Almost Ready for Christmas

I have been so busy with shopping and wrapping, cooking and going to parties...and loving every moment! I used to feel very stressed out at this time of year, but now I try to remember that everything that needs to be done, will somehow get done...it always does.

I have been sewing some Christmas gifts for my nieces and nephews. There are 14 grandchildren altogether in our families, and I have always made something for each of them at Christmas. This year I am making them 14" flannel pillows with their names hand embroidered on a little pocket, which will have treats and candies tucked inside. Here are some of the pockets embroidered and waiting to be sewn together.

And in my spare time, I have continued to be obsessed with beading these little stars. The top two were my first stars made at guild meeting when I learned how to make them....thanks to teacher Kristy Finnigan. Then, of course, I thought that I would like to try to make them smaller and in different colour combinations. Then I added a little beaded loop so they could be tree ornaments. The bottom five were made with size 10 beads and ended up being almost 2". Each star uses 318 beads!

Okay...must get back to wrapping presents now...only 24 hours left before Christmas Day!!

New Beads ( and a new phone)

My husband bribed me into getting a new cell phone yesterday. He said he would take the day off work (I should have been suspicious about that!) and we would go out for brunch and then shopping at whatever quilt and/or bead stores I wanted to visit. I was so excited and spent lots of time this week thinking about which new stores I wanted to see and what route to take. I had my selections carefully balanced with 2 new (to me) quilt stores and 3 bead stores. But when friday morning came, he said we first were going to buy me a new cell phone. I protested in vain, as I quickly realized what he was up to!

My family has been after me for a long time to get a new cell phone, but I liked my old one. I didn't mind that it couldn't hold a charge for more than 1 or 2 calls, or that it didn't get good reception outside of my town, and I really didn't care that it was a little larger than most cell phones these days, or that it was costing me as much as 2 modern cell phones! The children called it "Mom's Flintstone Phone" and begged me not to take it out in public to make phone calls! So after making hundreds of decisions about which phone company to use, and comparing prices and service bundles, and selecting options ....which was exactly the reason I didn't want to waste my time thinking about all of this technobabble in the first place, we finally picked 2 phones, a plan (the family plan with unlimited calling between my phone and the kids' phone), the accessories (here is a whole new genre of products I never knew existed!), the options (no, I really don't need another camera, blue teeth or texting options), and...well, you can probably guess that there were went my morning of shopping at quilts stores! Here are my old and new phones...can you tell which is which?!?!

Anyway, I did finally get to shop in the afternoon, so I had to pare down my shopping list considerably and was able to find a couple of shops that were new to me. One of them was Beads of Colour which was a little shop that we drove by twice, but once we found the shop and some parking, discovered that this store had lots of character and a wonderful selection of unusual beads. This was WAY more fun than shopping for a cell phone!! Here are some of the beads I bought. I bought many other things for a new project that I will tell you about another time, but they didn't photograph very well...too shiny.

So...my list of other stores to visit will have to wait for another day, but now I can easily call ahead to get directions - using my new cell phone - which actually works!

New Studio Space

It was my turn to host the UFO (unfinished objects) group meeting this month. We have been together as a group, meeting monthly for 3 years now and we have a lot of fun together, talking about quilting, encouraging each other to finish UFO's, consulting about problem quilts, laughing, sharing books, and of course, eating! So they were the perfect people to invite to be my first visitors in my new studio space.
If you have read some of my older blogs, you will know that my quilting area in my basement at home is way less than ideal...you can read about it here. So I am jumping at a serendipidous opportunity to have a studio space away from home. The only things in the room this week are tables and borrowed chairs, so I haven't really started to move in yet. But we met there this week and everyone shared their ideas on how to improve the lighting and how to use the space. Here are some of the group members standing with our recently finished charity quilt. We all made blocks for this quilt, which Joan (on the left) organized and cut out for us, using a pattern from the Quilter's Newsletter Magazine. In spite of our lovable Cindy hiding her blocks on herself, which she later found in her liquor cabinet (don't ask!), Joan had enough blocks to sew the quilt together. Now the quilt is ready to be donated to the Pediatric Sexual Assault Unit at our hospital. After our meeting we headed off for some shopping at my favorite local bead store and here are some of the ladies admiring the beads. It was a fun afternoon, as it always is with this group of quilters!

Distracted by sparkles

It is very cold these days, with lots of snow to shovel. This was the view looking out my bedroom window. The sun coming out during the day melts the snow on the roof and makes wonderful icicles from the eavestroughs. As I walk the dog every day I admire the wonderful sparkling icicles on the homes around the neighbourhood. It sometimes interferes with my driving too, as I have been known to stop the car to admire icicles!

And inside I am trying to get those flannel quilts done. But it is boring, so I take frequent breaks to work on a teaching sampler for a beaded bindings class I am teaching this semester. These are some of the miniature quilt bindings for which I have either added beads to the binding or used beads for the binding. My favorite book and inspiration is "Beading Basics" by Mari Stori. I made my first beaded binding before I bought this book, and only came up with the idea because I made a quilt that was round, and not knowing how bind a round quilt, I came up with the idea to use beads to finish the edge. Then I found this book and realized my idea was not original at all! Well...I have a few minutes left in the day. I will tuck the kids into bed, walk the dog (and check out the icicles), make some tea, and get out the beading tray!

Trip to Frankenmuth

This past weekend I went on a mini vacation with my sisters and my Mom. For the past few years we have spent our November weekend getaway in Stratford, spending Saturday night at "The Quilt" auction, but the admission price has doubled and it would've cost us $200 just to get in , so this year we decided to go somewhere new.
We chose Frankenmuth, Michigan and had a wonderful time together. We spent some time shopping, but mostly we visited and laughed, and talked until the wee hours of the morning. We don't see each other very often since my sister moved to the US, so we had a lot of time to make up for! I had a great time with my "womenfolk", but didn't get nearly enough sleep for all the driving I had to do!
One of the great stores we found is called "Bead Haven". No one else in my family is interested in quilting or beading, so I thought I wouldn't be able to spend much time in the store. But my youngest sister fell in love with the idea of a bracelet of her children's names, and spent even longer than I did in the store! Here is Mom and my sisters selecting some of the stones and beads for the bracelet, right before I got in trouble from the staff for taking photos in the store....oops! Anyway, I purchased some beautiful beads for a project I am working on, and if I had an unlimited budget, I could've spent a big pile of money there! They have three large rooms filled with an incredible variety of beads. They also offer classes, in a lovely classroom setting with large well-lit tables. For the people who don't love bead shopping and have to wait for the shoppers, they have a sitting area with large comfy chairs. My sister was very happy with the beautiful bracelet she made for her birthday...a little gift from herself, to herself, and a momento of our girls weekend together!
The staff did allow me to take this photo (on the left) of a sparkling quartz that was just remarkable...it was probably about 12" across the base and 10" high. And here is a photo of us outside the store...it was cold and windy in Michigan. Can you see my sister's bracelet?!?!?