A Few Gifts

Thought I would share a few gifts I received this year.

I hope you had a happy day yesterday!  I am off to the quilt shop to work.

Melinda

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all.  Here is this year’s Christmas quilt hanging in the shop.

Here is Susie in her sweater.  It was a gift from Buddy, the Chiweenie down the street. Buddy is a lot larger and apparently has outgrown this sweater and a couple of others so they were passed on to us.

Merry Christmas to all,

Melinda

Gift from Lynn

We had a wonderful Christmas dinner with my friendship group on Monday night.  We exchanged gifts and here is my gift from Lynn.

Lynn has gotten excited about using chalkboard fabric recently and I was lucky enough to receive this.  She uses a permanent marker and does a wonderful job of using great fonts to make this wonderful little wall hanging.

More tomorrow.

Melinda

Susie is Home Again–With a Cone on Her Head

Susie had to go to the Vet Hospital on Tuesday to get fixed.  We really missed her over the past two nights but we were able to pick up this morning.  Because of the stitches, she has to wear a cone on her head.  Apparently it will need to be on for about 10 days.

Melinda

Hexie Club at Tiny Stitches

Last night we had our holiday party/meeting of Hexie Club.  We had food to share, sewed on our hexies and exchanged gifts.  Here are the gifts after they were opened. 

Our only rule is that the gift should be hexie related – worked out well.  I received the little turtle pin cushion and the tree ornament above it.  Of course the one with selvages is the one I made.

Only Rosemarie and I were working on the Hexie BOM.  Here are the blocks.

Mine is on top – one inch hexies.  Rosemarie made her wreaths from 3/4 inch and 1/4 hexies.

I have to finish the applique of the wreath and then I have all twelve blocks finished.  Next I need to decide how to set the blocks into a quilt.

Melinda

More Australia Gifts from Me to Me

Here are the next few gifts I have opened – still having fun.

Melinda

Empty Bowl Lunch

We went to the empty bowl lunch at the Art Place today.  Here are a couple of photos of the bowls.

We each picked out our favorite bowls and after they were washed we had soup.  I had Broccoli Cheddar soup the first time and then went back for a small serving of White Chicken Chili.  For $15, we got the bowl to keep and lunch – not a bad deal.  Lynda and I can’t remember how many years we have been going but we think this was our 5th year.

Melinda

Gift a Day from Australia

Carolyn is a bad influence. She found out about a box of gifts from Sue Daley.  The postage from Australia was high so she wrote and asked if we could have a discount on postage if we ordered two boxes sent to the same address.  Of course the answer was yes so she ordered them. 

we have been opening a package every day and here are the first eleven. 

I know the photo is sideways but can't figure out how to turn it on mt iPad.  Lots of fun things related to English Paper Piecing. It is exciting to open a small gift every day.   Merry Christmas to us.

Melinda 

Exciting Day–New Family Member

Meet Susie – she joined our family yesterday.  Here she is with Bill at Small Dog Rescue where we found her.

Later in the evening, sleeping on his lap.

and this morning, after her first night.

She is mostly Chihuahua, with probably a little Wiener dog.  She is a little longer than Chula was and her ears are more Wiener than Chihuahua but she is a little thing.  She had 3 puppies with her when she was found and they had all been adopted out.  She was at the facility for the day because someone else was interested in her but they (fortunately for us) picked another dog.

It is fun to have a doggie to sleep with again.  She likes being under the covers!

Melinda

Fiber Art Fusion Gift Exchange

We had a lovely dinner last night and did our annual gift exchange.  We made 5 by 7 pieces of art.  Here is my little piece.

Like last year, Pamela got mine.  I opened up a piece from Ben.  He makes amazing art!

There were other wonderful projects but I couldn’t get photos of them.  Maybe they will bring them to the January meeting and I can get photos then.

Melinda

Tech Cord Bag

Look at the wonderful gift I received from Pam. I saw a version of this on Pinterest and pinned it to figure out how to make later and Pam saw it.  

Not only is it great for travel, I am using it to keep track of cords at home.  

Melinda

Gifts from Allatoona Party

We had a great gift exchange this year at Allatoona – zipper bags.  Almost everyone is afraid of putting in zippers although they are very easy when you are dealing with flat pieces of fabric.  Sue gave several demonstrations and ordered zippers in quantity so they could be sold cheaply.  A lot of people took advantage of purchasing zippers and lots of bags were made.  I made a hexagon zipper bag for the exchange but forgot to take a photo of it.

Here is the one I received from Jeanne.

In front is a gift from Carolyn – a cute jar with pincushion on top and lots of great notions inside.  As president she made these for all the officers and committee chair people.

Melinda

One Block Wonder Class

I taught a One Block Wonder class yesterday afternoon. There were four students plus Carolyn who worked on her in process project. The first photo is of her blocks.

Here are the start of the other quilts.

Going to be some beautiful quilts. 

Melinda

Tiny Stitches Staff Christmas Party

We had our annual Christmas party last Monday night at Aspen’s.  Wonderful dinner, wonderful people and a lovely time was had by all.  Each year we choose names to make gifts for.  Our only rule is that you have to make the gift.  I gave Mary Ellen the sample projects I made for the Make and Take class.  She seemed to be happy with them.

 

I got the most wonderful present from Tina – selvage shoes.  I can’t think of a better present.

I wore them to guild on Tuesday and everyone loved them almost as much as I do.  I barely made it home with them still on my feet!

Melinda

Grand Reopening at Tiny Stitches

Yesterday we had the Grand Reopening at the shop.  We were open from 9:30 am to 8:00 pm and I worked all day.  Boy, I came home tired.

Here are a few photos.

Maetha was dressed as a Christmas Tree – isn’t she cute!

She also sang to all our guests – I should have taken a video.

Melinda

Giving Day at Allatoona Quilters’ Guild

We had a wonderful day on Tuesday at Allatoona Guild.  The police came and we were able to donate 181 quilts to them.  We worked on them all year and passed our last years number of 150.  Here is a photo of some of the quilts – and the police.  We also had executives from Fabric.com there.  They donated lots and lots of fabric to the guild and it was used to make many of the quilts.  We had also donated 650 pillowcases to ConKerr cancer and two of their representatives were also there.

We also made a quilt for our outgoing/incoming President – Carolyn.  She loves 30’s fabrics (in fact I gave here all of mine) but asked for something different for her quilt.  Well – it was different and quite lovely.

My favorite fabrics – Kaffe and lime green.  Fortunately she loves it!

Melinda

Update from Melinda

I am back!  It has been a busy two weeks and I just didn’t seem to get around to updating the blog.  I finished teaching my two long-term classes (Beginning Machine Piecing and Sampler Savvy), went for an early Thanksgiving to Missouri (about 650 miles), went to a couple of Christmas parties and took a lot of photos.

First, here are the photos from the last Sampler Savvy class.

There was one more student but she was still working on her blocks so no finished quilt photos yet.  The next morning after the class we took off for Missouri.  On the way, we stopped in Paducah at Paperpieces.com.

Fun – they are open to the public but you have to ring the bell and they happily let you in.  I made a few purchases – of course. and off we went towards Missouri.  We stopped in Marion, IL for the night and then finished up driving to Fulton, MO.  Visited with Bill’s family for a while and then went to the hotel.  Met them in town for dinner and on Saturday we had Thanksgiving dinner with over 50 family members.

Here are a few photos of Bill and his family.  First is with his mother.

Brother Tracy

Step-father Burt

Sister Debbie

Sister Kim

Lots of good food, lots of time to to visit with family – great fun!

We stayed and visited with his mother again on Sunday and then left for home early Monday morning.  I drove all the way home on Monday since it seems to be foolish to stop when we were most of the way home.  There truly is nothing like home!  We even stopped at our local O’Charleys for dinner.

More to follow.

Melinda

Beginning Machine Piecing–Final Class

Monday night was the final class for Beginning Machine Piecing.  We had seven students who completed or almost completed their quilt tops.  Here they are with their tops.

We had a little party and Wanda made this cake.

Isn’t it amazing – plus it tasted great.

I made little pin cushions for each of them.

I am proud of each of them.

Melinda