My Secret Santa

Tomorrow is the day that my extended family will be coming to town for a Christmas gathering...and also the day that the CyberBee holds its annual Christmas potluck and Secret Santa gift exchange. Since I will not be able to attend the CyberBee meeting, my friends Jean and Janice came over and picked up my Secret Santa gift to deliver...and brought mine to me! My Secret Santa was Jean!

Since CyberBee members have been together fifteen years or more, we often know a lot about each other's interest, tastes, type of quilting, etc. And we also get to list colors and "stuff" we like in a database. So, these gifts are often very eagerly anticipated and special.

Jean brought me a wonderful bag of goodies to appeal to the artist in me!

Transforming Fabric by Carolyn Dahl...

The Uncommon Quilter by Jeanne Williamson...

Some of the lovely, sparkly "Fantasy Fiber," also sold as Angelina, which I tend to add to all my art quilts and postcards...

For more sparkle, some Fantasy Film, also sold as Textiva...and a new product called Magic Mesh which I can't wait to try! It looks like self-adhesive cheesecloth!

One of my all-time favorite products, hand-dyed Tussah Silk Tops from Myrna Ficken (somebody has been paying attention to my blog posts!) for use in needle-felting or other fiber products like my shawls...another product that is new to me, Paper Cord Ribbon Trim, which should be fun to twist and curl and add to post cards and other fun creations...and, after all these nice things, something just a little naughty...a reindeer that poops candy! That should be the hit of all the five-year-olds at the party tomorrow...

And to top it all off, on the day that I received all these lovely surprises, it was Jean's birthday! I did remember her day with a red poinsettia.

Hope all the CyberBee members enjoy their special surprises tomorrow...I will post pictures of the package I made after the excitement dies down this weekend!

It's Here...Meet Josie

This was my one and only purchase on "Black Friday," the day after Thanksgiving, which has become the biggest shopping day in the USA.

For those who have been following my blog awhile, you may remember that I came out of retirement to teach school last spring. I saved every bit of that money...and decided after my recent guild workshop that I had to do something about my bad case of Sewing Machine Envy.

There is nothing wrong with the Bernina 1260 that I have had for about fifteen years. Ninety-five percent of what I do is straight-stitch and zigzag, with about five percent of fancy stitching on postcards or art quilts.

But, it is no longer up to snuff with what the new machines can do. My friends Janice, Michelle, Cathie, and even my online quilt teacher Pamela Allen all raved about their Janome 6600's.

And then Quilts Like Crazy had a special two-hour sale on Black Friday when this particular machine was on sale. A great sale. And I splurged and bought it! With some of my teaching money! And the special table that fits snugly around it!

I had to order the machine, and it arrived yesterday.

It's still in the box...the table is not here yet. And I want to play! But there are a couple projects that I need to finish fast, and don't have time to experiment with my new toy.

Oh, yeah, and all of my extended family is coming for dinner on Saturday.

Do you think it would be fine with them if I made new patchwork tablecloths instead of food?

Probably not!

Here is a peek at one of the secret projects I am finishing with Bernie the Bernina instead of Josie the Janome.

What could it be???

(It was quilted on my Gammill Classic- and came out pretty good, considering that the check spring on the tensioner came flying off during the process, and I didn't feel like working with an Allen wrench to take the whole thing apart and replace it.)

Secrets, secrets!

Anything Art Goes Digital

Monday was the December meeting of the Anything Art quilting bee. I am very pleased with this group and how well we are bonding after only four meetings. This time we got together at Ruth-Ellen's house, which is not too far from where I live. The topic was digital cameras and photo editing. Ruth-Ellen is not only knowledgeable in this area, but provided very professional handouts. We tried all kinds of new functions on our digital cameras. We hung one of Ruth-Ellen's quilts outside on a cold, overcast day to take pictures.

Don't the ladies look studious! Mary H. was also there, but not in the picture.

Ruth-Ellen has rigged up a wire to her deck railing, and attaches the quilts with those heavy black paper clips.

Here is the detail shot I took of her lovely art quilt, which was quilted by Cathy Kirk.

After the photography lesson, we learned how to make potato latkes, and shared a pot-luck lunch. Then we went to the computer to see how Ruth-Ellen organizes her photos with a program called Lightroom, and edits with Photoshop Elements. I am determined to become good at using Elements---some day!

Christmas Ornaments from Here and There

Every year, when I get out boxes of Christmas ornaments and decorations, I remember not only Christmases past, but places we have visited. Many years ago, I started looking for Christmas ornaments when we traveled out of town. This was not always easy, since school teacher vacations were mostly during the summer months. I thought you might enjoy seeing some of the ornaments which bring back fond memories of our trips.

Way back in the 1970's, Charlie played trombone in The Little German Band. (It's not little...there were over forty members!) They performed on weekends at Oktoberfests, and often at the N.C. State University Faculty Club. In the summer of 1976, they arranged a tour of Germany and Austria, and we both worked two jobs to save up extra money for the trip. (I worked eight hours a day for the state Disability Determination Section, and at night as a waitress at an Italian restaurant!) That was our last trip to Europe. We found it very romantic...I came home with a little stow-away on board! We named him Bryson, but the German Band members called him Little "Helmut." Anyway, even though the trip was in July, I bought some wax Christmas ornaments. Two have melted after being stored in the attic, but I still love these two survivors. I guess they are made from molds, and then hand-painted.

It is hard to take photographs of ornaments on the tree...they tend to jiggle around!

When Bryson was about six months old, we went to visit college friends who lived near Charleston, S.C. They now live only about thirty minutes away from our mountain cabin, so we see them much more often. I remember Vicky and I pushing our babies in strollers along the waterfront and through the markets in Charleston. This is one of the ornaments I remember purchasing there... a little toy horse for my little boy.

When I get a new Christmas ornament, I try to remember to write the year on the back with a white or gold pen. I am so glad that I have done that, now that we have been married for 38 years. It is getting harder to remember things!

Fast forward quite a few years...I must not have traveled much once we had two babies and very little money for quite a long time! Most of our ornaments from those wonderful years were the children's school projects made from jar lids and dried pasta! I treasure them, too, although I have bequeathed most of them to the boys for their own Christmas trees. Charlie eventually changed careers from being a university business office employee on a fixed salary, to becoming a successful financial advisor. I accompanied him on many nice business trips across the country. One of my favorite destinations was San Francisco...

and each time we went there, we visited Muir Woods to see the redwoods.

And I found this jolly California Santa in a gift shop in Sausalito, where we stopped on the way back from Muir Woods and the wine country.

We have also been to Boston twice. The first time, it was the 200th anniversary of the U.S.S. Constitution, a ship nicknamed "Old Ironsides." The spouses were treated to one of those bus tours where you can get on and off to visit places sites of interest, and I very much enjoyed seeing this old battle ship that was named by our first president, George Washington.

When Charlie first became a stock broker, he trained in New York City for three weeks, his first trip to the Big Apple. The boys and I could not afford to visit him then! I actually was born and lived in the New York vicinity for my first fifteen years, but had not been back to visit since 1966. I finally got to revisit my "home town" a few times within the last ten or twelve years.

One place I had never been was New Orleans, Louisiana. July is not the best month to be in the Deep South...but I found this jolly Santa, possibly mixing up some beignets, who adorns my pantry door. Does he look a little like Paul Prudhomme? I think so!

But our best trip EVER, which was a reward for a wonderful sales year, back in the LAST wonderful sales year, was in June of 2001, when we had an all-expenses-paid trip to the Atlantis in Nassau, Bahamas. The Atlantis is such a huge resort that you could probably spend a week there and not see everything. They have plentiful gift shops there, if you feel like dropping $99 on a piece of Lalique crystal about an inch square. While Charlie was attending the obligatory business meetings, I decided to visit the craft center across the street, where locals sold their hand-made items, and they actually expect some haggling. I spent less than five bucks, and came home with two authentic island ornaments. The first is this smiling island lady...can you see the hand stitches on her shoulder seam?

And this jolly island Santa, complete with straw hat, who has the fluffiest cotton beard in the world!


I hope you have enjoyed reminiscing with me! Now it is off to finish the giant customer quilt that I have been "wrassling" with on the Gammill!

Altered Fabric

Yesterday, I showed a picture of the "twinchies," or two-inch squares, I made for the members of my quilt bee as favors at our Christmas brunch. There is a little funny story behind these.

Back in July, the bee met at our LQS, Quilts Like Crazy, for a sew-in day of making charity quilts. At the previous meeting, Donna brought a large bag of donated fabric that we rummaged through, finding choices that would work for Yellow Brick Road or other simple quilts for Quilts on Wheels. We then added some of our own fabric from our stashes and came up with some really nice quilts for wheel-chair bound residents of rest homes.

In my quilt, the donated fabric was the white flower print and the ribbons and bows on black background.

Carolyn worked with the snowman print to come up with this nice Christmasy quilt.

Marilyn chose the teddy bear Americana fabric and made enough blocks for two patriotic quilts.

The point being, that even dated, no-longer loved fabric can still make charming quilts.

But...nobody would touch this outlandish, neon-orange and green "surfer dude" print.

We had a lot of laughs as we tried to get someone to make something out of this awful stuff. I ended up taking home the extra fabric to use as backs for charity quilts that I offered to quilt for the guild. But...

I decided that for my Christmas favors, I HAD to make something out of this fabric.

When you look closely at it, there are interesting grids, lines, prints, and text throughout the fabric. What do many art quilters try to incorporate into their layered, textured, creations but line, prints, and text?

So, I started painting. I used a Jacquard textile paint in emerald green to cover the entire fabric. Then I stenciled with a gold Lumiere metallic paint, and used a stamp to add additional text that looks like script writing.

Without the glaring fluorescent colors, this was getting very interesting!

My first idea was to make stuffed bird ornaments with the gold ferns as wings, but I waited too long to attempt such an ambitious project. So, I covered the green fabric with silk ribbons, bits of Angelina and Textiva shiny stuff, and a white tulle with gold metallic dots, and machine-quilted it all to a piece of Decor-Fuse. Then I got out the heat gun and zapped the fabric to do interesting things to the Textiva and tulle. I trimmed the result into two-inch squares, fused a backing of either painted watercolor paper or a lame' print,and zigzagged a fiber around the edges. Finally, I ironed on some Swarovski crystals. If you don't care about the exact placement of the crystals, you can just use your iron to heat-set the "hot-fix" crystals. Much faster than the "Bejeweler."

Now, everyone has a little piece of the ugly fabric, which is no longer ugly.

But, I still had GOBS of the surfer dude fabric.

Our bee celebrates members' birthdays by giving them a fabric fat quarter according to their preference. Our absent member Jean had asked for "brights", and it is her birthday month.

She got a lot of nice bright batiks that will be delivered to her.

And a lovely bright package of "surfer dude" fabric! Our new White Elephant gift, that I am sure will be passed along whenever possible to unsuspecting others!

Christmas Brunch

Today was the first of the Christmas get-togethers of the season for me. My local bee, The Whacky Ladies, met for our annual Christmas brunch at Brig's Restaurant in Wake Forest. We have so much fun at these parties, although this year we were sorry to miss two members who both underwent surgery this week. One of the things we do is a gift exchange. Most of the time we have a "gift grab,", where you choose an unopened gift in order of drawn numbers, and open it. Then the others can choose your gift instead of an unopened gift. This year, we did something different. Carolyn read a story about the Wright family. You had to pass your gift to the right or left every time you heard those words in the story. This was fun, kept us laughing, and no one had their gift "stolen."

I got a much-needed desktop needle threader and some lovely red fabric.

The inchie on the left, is actually a "twinchie", or two-inch little art square that I made everyone for favors. More about those next time.

Donna made our brunch more festive by bringing everyone a Christmas tapestry place mat to use right there at the restaurant. Mine will go well with all my snowmen!

Mary makes lots of gift items, and made us each a rose brooch. This pic is a little out of focus.

Marilyn made an assortment of embroidered mittens. She does beautiful handwork!

Janice made adorable errand lists in a padfolio-type of notebook.

After the breakfast, at least four of us headed to our LQS, Quilts Like Crazy!, for their 30% off sale today. I purchased some fabric that is very different than anything else I have, with the thought in mind of making a tote or perhaps a little girl dress. Look how Janice's memo pad matches the fabrics. Do you think she influenced my color choices?
The print fabric with the birds and dots is by designer Tina Givens, who lives right here in little old Wake Forest, N.C. It also has some fairies on it.

For my final bit of quilty news, here is the Jim Shore nativity set I treated myself to yesterday. Jim Shore's work usually has quilt designs used in the clothing of his characters. I have quite a few of the Santas and angels, and one Snowman. I have been wanting the nativity for a long time. This is the smaller one from this year's designs.

Autumn Colors "Flower Power" Quilt

My customer Susan of Stampin-Up brought me another die-cut flower applique quilt in lovely fall colors. She sells the Big-Shot die cut machine, which can cut eight layers of fabric at a time. She buys the Moda "Layer Cake" fabric selections of 10-inch squares, and uses three sizes of the scalloped edge flowers.

She chose a variegated King Tut cotton thread called "Old Giza." (They definitely have fun thinking up names for these Egyptian cotton threads!) It shows up very well on the yellow background and orange borders.

I free-hand quilted lots of flowers and leaves and vines. I had leaves swirling around each flower. Then I had to go into each layer of every flower to quilt around them, as they were only glue-basted to the background. If the quilt is washed, those scalloped edges will fray for a shabby chic effect.

Using a variegated thread with both dark and light areas brings up the problem of what to use as a bobbin thread.In a perfect world, you will never see evidence of "pokies" or thread showing, and shouldn't matter if you use different colors. But it is not a perfect world, is it? If you use the variegated on the back, the color changes will never match. I usually select a Super Bob bobbin with Bottom Line thread in a neutral color. This time, when I auditioned a rust-colored thread, it showed up on the yellow top threads. I ended up using a light golden brown thread called Baguette, but it did show up slightly on some of the dark blue thread areas.

The back is a dark sage green with a rust-colored leaf outline print. If I had used the rust thread on the back, it may have looked a little confusing, but the Baguette shows up nicely.

One customer quilt to go before Christmas...and it is MONGO! But very pretty.