Honest, I'm still here!

A friend called this a.m. to make sure I was OK. She said, "haven't heard from you...no blog, no email, no news". It was just a busy week for me last week. We had a great Thanksgiving at Darrin & Kris' and another Thanksgiving dinner with kids up from Indiana on Sat. More on time with kids and pics at the end of this post.
I made this small quilt (12" x 12") back in 2007 mainly because I liked the quote above! Since I can't post full pics of what I've been working on for Christmas, I thought I'd show this piece instead.
I'm not good at sewing straight lines so this was a test piece for me to practice on! The background was all straight stitching. All the other pieces of the flowers and quote were made the old 'fabric paper' method. Using muslin as my substrate and then adding tissue paper, wrapping paper, you name it, in between painted layers of diluted textile medium. I then cut out the flowers and quote. I also laid leaves you purchase for scrap booking along with the wrapping paper, etc. , then cut out each piece and sewed onto my quilted background. The stem was made with pipe cleaners which I wrapped with scrap fibers.

So here's a little peak at what I've been working on..had some sewing machine 'issues' so I had to dig out my Florida Bernina (my 1090, which I LOVE!). I'm going to take the newer Bernina with me to Florida to have its 'day at the spa'. It's been years since she was touched by someone other than myself and it's about time to set her free! The quilt shop is only 5 miles from the house, so I'll drop off my machine the day we arrive in Fl. I'll be busy the 1st week or two and hopefully won't need to sew anything. This is another project I'm working on for Christmas...I haven't touched my BJP and look forward to working on it again. But Christmas is a priority so....
And for family, here are pics from Thanksgiving. Kris always sets such a beautiful table and the turkey was great! Looks good doesn't it! It was good! Along with everything else Kris made.










This was Nick doing the 'snake'. Actually, he and I were lighting the candles on the table. He had to have all of them lit! When I went to snap the picture of the table, he scooted under it..but I bet he could do the snake dance!

This is Kris mom, Nancy, and Amber sneaking a piece of turkey.
Here's two of my girls! Amber and Ginny (Kris' niece & my summer helper in 2008!) Ginny had her hair cut and tinted and it looked really nice. Kris straighted Amber's hair and she looked so grown up. She's not smiling here but she did smile a lot that day!
Of course, I FORGOT to take any pictures when kids came to dinner on Sat.!!! I'm so mad! Ian is getting so tall! He's almost the same height as Bob but Ian's legs are a lot longer than his!! Of course, each time we see Kayla, she's even more pretty than the last time. She's doing good at Ball State and enjoys her program but studies do keep her pretty tied up. Of course their mom and dad (MaryJo and Ron) look great and are doing well themselves. We haven't seen them since the spring in Florida so it was good to catch up. We girls played Monopoly Deal, the card game. This is a GREAT game and makes a really good stocking stuffer. I think Kayla won 3 hands and MaryJo at least 2 maybe 3...poor me only won 1 game!

Well, it's back to the sewing machine...we just had turkey soup and sandwich for our lunch/dinner. I cooked the broth on Sat. night and just added veggies and turkey today. Good way to use up leftovers and I still have enough left for two more meals!