Big Family Christmas Party

I am finally recovering from our family weekend when we hosted the Turner rellies for a Christmas get-together.  Lots of love and tons of fun, but I was pretty wiped out for a couple days afterward!

Our kids arrived on Friday afternoon, and we had a nice visit with the fairly small group.

Here is our Lily sitting on her grandfather's lap.

The next day we set up extra tables and chairs, moved the fire pit to the end of the driveway, and hosted an indoor/outdoor party on a cold but clear wintry day.

We had great help from Bryson, Dave, Emily, and Melissa.  Here are my girls enjoying a preview of the meatballs before the big gang arrived.

The kids were very happy that we brought the Gator home from the mountains in November.

My 13-year-old great-niece loved driving them all around the yard.

Although my dad has retired from being the official turkey carver, we had to take the ceremonial picture of him with the turkey.  Make that plural...Charlie cooked two nice ones in the smoker this year.

When it was time to eat, the chow line wrapped almost all the way around the kitchen and living room and out the door.

One of the most memorable moments was when Dad gave my niece, Adrienne, a portrait of her mother.  We lost Paula to cancer just a couple of months ago.  Dad finished this portrait recently, one of his first serious works of art since his debilitating bout of pneumonia last April.  Her sister Jessie got one, too.

To celebrate Dad's return to better health and the ability to make art again, all of his kids chipped in to get him a nice new wooden taboret for his painting supplies.  Somehow the one that he had been using for 55 years just did not look so good any more.

Then he surprised all of us with a beautifully matted and framed giclee copy of his portrait of our beautiful mother, Betty Lou Turner.  What a wonderful gift! 

When we have these family gatherings, I often think about how much my mother would have loved to be there, enjoying her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.  We also lost her to cancer at age 60, way way too soon.  Love you, Mom!

Candlewicking Quilt is Done!

All finished...this beautiful embroidered quilt with Debbie L's candlewicking blocks.  I quilted and finished it for her.  I am so pleased with the sculptured look of the quilt!

I started off being very timid about quilting inside the embroidered areas, but then I saw how the background quilting made them pop.  After that I plunged right in had fun coming up with a different design for each embroidered square.

All of the sashings are a leafy vine.  The backing and binding fabrics are the same paisley print.

I must say, the backing looks about 1000% better than the pre-quilted backing that the top had been attached to  before.  It looks pretty enough to stand on its own.

I am excited that my family is coming to my house this weekend for a family Christmas dinner.  We all have grown kids and most have grandkids, and it is too hard to expect everyone to travel on Christmas Day.  Charlie and I have been bustling around for the past two weeks getting ready.  I will have some pictures to show on Monday, I am sure!

Alliance for American Quilts Auction

Readers of my blog are familiar with the name of quilt artist Pamela Allen.

I have participated in at least five of her online classes about making art quilts.  She is a master teacher as well as a master quilter and artist.

One of her quilts is currently being auctioned on E-bay to raise funds for the Alliance for American Quilts.

Does This Look Like a Garden to You?, Pamela Allen

The Alliance For American Quilts is located right in my state of North Carolina.  Its mission is "to document, preserve, and share our American quilt heritage by collecting the rich stories that historic and contemporary quilts, and their makers, tell about our nation's diverse peoples and their communities."

The current week's E-bay auctions include art quilts by other well-known quilters such as Jamie Fingal,


Soul Sisters, Jamie Fingal


 Allison Aller,



Alliances: Soil and Sky, Allison Aller

Pat Holly,



Dancing Elephants, Pat Holly

and Yvonne Porcella.


Hi 5, Yvonne Porcella



You can see all of the quilts in the current auction group at The Alliance for American Quilts website.  Instructions for bidding are included on the same page.

What a great chance to own a piece of original fiber art, and help a worthy cause at the same time!  Bidding ends on December 12.

December Anything Art!

What a nice day with the Anything Art Bee!  For the third year in a row, we held our December meeting at Ruth-Ellen's home.  Potato latkes were once again on the menu, along with some great salads, kugel, and desserts.

Here are the needle-felted bookmarks that I made for this group- not at all Christmasy!  I found a piece of water-soluble fabric that I had already made to look like sea and sky.  I decided to make it larger and cut it up for bookmarks.  Since it was on the water-soluble base, I also had to do some stitching or it would all fall apart when I washed out the base.

I added a little Angelina for sparkle.  The edges are zigzagged with turquoise thread.

The backs are watercolor paper painted to match.  One is stamped, as well.

We had fun talking about our classes at Art of the Carolinas.  Ruth-Ellen had her Colorful Boats painting from a Karlyn Holman class, and her art journal begun in a workshop with Suzanne McNeill.

I had one of my class paintings framed and brought it with me, but can't show it yet!  (Surprise!) 

Roberta did a demo at AOC on making brooches from paper slide frames, and gave us each one.  Super cute!

Mine has a rose made of text.  Some of the others had a dangling bead.

We had some more great show and tell and lots of time to visit.  Next month we will meet at my house for a review of some of the art quilt techniques I have learned in my Pamela Allen online workshops.



Red Flowers Postcard

I found a little time to make a few more small surprises this weekend.

I rediscovered my needle-felting machine (Babylock Embellisher) and made a little birthday card for my former daughter-in-law.

I felted the red silk roving that I dyed with Kool-Aid to a piece of hand-painted fabric.  I also added some yarn and some very sparkly variegated fibers that I purchased.

The back is a piece of a watercolor painting with some added stamping.

I needle-felted and stitched some more bookmarks, which I will wait until tomorrow to post since they are surprises for my art quilt bee.

We got the Christmas tree put up and some of the indoor decorations.  I still have to hang up the Christmas quilts and put out the Nativity scene.  Not to mention get my house ready for all the Turners to come for our annual Christmas dinner next Saturday.  A busy time of year, but a wonderful season of love.

The weather has turned slightly colder, which helps it seem a bit more like Christmas.  But it would really seem more like Christmas if it would do this again!

Whacky Ladies Christmas Brunch

Today was the Christmas brunch for my local quilt bee, The Whacky Ladies.  We met at Brig's in Wake Forest for a delightfully calorie-laden breakfast.  Now I can reveal what I have been working on this week.

First off is the Church Ladies Apron that I made for the Dirty Santa gift exchange.

It is reversible, with an apple print on one side, and a black and gold Debbie Mumm stars print on the other.  It has a scalloped bottom edge.

Both sides have double pockets.

This one was snatched back and forth in the game where you can choose the next wrapped gift, or "steal" an opened one.  Mary got this, which was then stolen by Donna, and finally stolen back by Mary since she was #1.

The pattern was fairly easy to follow, except for the pockets.  Those took me two afternoons, and I had to do a Google search for this apron to see how to use the fabrics!

My gift was a tote bag, which I "stole" from Irene.  It was made by Mary!

It closes with Velcro and has an interior pocket as well as an outside pocket.

We also exchange small trinkets or ornaments at the brunch.  This year I made funky bookmarks out of quilted or painted fabric and watercolor or scrapbook paper.

This group had feathers quilted on hand-dyed fabric.  The center one was just card stock decorated with Neocolor II water-soluble crayons.

These were quilted and then painted with Shiva oil paint sticks.

Here are some more quilted ones.

On the backs of some of these are the watercolor test paper from my class at Art Students Academy when I did the Linn Cove Viaduct painting.

All of these are made from leftover bits of quilting or painting projects, so it is fun to rummage through my "leftovers bin" to make these bookmarks.

Here are the goodies I received from the other "Whackies."

The green object that looks something like a hand grenade is a pomander ball made from a lime.  It smells divine!  And don't you love the gingerbread man on the spatula!  Irene made us each two quilted coasters.

Got to get ready for my other bee on Monday...and an office party tonight at Brio's in Crabtree Valley with my husband's co-workers.

Heading for the Holidays

Wow!  Thanksgiving has already come and gone!  Time to put away the turkey

and take out the Christmas decorations!

Both of the above quilts are 24" wall quilts that I made for my son Dave and his wife, Emily.  We had a nice Thanksgiving buffet at Margaux in Raleigh, a restaurant I highly recommend.  Then it was so warm that we sat outside on the back deck until the stars came out.  Charlie built us a fire in the fire pit, and we had a relaxing day.

On Friday. our South Carolina family came up and stayed the weekend.  On Saturday, Charlie and I took the three kids to the Marbles Kids Museum in downtown Raleigh.  That was an amazing place, and the best bargain in town at only $5.00 per head. 

All three kids were captivated by all the hands-on interactive activities.

The oldest, Avery, showed up this time with a semi-Mohawk and a rat-tail.  We like him anyway.

This morning I had to go get "my girls" checked by mammogram at 9:00 and was done by 9:10.  It was raining when I left, but as soon as the sun came out I loaded Kasey in the car to go for a walk on the greenway.  I could walk there, but since hurting my ankle last summer I prefer to drive and save my steps.

Sometimes when the weather has been bad, we have been lucky enough to see deer emerging on the greenway.  Sure enough, we had just gotten started when I saw this pretty lady.

We both just froze and looked at each other.  I was able to raise my camera to take her picture, and she actually started walking toward me.  She and Kasey did not even notice each other.

About that time, four or five other deer came up behind her.  They all turned and went into the creek.  There are at least three of them in the next picture...Where's Waldo?

The creek was very swollen from the rain.

It spilled over the rocks  at the cascade with a lot of energy.

I am almost finished binding and tying off the threads on the candlewick quilt, and will show pictures of it next time.  Meanwhile, I have two Christmas parties on Friday.  One is my bee's annual brunch.  I am working on a gift for our Secret Santa exchange.  Can't show you yet!