Happy 2015 – let’s start fresh!!

Hi everyone,

and wishing you

Let’s not even waste more than a line or two on me being MIA again, but start fresh and positive! Yeah.

Today’s post will be a quick catch-up with some holiday fun and yes, even one quilt finished.
Yup, you read that right. ONE QUILT FINISHED!

It made me happy to start this year with one finish, but let’s go in some order:

– After my last post a flurry of Thanksgiving preps and lots of family time took me away from here but filled my heart with joy (so I already forgive myself and hope you do too, he he) – all our grown up kids and even their loves were home!!
Can you say – HAPPY!?!

And it was the first time I figured out how to use the time delay feature for photos on my iPhone! (well, thanks to these smart young adults you see in the photo, of course)

-Then right after that was another flurry of getting ready for my annual Artists in Buffalo Holiday Open House – I feel so honored to participate and it is always, always such a lovely and uplifting weekend! People are somewhat surprised to see quilts that are not just “blankets” for beds and also quilts AT ALL and I take pleasure in educating them how this art form is alive and well and so much fun.
Here is few photos of my set-up this year:

Specially proud of this photo below – these are all quilts my daughter made!!! I only showed her some basics and look at her talent!!Her free-motion quilting is amazing and I will have a separate post just for that – so proud!! 🙂

– and all the days and weeks in between and in general these past 8 moths or so are filled with this joy of course – our lovely, cutest, sweetest little granddaughter Juliana! This is such a typical Monday for me – watching two of them, Juliana and Oliver, taking them for a walk, watching them play, take naps…I really, really don’t think there is a bigger joy!

– And yes, big boy Marley is filling my days and my heart still – our walks together are my most peaceful times…I love him so much!

– Then came time for holiday parties with friends, Guilds… We had so much fun at our December meeting and party for Western NY Modern Quilt Guild! ( WNY MQG ) – we exchanged Secret Santa gifts!

And just look at this lovely pillow I got!!! I love it so, so much!!

– Before you know it, Christmas time was here too! We were kinda late this year with getting the tree (once it doesn’t happen on Thanksgiving weekend or one right after – it’s panic time, right?)
This year’s Frasier’s Fir was a beauty but quite big. It took me, with my special “wrap-almost-every-branch-with-lights” method, almost 3 hours and twelve strings of lights to do it!
Here was the start:

Some progress…

And DONE!! 

– Over the years we built this tradition that I do the lights, then all the kids would gather to put the ornaments  and my husband would be the last, to put on the top. Of course now with all the kids grown up and some away it is getting hard, but we still did it this year!! Waited ’till the 22nd when our daughter and her fiancee  arrived, but it was so much fun to have them all around to do it again!

(the photo above was a panoramic one but if anyone moves, it is hilarious! (strange head shapes? LOL!)

-Ooh and then there was some little drama when the whole, beautiful, trimmed tree FELL DOWN!! Right after we finished and set down for dinner, it decided to FAINT?? They say everyone’s tree falls at least once – so this was our time?
But it was all good at the end – no precious ornaments lost (so lucky!!), all put back on and ready for Christmas morning! We had so much fun opening presents with our little girl crawling around and tearing paper!! Baby’s first Christmas is such a special time! 🙂

And even managed a family picture again!!

My son’s mother-in-law, Juliana’s other grandma made this precious baby hand-print ornament for us – I love it soooo much!!

And two new chairs are a present for my husband and me from ALL kids (they always get together to give us one bigger gift) and they are just fabulous – a starting point for the living room makeover happening slowly.  I am very much drawn now to make it in a neutral palette so that I can add  and change color accents (and quilts!) more easily.

Each person was walking with one llama and one below (right) was mine – lovely new mama-llama Renee and her baby Sugar. Aren’t they just so sweet?

– Holiday times also meant all the kids getting together for some fun and this grandma got extra times with grand babies – YAY!! Here is a rare shot I managed with all three in one spot – all of us hanging out in our bay window… My heart is in a constant melting state, you know.

-Christmas wasn’t white but we did get some snow later – enough for these two to get happy!

– And then some extra special treat of all our amazing, beautiful kids and their loves making us, parents a lovely dinner that we came home to, after work. Oh my…there was salmon on a plank, encrusted in some loveliness, chicken in red roasted pepper marinade, sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts with bacon and apple and few other goodies, topped with yummy creme-puffs (with melted chocolate tops!) that our daughter-in-law is an expert for. Honestly – how lucky are we??
This was one and only photo I snapped quick, I had way too much fun to get more. 🙂

Yeah…I am still smiling in my heart from all this wonderful time during holidays. I am truly blessed beyond measure and I can only vow to never take it for granted and to spread the joy to anyone and anything I can.

I find that whenever I am either uneasy a lot or happy a lot – I NEED to sew! I am sure you all can relate, right? So even in this busy time around holidays I was able to squeeze some of it – that is AFTER I had to clean a colosal mess I made while doing some last minute gift making. (how many times did I vow NOT to do that last minute stuff?? Too many…)

So here it is folks – a rare occasion of a clean sewing room!!

Well the shelf still need some work so that all those bins of christmas fabrics can get on it, but work area was usable again! And the Grand Quilter machine needs to be back on that frame…

Anyway – here is my first finish of 2015!! YAY!!
I know it is silly actually – but it felt SO GOOD to do that on the first day of the New Year! I’ll take it as a symbol of things to come! (more about those in a next post…)
This one I call Waterfall – it is my first pattern done with Quick Curve Ruler by Sew Kind of Wonderful
and I blogged about using this ruler and patterns before – HERE . I really love this ruler and so many amazing patterns they have for it – definitely something I will be doing more this year!

For this one, I opted only for some straight line quilting, following the curvy seams – yes very, VERY unusual for me!!

So – what do you think, good choice? Does it need more?

I was wondering and questioning that and knew I will get stuck on it, so just decided to leave it as is – simple and plain! Hey, it feels good to change it up a bit! 🙂