Signs of the Season...

Poinsettia throw made around 2002 - center of the quilt is a paper pieced pattern by Eileen B.Sullivan. It is a sew and flip technique.

My dear friends,
It has been a busy time for me- it seems like a common refrain but somehow this fall has been busier than usual or maybe I am getting older... For whatever reason I have not got as much done at home and quilting seems to have fallen to the back burner. In the New Year I want to change that - I have some quilt projects that I want to make for some special people to acknowledge their importance in my life.

The festive season has arrived in my house. We are all lit up with lights of the season. This year we have had more snow than some years so it is indeed a winter Wonderland.
This furry bear friend who is hanging on for dear life has graced the top of our Christmas tree for many years. Sometimes, I think its time we replaced him but the men in my house say he is a tradition, so there he sits, perched on the top of the tree. We put him in his place yesterday when we decorated the tree with dear friends and family. Our tree trimming party is an annual event where friends come and help adorn the tree. It looks beautiful doesn't it! Last weekend, I put up some of the other Christmas decorations that add ambiance and reflect the Christmas season. This stand came from my in laws home, and is very old. I change it seasonally and it holds all the symbols of the changing seasons.

The mantel holds some of my favorite Santas. Do you collect certain kinds of decorations?
We live in a small house and so I rotate the collections of things. Over the years, I have been given a number of Santas. This is just some of them. They say less is more- I still haven't quite figured out how to be a minimalist but this is reduced..LOL

We have had a real tree for all of the years we have been married. We love the smell of the real tree and don't mind the real life droppings of nature that decorate our rug by the end of the Christmas season. The tree is covered with an eclectic collection of decorations-many which have been given to me by students. Some ornaments have hung on every tree for the past 30 years. The tree does not have tinsel on it yet. Santa Claus usually added it on Christmas Eve- This year I am not sure if it will get on or not..

Poinsettia flowers were my wedding flowers in 1980. I have a great fondness for them and Bruce brought this beautiful plant to grace our table. There are some wonderful Christmas cacti too. Cacti have quite an amazing flower- almost like a trumpet shaped flower that keeps expanding out... We have an old one and a new one and both of them have blossoms- Nature does have amazing timing..
I have been very fortunate lately. I have won some giveaways. These are a couple of things that arrived in my mailbox.

A while back I won a gift certificate to a place called Patchwork Plus through the Barbara Cline book bloghop.( If you love lone stars then you should check out her book "Star Struck Quilts.") When I began searching The Patchwork Plus on line website I was thrilled to find some beautiful sunflower fabric and some teacher like fabric with all sorts of math and science symbols on it. As well,I found a pattern of a quilt that I had admired on Tazzie's blog awhile back.Tazzie is an Australian quilter who has contributed designs to Australian Patchwork and Quilting. I really loved how Tazzie used black and white around the central blocks. Her central blocks were Kaffe fabrics. It seems quite fitting that the pattern was bought from a gift certificate that came through a giveaway on her blog. Thank you Tazzie!
Elaine from a Faithful Quilter held a giveaway in honor of her birthday earlier in December. I was so amazed when an email appeared in my box to let me know that I had won some lovely fabric. I wish that the camera captured the truly gorgeous fabrics done by Barbara Brackman. They are rich and luscious to look at. Thank you Elaine for your beautiful card and generous gift. It is very special fabric.

And here is a giveaway for you to check out at retro mummy She is giving away some really lovely Lecien fabric called Flowered Sugar.... yummy...

Christmas will be a little different in our house this year. Our son is flying with his girlfriend to the other side of the country to spend Christmas with her family. We know that they will have a fantastic time but we will miss them both. We will go earlier to visit my parents and have dinner with my siblings.On Sunday Bruce and I will celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. I am not sure yet how we will mark it but it doesn't really matter as long as we have time together.

In closing, I would like to wish you and yours a lovely festive season where you have the opportunity to enjoy some good times with family and friends. May 2011 bring good health and prosperity to you and your loved ones.
Warmest regards,
Anna

It has been a busy Festive Season

Poinsettias are my wedding flowers (our wedding anniversary is December 26th) so we usually have poinsettias in our house over the Christmas season. This one was enormous and was a gift that I received at work in a gift exchange. It is such a glorious color. We had a difficult time figuring out where to put it in our house as we have limited space so I cleaned out yet another corner to find space for it. Unfortunately I think the corner was too cool for it, and so it has lost some of its beautiful foliage it still is pretty gorgeous.
Today's post brought me a package from Keepsake Quilting, which included these two poinsettia patterns. I got this idea that I might like to make a new poinsettia quilt, and these patterns both struck my fancy. I figured if I collect some new ones, that I might actually create a new quilt to adorn our house. I made this poinsettia couch quilt a number of years ago, to celebrate our anniversary. The center is a paper pieced pattern by Eileen Sullivan-She has many other lovely flower(for example iris, daffodil and cactus) patterns that you can make using a Sew and Flip technique- I believe her patterns are Designer Workshop patterns but you can find her site just by googling her name.
Behind the table center piece, you can see some of the other fabrics that came in my package from Keepsake Quilting. They had a nice sale before Christmas so I bought a few lovely pieces to add to my stash- a few florals and some sock monkey fat quarters.
Isn't this Iris fleece panel glorious- I love purple flowers, and one that makes me think of my beloved grandmother. She so loved flowers and Irises were among her favorite flowers.
Christmas brought some lovely pressies from my spouse- Bruce found me some great new pens for quilt labels, a book about Pieced borders that has been on my list for a long time, a couple of quilting magazines, a new ruler and a box for my growing collection of fat quarters. My friend L. gave me a wonderful casserole cover she made, as well as Jinny Beyer's new book. It has 4.050 quilt pattern blocks in it! There are also some grids to help a person figure out how the block is designed. I hope that you found some quilty things that you have been wishing for under your Christmas tree.

This lovely collection was a giveaway prize that I won from Cara of Cara's quilts. It has such beautiful handmade pin toppers,a wonderful handmade log cabin pincushion and a glorious set of a dozen floral fat quarters. Thank you so much, Cara, for such a special giveaway. Do go and visit Cara's blog- she made some wonderful stockings for Christmas- the one she made her daughter L'il Bit is a gorgeous princess one.

There are some wonderful giveaways around the blogs just now. Some will soon be over so do check them out before they are gone.

Sue at Alderwood quilts is offering a fun giveaway of a Jennifer Chiaverini book and some fat quarters. She also sells templates for Louisa Smith's curved quilt designs. The templates are not easily found, and she has them on sale until the New Year. I ordered two sets- one of the basic and the second set as well. She has them on sale for 25 percent off and was most helpful when I spoke with her on the phone. I first saw them on Exuberant Color's ( Wanda's) blog - I love circle quilts and you can create the most fascinating designs using the templates.

Heidi is a new to me quilt blog who is having a really nice giveaway of bag with Amy Butler fabric pieces or a baby panel with fabrics. It is her 100th post and she is celebrating it in a grand way. Congratulations Heidi!

Oz girls are having a giveaway of some very pretty Robin Pandolph fabrics - it is hard to choose between the pink or the mint fabrics.

Just as I began to write this post, I received notification that I had won a giveaway from Margaret of a bit of Kaos. I won an Australian quilt magazine and diary. I love the Aussie magazines and they are not too plentiful here in Western Canada. I used to get a subscription to Australian Patchwork and Quilting and enjoyed the magazine very much. Thank you so much Margaret. I will look forward to reading the magazine and using the diary when it arrives.

January is beckoning- I have enjoyed the time off- it has given me some time to reflect and pause after a very busy fall. We enjoyed some great family times with my family in Red Deer on Christmas day and the weekend that followed. It was nice to see our nieces and some little ones at my parents.

It was great to spend time with my parents, who have always been a steady loving force in my life. I value the times that we have together- My mother always does special things for each of her family members, whether it be gathering card making stamps for my niece to borrow, or making lasagna for Kevin our son. I know that my son enjoys his time with his Poppa. This time, Kevin helped my dad. build an extension to his new snowblower and change the headlights in my dad's Van. From the time Kevin was a little boy, he has loved to help my dad build and fix things. Each and every time, he wants to bring home some of grandma's dill pickles. The traditions continues..

While I was at my folks, I played in the beads and made new bracelets for all the grown up girls in my family. (I made about a dozen bracelets by the time I put the beads away for the last time). We enjoyed lots of delicious food, including two turkey dinners that my sister D.,brought to my parent's home. We appreciated her delicious cooking and all her hard work to make it special- Thank you so much Sis!
There were 17 of us for Christmas dinner and 11 of us the following evening. My parents have lived in their small home since 1963. No matter how many people are there, there is always room for one more at the table.

Tomorrow, we will have lunch with some of Bruce's family- his sister, brother in law, and daughters and their spouses. It will be great to catch up with them as well. After that, we will have one more Christmas event with our dearest friends here. And so the celebrations continue..

In the meantime, I hope to get a few quilty things done before I return to the classroom- perhaps a couple of new pillowcases for our bed and start a new quilt. There are some other quilt projects that I would like to finish- I better make a list and a plan. What about you?

Do you have some project plans for 2010 ?

Kim has a great post today about ways that she finds time to quilt daily- She puts aside a half an hour a day to devote to creating her quilts. It is something worth contemplating ...
One thing that I intend to do is to blog a little more regularly in 2010- this fall has been pretty hit and miss-
I hope one and all has enjoyed some great times with loved ones. May 2010 bring you and yours good health and prosperity.

With best wishes and my warmest regards,
Anna

Wedding Anniversary Flowers

Twenty eight years ago on Boxing Day (December 26), I married the love of my life, Bruce. Together we have raised a son to adulthood and enjoyed many adventures along our journey. I have been very fortunate to marry a good friend - Bruce has supported my interests (and I, his) all through our married life.


I made this paper pieced cuddle quilt using a a wall hanging pattern by Eileen B. Sullivan as the central medallion. I then added a number of borders and its finished size fills up our love seat. I love all the beautiful Christmas poinsettia prints one can find now.



When I wanted to choose my wedding flowers it was a bit more complicated than some wedding plans because of the date. We were married in a candlelight ceremony with the church full of colors of Christmas. My sister is a horticulture designer and turned my silk bouquet into a lovely basket. It looked wonderful and we had it as a Christmas decoration for many years. Alas, like many things, it had got tired looking and then lost some of the blossoms- This year, My sister has made me a new basket of poinsettias as an anniversary gift. The new floral arrangement is gorgeous and we will be able to enjoy it to for many years to come.

We went to visit my family(my parents and 3 siblings and their families) in Red Deer for the past few days. Red Deer is about a hundred miles south. We had two Christmas dinners with wonderful turkey and all the trimmings. We were more fortunate, than some other travellers across this country, who experienced difficulties getting onto planes. The roads were good - clear and dry though we ran into a skiff of snow on our way back earlier today.

While I was there my father took me down to the quilt store, Sew you Like 2 Quilt. It has moved from the place that Pam http://pamcave.blogspot.com/ and I visited in the summertime. It is a lovely little store and I found some wonderful Laurel Burch fabrics on sale. They will be used to make a new Christmas quilt ( a next year project) LOL. I was tempted by lots of other of the beautiful Christmas fabrics but I resisted - there were many gorgeous poinsettia fabrics too..

During this second week of holidays I am looking forward to a few days where I get to use my sewing machine. I plan to make a texture quilt for my mother in law. I saw the pattern for it on http://quilting-diva.blogspot.com/ in early November. I have been collecting different textured fabrics for this quilt for awhile. It is a long time since I sewed with fabric that was not cotton. I will either use a fusible interfacing or use a foundation . The design is simple- just large squares of different fabrics . I thank Julie for the idea- I hope that I can get it finished quickly and off to the West Coast so my mother in law can enjoy using it.

The crockpot is full of chicken soup and our dog Dusty has been curled up here as I have written this post. My husband and I have been watching the hockey game on television and the Christmas tree is brightly lit... Life is good..

I had a request to see Dusty our dog- Mars the cat is posted on the blog header and can often be found playing in the quilts. The only photo I have of Dusty was taken last summer prior to her first hair cut. She is looking pretty motley in the photo and is cuter with her hair trimmed. I will try and take a new photo of her one day soon. She is a schnoodle dog who is 7 years old.

Mars, the cat and Dusty, the dog along with the rest of us from Quiltmom's Household want to wish you a very Happy 2009.
With best Wishes,
Regards,
Anna