What a wonderful Christmas!

Hi all! I hope each one of your had a blessed Christmas. Above is a picture in the dark of our Christmas tree, a tall, skinny tree, just right for a tight spot.

I received the most wonderful package from Monika in Germany at www.luenetraum.blogspot.com. She has a wonderful blog! She was also my lady to send a secret santa gift to, and she blogged about it. She speaks only German, so she had a translator send me a letter, wonderful chocolate, pictures and a guide book to her wonderful German town. In addition, she sent very pretty trims for my crazy quilt, with a lovely card. Also included was a cozy teacup stitchery pattern. I am so spoiled! Thank you so much, Monika, for all the lovely gifts and my DH thinks we must come and see Germany.

This darling little doll came from Lyn at www.bluebirdquilts-lyn.blogspot.com. This precious little doll is lucky to me! She is on the dining room table in a place of honor. Thank you Lyn, I love her!

And this was my secret santa gift! Anne Heidi at www.lappemor.blogspot.com was my secret santa! She sent me the above most lovely bag, it has pockets and zippers and lots of room! I love it!

She also sent the so very cute fabric above...yummy! Coasters made from fabric I had admired on her blog, chocolate from Norway mmmmmmmm, and a sweet card. Thank you so much, I love it all!

This is the only thing I have done remotely quilt-ish in a couple of weeks. I had overtime pay at the hospital, so I grabbed all the overtime I could, and also got ready for Christmas. I am such a lucky lady, and of course am spoiled rotten. Hope you all had such a wonderful day too.

Hugs from Julie

Christmas is coming!!

Good morning all! In between the madness of getting ready for the holidays, I decided I just must rebel and have a little break and blog a little bit!! I recently saw on one of your fabulous blogs, the above quilt. I did mine long ago, (well, maybe three years) in all turquise/blues, and got the pattern from the Quilter's Newletter Online cache of patterns. It was quilted by a friend here in town who just got her longarm quilter and wanted to practice on this with a panto. I said sure, go for it!!! I have had it in the quilt cupboard, but today I am going to wash it, and dry it, and enjoy the crinkly goodness of it!

Above is my quilt, the only one I have left from my Grandmother. Now that lady was a quilter!!! Of course you recognize the double wedding ring pattern, all from 1930's original fabrics. It is so tattered and just loved and used up! All quilted by hand in the most tiny of stitches, dense and yummy. Unfortunately, most of her quilts were destroyed, so this one is extra special!

Millie at http://www.needleandthread.us/ quilted this fabulous whole cloth quilt above. A constant request from my husband is to make great, big quilts!! Enough to cover him all up. I saw that Millie had quilted one like this for her mother, and impulsively asked her if she could make one for us. She said yes! This one is a wholecloth quilt, machine quilted, and just huge! Very pretty, and I will use it on the bed and put my smaller quilts on top seasonally for color. Good idea? I hope so!!! And I can proudly say I did all the piecing....not! Hee!!!

Hope you are all ready for Christmas and enjoying this wonderful season. Hugs to each of you!!!

JulieK

Wishing for fun things...

Hi all: Above is the start of my little Red block of the month, Red Delicious. The block is so cute, now just needs to be appliqued down. Lots of Red!!!I am feeling pretty under the weather, I have a super bad cough and congestion...sound familiar to any of you? Above is a baby quilt I finished for a friend at work, due December 30Th! They are hoping for a tax deduction...or a New Year's baby! The photo was taken in our messy break room at work. I quilted this on my little Brother domestic sewing machine.

I have also been crocheting, see above! Dishcloths...lots of them! Nice cotton, fun to work with, and fast.

Hope everyone is well and waiting for the sleigh to arrive, and to also celebrate Jesus birthday!!

JulieK

258,266,583 leaves...

I have been raking leaves! The faster I go, the behind-er I get....lots of leaves still yet to come. I wanted to show you one of the beautiful trees in our neighborhood. Isn't this pretty? Not our home, but the neighbors did not mind if we shared their beautiful tree. Not much going on, on the quilting front. We had a lovely visit with our son and watched the UT/A & M game. We were thereat the game and had a great time. I actually lost a little weight over Thanksgiving...there are some blessings with not having to cook! Hope everyone is well and I hope I can get to some quilting fun soon!!


I have found the most beautiful new block of the month through http://www.estheraliu.blogspot.com/. She is doing a Red Delicious block of the month. This is definitely one I will be doing the coming year. Want to join me? Do you have a lot of red fabrics just begging to be in a quilt? This BOM may be the one for you!! Did I mention? It is FREE!!!!

JulieK

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all! I hope you have a wonderful day of thanks, whether with friends and family or not. I hope it is all you wish it to be!!

Julie

A Winner!

The little quilt drawing was today at noon. Random numbers were assigned and one pulled out of the hat. Congratulations to Joann of Pieceful Afternoon! You are the winner of the little quilt! As soon as I know how to send it to you, it will be on it's way!!

JulieK

The most precious of all...

Friends! They are so wonderful...I received a wonderful package from Lyn at http://www.bluebirdquilts-lyn.blogspot.com/. She has a wonderful blog, you should stop by and tell her hi! Am amazing little quilt that she made, and some buttons, lace trim, lucky penny from Australia, some cute Christmas buttons, an angel ornament, some wonderful fabric, a book mark, and some great antique lace trim. What a fun, fabulous package! These were wrapped for Christmas...hey, Lyn? I did not wait, sorry, K??

I wanted to tell you of the most wonderful quilts of all in my life. My mother died way too young, of Lou Gherig's Disease. She was a wonderful woman, not just because she was my mom, but she was strong, cared about everyone, and was just the best person I have ever met. She was also an avid quilter! At the time she quilted, there was not a lot of cotton to be found. She used leftover garment material and whatever she could find to make quilts. I recall that she made a good many double knit quilts, but I do not have any of these, all the ones I have are cotton. Above is a log cabin quilt she made. All her quilts that I ever knew about were tied, and she used flannel for the backing on each one. They are so warm and snuggly!

Close up of the log cabin, remember, when these quilts where made, each strip was cut with scissors ( no rotary cutters then). She always said Log Cabins were hard to make, and I bet so, when you had to cut out 1.5 inch strips by hand!!

A Grand mother's flower garden. Tied, of course, and you know, she used what she had, as we were very poor when I was growing up. The yellow setting material was probably what she had at the time. Different than any I have ever seen! This quilt has another quilt inside of it, used for batting, a practice the old time quilter's sometimes did.

I don't know the pattern name for this quilt, but this may have been the last quilt she made. Scraps, of course. This one was for me, as I was the youngest child of many.

My name above, embroidered by my mother. Now, my mother was a very accomplished needle woman, with very fine emboidery skills. My sisters told me that she could not embroider in the last stages of her illness before she became bed bound, but she was determined to embroider my name on this quilt. This is the best she could do. I am so honored to have some of her work. Tears are in my eyes and on my cheeks as I write this. Love you, Mom!

Another of her quilts. Finished on the back with flannel. Reminds me of the squares I sewed together today for the bargello quilt. It seems to me that this has older fabrics in it...many my sisters remember as dresses they wore.

A close up of some of the fabrics, maybe 1940-1950 vintage? Maybe a bit later, I don't know.

So! I honor my precious mother, and miss her each day. She died when I was 12. A precious lady, and such a loss for our world, but a gain for heaven above!!

JulieK