Goodbye 2013 - Checking In

I hope you all had wonderful holidays!  

We sure did. All of our daughters and their families and my mom were here for Christmas and all but one for Thanksgiving. It's always wonderful to get together and just "be."

The festivities are over and believe it or not, I'm still trying to catch up on the dishes, laundry and such. Seems once I get behind, it takes a bit of effort to catch up. 

The Christmas season is always busy, but our family had a bit of extra busyness.  

The beginning of  December these two got engaged 

Congratulations you two!!!

Doesn't our youngest daughter look happy?

Then if that wasn't exciting enough, we were blessed with our 

fourth grandchild, our third granddaughter. 

Meet sweet Quinn and her mommy, our daughter, Emili.

Big sister is very happy. 

She sang to her as soon as she saw her, it was so sweet.

We topped the month off with a Christmas day filled with love and family. 

This year, 2013 has been one of blessing for our family. 

Difficulties and struggles have all been a part of this year, 

but in the end we see blessing.

We ALL feel so very blessed.

See you in 2014

The Real Meaning of Christmas

Thankful

            

Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; 

make known among the nations what he has done.

Sing to him, sing praises to him;

tell of all his wonderful acts.

Psalm 105:1 & 2

Paper Piecing

Recently my Father-In-Law and quilting Sister-In-Law came for a visit.  

Since we live on opposite coasts we don't get to visit often, but when we do, 

we ladies spend some time quilting. 

Our styles are different, but we don't let that get in our way, 

it just adds to the appreciation and admiration I have for her work. 

She specializes in hand quilting and does it both beautifully and fast. 

I can hand quilt, but rarely do. 

As I'm thinking about it, 

I realize I have a quilt half quilted from eight years ago. 

Yes, eight years ago!! 

My oh my!  

I'm embarrassed! 

Enough of that, I'll just pretend I didn't just realized that and move on.  

While she was here she wanted to learn to paper piece.  

I am not an expert. In fact I've not done that much and although 

I love the results of paper piecing I don't like to do it. 

I keep a large three ring notebook of patterns and ideas. 

We went through and picked a Lone Starburst from Anna at Six White Horses.

She picked a few fabrics from my stash and we got started.  

It was the perfect pattern to learn on. 

Not too many pieces and not too few. 

The repetition helped to get the concept, because we all know 

paper piecing can be confusing. 

It didn't take long before we had all the pieces.

I think it turned out great!  

This isn't the best photo, but the light ring around the star is a nice mellow yellow. 

It's just beautiful in person.  

Thanks Anna for a perfectly wonderful and lovely pattern 

and thank you Diana for bring dad and visiting with us for awhile. 

Have a wonderful week  : ) 

I Must Conquer....

I've always admired nicely knit items. I learned very basic knitting 

as a young girl and didn't remember much of it. 

For my birthday, a few years ago, my mom retaught me to knit.

When she wasn't near by and I needed help, I turned to the internet.  

There is so much great knitting info available!  

I'm still learning, but I fell in LOVE with knitting!  

I 'm giving socks a try. 

Well, I've started them about seven times, 

even changed yarn for a mental fresh start. 

These are now looking pretty good. 

I've gotten past the gusset, the heel turn, the heel and .......really? 

One sock is looking a bit large. 

Seems I have too many stitched on the needle after the heel. 

Oh No!  Upon checking the other sock I have too few?  

UGH!  

How did that happen?!  

I WILL succeed, I WILL conquer these socks! 

I guess I'll start over, but meanwhile, I'll go back to some quilting for awhile. 

Here are a few Bee blocks

This is just to claim my blog on bloglovin, I guess I forgot.
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Have a great week everyone ; )

Got One, But Not The Other

It's been a busy month and I just realized that sadly 

I forgot to post a September goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes. 

Ugh!  

I was on a great roll up until then.  

I got in a minor car accident on the first of the month and 

I guess my mind was preoccupied. I thought I posted something. 

Oh well, I'll focus on October's goal and 

be ready to post.

Have you been over to Happy Quilting? 

Melissa has done a great job with our Quilt Along and

tomorrow is the parade of finished quilts.

There are so many participants and lovely quilts being finished, 

you won't want to miss it. 

I got my Quilt Along Star Surround top done, 

but not completely finished, so I won't be parading.  

Since I rarely purchase anything larger than a quarter of a yard 

 this top will have to go in my to be 

layered and quilted pile until I can get a backing. 

This is Hope Valley on dark grey Kona.

 64 X 64 

I love this 16 inch quilt block. 

Now on to other projects. 

Happy Stitching.  : ) 

Lovely Finishes Goal Met

It's time for my end of the month post for 

A Lovely Year Of Finishes. 

I completed my goal for the month. 

All 384 inches of binding. 

Fingers are a wee bit sore, 

but I'm happy to be done!  

I took a couple quick photos for this post, 

but I will take some proper photos and post them soon. 

Hopefully the recipient of this quilt will get a good sneak peek

and love this quilt as much as I do.  

Hoping to get some 

stitching in this weekend.