What a week...

I have no idea how this blog post will look as I'm having to use my iPad to write and post it...sigh...my laptop died on the day after Christmas and won't be fixed and reloaded until the end of next week. This has not to been a good week for us. In the middle of Christmas dinner, we got a phone call that my dear husband's mother had passed away at the nursing home where she was living with late stage Alzheimer's disease. She had not recognized any of us for a long time and stopped eating. We knew it was coming, but that did not make it any easier. Needless to say we are sad and stressed that the arrangements for her funeral mass and burial in two different states in the coming week all work out. Say a little prayer, ok? I'll get back to posting as soon as my laptop is back next weekend. I hope you all had a great Christmas and will have a really good New Year! God Bless! Polly :-)

Merry Christmas To All!!

And to ALL a good day and night!!

Blog Hop Party Giveaway Winner

Thank you for all the great quilting tips and lovely comments!  Yogi was flattered by how many of you would take him as a prize!!  Believe me, you’d send him right back…he is sooooooooo spoiled!!

The winner of the quilt book and Christmas panel giveaway is….

So, Jen, send me your full name and address and I’ll get the prize in the mail!  See how excited Yogi is for you???

Last Saturday was bee at my friend Lorraine’s house!  We have such fun chatting at bee.  We all worked at the same elementary school at different points in time and still work in the local school system, so we have lots to gossip about.  :-)

And Lorraine’s house was so wonderfully decorated for Christmas and the food was super yummy!! And, I finished my Christmas Tilt quilt!!

So when I got home from bee, I grabbed my camera and quilt and Yogi and went out on the deck to take some photos.

Dang, it was really cold out there….

So, Yogi was more than happy to sit on the quilt!!

I used a fun flannel on the back.  My family fights over the flannel-backed quilts when it’s cold! And I found this cute Mary Engelbreit label to use on the back, too!!

What did you sew on this weekend?

 

Blog Hop Party Givaway

Michele Foster, over at the Quilting Gallery, is hosting a Blog Hop Party from December 10 through the 17th!  There are tons of blogs registered to participate in the hop and all are having giveaways, including me!

So, what am I giving away?? 

Nope!  NOT my Yogi!!  But…

how about this wonderful quilt book…

and this fun Christmas fabric panel??

To enter my giveaway, first you must be a follower of my blog, then leave a comment and tell me you are a follower and share your favorite quilting tip or favorite quilting notion.

Winner will be randomly chosen on December 17th at 9 pm!

Click on the Blog Hop Party button above on my side bar to visit the list of participating bloggers!!  Let’s hop!!

 

Quilted Tree Skirt

I have a 5’ tall country style artificial Christmas tree in my family room with a long skinny bare trunk that needed a new little tree skirt!

So, I pulled out some bright fun modern Christmas prints from the stash closet…

 

I cut one 5” strip cross-grain on eight different fabrics.

I sub-cut those strips into 5” squares.

I made 4 big nine patches using 2 fabrics for each.

I sewed then together, pinned the backing and batting and top together

and quilted it with a simple meander using a red and green variegated thread.

I cut a 3” circle from the very center, trimmed the edges and cut off the corners.

I made the binding from a fun green and red striped fabric and sewed it all around the edges, and hand sewed it down while watching TV last night!

Woo hoo!  I love it there!!  Don’t you?

What did you do this weekend?

 

SewCalGal’s Christmas Quilt Show 2011

Holy Cow!  I ALMOST MISSED IT!! YIKES!

 

I’ve been so busy around the house and at work that I’ve not been checking all my favorite blogs and I almost missed Darlene’s great Christmas Quilt Show 2011!  

My official entry is this super fun Santa quilt!!

It was completely made from fabrics I already had in my stash…many were just scraps! 

I put the top together at a fall quilt retreat about 7 years ago, then quilted it when I got back home!!  Quilted fun swirls in the beards!

The pattern is in this awesome Art to Heart book by Nancy Halvorsen called “Santa’s Coming”.

I loved mixing and matching the different beiges and whites for the beards and mustaches!

And guess who else loves this quilt???

Yup!  My sewing buddy, Yogi!  His job is to test out all my quilts to make sure they are snuggly and toasty warm!! What a job!

Before you go, let me show you the other Christmas quilts that are out and about in my house this month!!  This one hangs in my living room! 

This new one is over my mantle now…just finished it last week!

This was over my mantle before the one above but is now hanging over our étagère’ in the family room!

This one was made using the same 2” squares technique as the one above, but this guy has slipped and fallen down!!  Oooops!!

This is my one of my newest ones!  I just finished this one at last month’s bee day!!  Very vintagy looking fabric!!

This one was a Moda Bake Shop project during their “Christmas in July 2011” series!  (You can go HERE to learn how to make one of your own!!)

This is another quilt of my own design called “Ribbon Candy” that I taught at a local quilt shop a few years ago.

Yogi likes this one, too!!  LOL!!

This one is hanging on my front door this month!!  Just loved his charming face!!

This little table topper was super fun and quick to make!!  Love his mistletoe sprig!!

This was one of Miss Rosie’s Schnibbles patterns!! It fits perfectly on our ottoman!

Make sure you click on the button on the sidebar and go check out all the other entries in SewCalGal’s Christmas Quilt Show 2011!!

The Hustle Bustle Season Begins

It’s been such a crazy last few weeks with Thanksgiving and on top of that, we’ve been busy helping out two sons move into new apartments on the weekends!

But Yogi and I have been really busy sewing, too. 

I made four pretty little Christmas wall quilts for my three sisters and my parents.

I took these sneak peek photos then totally forgot to take a finished photo of one to share with you after I sent them to my family in Florida last week… sigh

Then I started decorating the house for Christmas on Black Friday and decided I wanted a new mini-quilt to hang over the mantle.

I had this adorable Mary Engelbreit Santa panel, so I used part of it to make a little wallhanging!

I think it’s perfect for the space!!

I’ve got the whole house decorated, the lights on the live tree in the living room, but still have to put on the ornaments.  If you remember my Demon Tree from last year, you’ll understand why I’m letting the tree sit with only lights for a few days…  if not, read this-

http://auntpollysporch.blogspot.com/2010/12/demon-tree.html

So, what are you working on these days?

P.S. Yogi is just plum tuckered out from all this sewing and decorating!!