Post-Christmas Cold

By 'cold' I mean it in both senses of the word. Our high temperature yesterday as 3 degrees Fahrenheit.

My lofty goals for the winter break of cleaning and organizing all the closets (one per day) and quilting a full-size quilt was waylaid by a head cold. I am back on track today. I did manage to spray-baste the quilt the other day and started quilting today. I am using 3 sizes of star shaped cookie cutters and tracing them onto the quilt as part of the free-motion pattern and joining them with swirls and loops.

Damon's mom Pat creates an original Christmas ornament every year for everyone in the family. This is this year's ornament - a hand-sewn felted wool dove.

Holiday Decorating with Quilts

I don't usually keep many of the quilts I make but I do tend to keep those I can decorate with during the holidays. Here is the hand-applique Hawaiian quilt hanging in the dining room.


There is also the compass star piece on the dining room table.

The first thing I made that was a holiday decoration was the wool holly wreath. It was hand-sewn with blanket and running stitches using pearl cotton. The red 'berries' are buttons.

NYC during the Holidays

Survived a trip to NYC during the holiday season. Here is a picture of the tree in Rockefeller Center. It is a bit blurry because I needed to use the night setting on the camera. The crowds were incredible!

Across from the plaza is Sak's 5th Ave. There light display is also impressive. You can see all the snowflake lights on the side of their building. But what you cannot see is that every now and again they play Christmas music and the lights blink along in time with the music.

Just to assure you that this was not just a holiday trip into the city I am including a picture of myself with the poster that Holly and I presented at the ACRL/NY conference on Friday.

600 Half-Square Triangles

Its Done!!!!

This quilt started as a bunch of fat-quarters I bought the 2nd year I started quilting (2004?). I bought a variety of prints in 4 colors - black, pink, beige, and green. The fabrics sat in a box for a few years but about a year and a half ago I made the half-square triangles using the Thangles method and ended up with a box of 600 of them. I had the top pieced together by May 2009, but I just machine quilted it in Nov. 2009 and put the binding on.

The front of the quilt actually has only 576 (24 x 24) of the HSTs but I plan on using the last 24 on the back as part of the hanging sleeve and the label.