Long Arm

Riley has to be the 1st one under the quilt(not bound yet)
backing

There's a Quilt shop that rents long arm machines. Before Christmas I scheduled a 2 hour time to go and quilt my Christmas star quilt(I made the blocks a couple years ago, but had never quilted it)
Using the Long Arm Machine was harder than I thought. I had seen it used on quilting TV shows. I really liked it though. It was completely on... or off. There was no speed setting and there was no stitch regulator so the faster I moved the arm the larger the stitches were. Once I made the bobbin thread break by doing it too tightly in one spot. (The lady said it was like making a knot going over one spot) I had to keep the machine moving and that was the most challenging but by the end of the quilt I think I was doing fairly well. I did mostly loops and cursive Ls and curly Q's, it was all free form.
The best part was that in 2 hours my quilt was completely quilted. It would have taken hours/days/months if I had hand quilted it.
the night before I had 3 stars yet to make, some sashing and cornerstones and boarder

Rachels Christmas Present

Finished this in time for Christmas. I'm happy w/ the way it's turned out. I like the colors I used. Contrary to what my mom thinks, it's not completely origional. I used an image from a copyright-free design book. I had to edit it so it would work for what I was doing(I even showed my mom the image when I first had this idea...she must have forgot because she said to everyone at Christmas "It's origional" -oh well)

Merry Christmas to my sister Rachel. I hope you love it.

(click here to see the project in the beginning stages)

Christmas Morning

Our tree
Rachels Christmas tree
10 cousins
Cousins
Cutest baby
de-christmased

Christmas Cards

One thing I've enjoyed this month...I've been making Christmas cards w/ my mom. She has a plethora of Stamps. I have other crafty tools (punches, glue, glitter, decorative scissors, any-color-cardstock, etc..). So together we've made cards together but separately.

It actually takes a long time to make cards... like 20-30 minutes each(if you are very decorative). That's probably why I've only done 4-5 so far. I don't think I'm going to be done(just guessing).

I don't think I'm a very good Christmas card giver anyway. I procrastinate too much. I've given to 5 people so far, and they were all hand delivered. I think I might try being a New-Years-Card giver. It might'ov helped if my vacation was before xmas week... but maybe not. I'm a big procrastinator. If anyone hasn't gotten a Christmas card from me yet then maybe you'll be getting a New Years Card. Cheers.

Santa

We've been shopping. We've been shopping and shopping. And we saw Santa. We only have a few things left to buy...And only a couple of days... Stress...

I only have one more work day (tomorrow 12pm-9pm) and I'm on VACCATION!!! Very happy!! Not stressed about that!

Santa was fun today. Liam asked for cards and Legos. Riley asked for a Teddy bear. Can you believe she's only 5? She looks so much older in the picture.

Long Arm

I signed up to use a Long Arm Machine. December 27th. I'm very excited...this is a new experience for me. I have some squares that I made a couple years ago and never made into a quilt. In a matter of 2 hours it will be a completed quilt. HOW CRAZY IS THAT?
I made this picture on Paint. This is what the quilt will look like when it's done.

Weekend

We took the kids to the parade yesterday. They loved it. It was cold though. We then got to babysit 2 nephews in the evening. ---Just happy to be off from work for the weekend. I'm really looking forward to my 10 days off durring Christmas week.