared the templates out of cardboard, and then drew them onto the fabric. I cut out each patch, adding the quarter inch seam allowance. I matched the corners and lines and then sewed along the line.

But, the upside was that it only took a couple of hours to piece and I was able to make the changes easily.

It is fun to look at this piece and remember how much I worried about making such a simple change. I have come a long way in the past 24 years and hope that, in 24 more years, I will look back at today’s quilts and think about how much more I have progressed since then.