Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!


WOW!! I can't believe it's been 3 weeks since my last post. It's been a busy 3 weeks. So what's been going on? Lots!

The house has been decorated for Christmas. The tree is up and trimmed. The baking was done. I even tried some new recipes and they turned out great, especially the Space Dust cookies. These are going to be a staple for my Christmas baking. Presents were bought and wrapped. I actually had all the gifts wrapped early this year. That left me time to get ready for family company on the 24th. It was great to see my brother, his wife and their son. Also my niece and her 2 kids. It was a fun evening with lots of food and games.

I received some really great news earlier this month. As I had posted in a previous post I was working towards sending in my application to Judy Neimeyer Quilting to become a Certified Instructor. Well I finally got the email that I'd been waiting for, I was accepted into their Instructors Program. I will go to Montana for my training the end of August 2012. It seems so far away, but I know that I will be busy making samples and teaching in the mean time.

What have I been doing in my studio, well lets see. I got the top for my friend done and now just have to get the back ready, then I'll take it to Diamond Girlz, my friendship group, next week to get it basted along with some other tops for customers that need to get quilted.


I've finished Parts 4-6 of the Bonnie Hunter's Orca Bay Mystery. When you get all the parts laid out that we've done so far you can tell it's going to be a great quilt. I can't wait to see what this quilt is going to look like.

I haven't done much beading since the last post, so I didn't give the little stars to my Diamond Girlz friends like I was going to. So instead I gave them each a skein of the new ruffle yarn and knitting needles and showed them how to make a fun scarf. Everyone enjoyed the gifts and were having fun learning something new. I made up a couple of scarves so that I could show them and each scarf only took about 1 1/2 hrs. to make while I was watching TV.

Was Santa good to you? He sure was good to me. For Christmas I got a Toshiba Thrive tablet. I'm having lots of fun learning how to use it. I haven't loaded that many apps on it yet, but just give me some time.

It's a quiet week this week. It's kinda nice that way, the week in between Christmas and New Year. Time to adjust getting back to some normalcy after all the hustle and bustle of Christmas. Time to think about the New Year and what will be coming in the year ahead.
Now it's time to go play with my new toy!

Happy New Year

Always stitchin',

Cindy

Monday, December 5, 2011

A quiet week here and Orca Bay Part 3.

It was kinda a quiet week here!

Last Monday I meet with my beading group and had a great day playing with my beads. I started a new kit from June Huber from Juniper Creek Designs. I love her designs, her directions are great, very easy to follow. I have taken a number of her classes at the Bead and Button show. This is her Peyote Starflower pendant.

I'm also making some of her Peyote Stars for gifts for Christmas. I'm using my own beads for these. My stash of beads is almost as large as my fabric stash.

For my quilt guild I in charge of making a special quilt for a friend. I finally decided on a design and got to work. I got all the parts cut out and the center of the top is almost together. Then I'll work on the borders. Can't show a picture right now. That will have to wait until it's presented to her. But I'm really happy with the way it's turning out.

Finally Friday came and with it came the next installment of the Orca Bay Mystery from Bonnie Hunter. I finished Part 3 on Sunday morning. Here are all the parts so far. I think they play nicely together. And just so the playing doesn't get out of hand, they stay in their own play pen when I'm not around.
I realized, I hadn't posted what my fabrics were going to be. I'm going with pink in place of Bonnie's red, then blue, black and white.

Friday was also a day of pure Bliss! My BFF, Lauretta, who is a massage therapist gave me a gift certificate for a massage for my birthday last Sept.. I made an appointment and turned it in on Friday for wonderful massage. It helped take care of the ropes that were between my shoulders. Now I feels so much better.

This coming week look a little busy, but I'll let you know how it goes.

Cindy