My New Years Thought for You

HOW TO STAY YOUNG
1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay 'them'
2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down..
3. Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain idle. 'An idle mind is the devil's workshop.
4. Enjoy the simple things.
5.. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.
6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person, who is with us our entire life apart from God, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive.
7. Surround yourself with what you love , whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.
8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it.. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.
9. Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county; to a foreign country but NOT to where the guilt is.
10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.
AND ALWAYS REMEMBER :

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

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This was sent in an email to me from my sister in law, and was so timely that I couldn't wait to share it with you all, for the new year. I hope that it provokes as much thought for you, as it did for me. May you all have a Wonderful New Year!

Merry Christmas

While I am a little late in posting this, I do hope that Santa flew over your place last night, and delivered all of you, many wonderful Christmas memories. It has sure been a great year blogging and reading all your blogs. You have inspired me beyond my wildest dreams. May you all, have a wonderful holiday season. This is my last Christmas project posting for this year, an Anita Goodesign tile scene done on my embroidery machine. Hope you  enjoy!

While the Stocking were hung!

Or at least my version of that Christmas story. This week has seen a finish to my 22 mug wraps for the holidays. Part are gifts and part are going on my Christmas Eve table, so everyone gets to take home a little taste of holiday candies. Oh yeah, the ones that go straight to the hips!  It's the holidays, so it doesn't count right?  :-)  :-)

Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season! And may all our hips survive them!

Still Stitchin

Almost the 11th hour and I am still working on my holiday gifts. I have to get my act together sooner next year. The more I think about things, the more I realize that I really do need to make it a priority to start in January and get at least 1 Christmas project a month done. This week has found me at my embroidery machine. Here are a few towels that I have finished up using Embroidery Library designs. These micro fiber towels are just the greatest to not only stitch on, but to use too!  I have a set of Oriental bath towels that I was working on when my new Ellisimo machine started making horrible noise, so it's in the shop, and I am hoping that I get it back in time to finish up the hand towels.

Back down to the sweat shop, or should I say Santa's workshop!  :-)

My Christmas Quilt

Here it is my Christmas Quilt 2009. One of my favorite Art to Heart quilt patterns, "I Believe". It's a color combination that I have never used and I love it. For those who might be interested they are having a little contest on Quilting Gallery. I would love for you to take a look at the choices and vote for your favorite.

http://quiltinggallery.com/quilters-fun/holiday-traditions/?utm_source=MadMimi&utm_medium=email&utm_content=%255BQuilting+Gallery%255D+Reflections%252C+Quilter%2527s+Cookbook+and+Voting+for+the+Quilt+Contest&utm_campaign=%255BQuilting+Gallery%255D+Reflections%252C+Quilter%2527s+Cookbook+and+Voting+for+the+Quilt+Contest&utm_term=Holiday+Traditions+Quilt+Contest

There are 2 catagories and you can scroll thru the choices. Mine is in the large quilt catagory. I promise no graveling. Vote for your favorite, what ever it may be!  :-)  They are "all" just wonderful.

Now on another note, we had a shock of a kind here today. My new little kitty Murphy was found to not be a boy today. That's what happens when you let your husband get a pet. He believes whatever his friend tells him. (of course I never really checked it out either)  :-)  :-)  So now I have a little girl kitty with a rather strange name for a girl. But then I do remember a Murphy Brown from a day's gone by TV show. Gheez do we all look stupid in this house or what?????  It sure gave us all a big ole laugh this afternoon!

Have a good weekend, and I hope your all just about ready for the holidays in 2 weeks. Yikes, I gotta get a move on it.

Just a little diversion from the seasonal stitching

Although the holidays are rapidly approaching, the call for a new rug was in order yesterday. Remembering one of those PIGS (projects in grocery sacks) under my stairs, I started digging them thru things to find it. It was oh so close to being finished. A movie marathon last night managed to give me just enough time to complete it!  Yeah one less PIG laying around.  If you have never made one of these rugs, there is really not much better to be had out there. A simple single crochet with the cheapest fabric you can find that is torn into about 2" strips. When I say cheap, I mean it. These fabrics came from JoAnn's fabrics and were $1 a yard. The prints are pretty hideous, (realizing that beauty is in the eye of the beholder). Hopefully I don't offend anyone!  :-)  Normally I walk right by them, but once I realized how wonderful these rugs were, I watch for those special sales. I really can't tell you just how much fabrics they take, but it is a lot.  When you start your fabric strips you don't need to measure, eye-balling it, works just great. I do like to snip off the selvege's and toss them. The trick is in putting all your strips together. Here is a few pictures of the process to hopefully help you along.

First snip a slit about 1" up from the end of your fabrics.

Then line up the 2 pieces.

Take the opposite end of one of the pieces and fold it up a bit.

Here is the trick. You want the fabric your feeding thru to start on the bottom, if it's the end that is on top of the "sandwich". I try to keep this order just to make things easy. You will find that if you feed from the top, it won't lock together.

So here's what it will look like once they 2 ends are pulled together.

A little tug on the ends and it locks nicely into place.

I like to have a good size ball of fabric connected before I start my crocheting, but it is very simple to add as you go. Oh yeah, another little tip I have learned over time is that if you tear the length of the fabric, rather than the width, you will have way less pieces to connect, and that saves a ton on time!  :-)

 A "P" size  crochet hook or #15 is what I use, so it tends to grow quite quickly.

The size and shape is up to you. I tend to work in ovals, just because I am comfortable with that and it works for the size rug I needed.

After the holidays grab yourself some fabric and give this a try. They wash like a dream and wear like nothing I have seen. Debbie Mumm used to have a great tutorial on her web site, but I see she has taken it down. I am sure if you use "Google" you can still find a tutorial or two online if you need better directions.

ENJOY!

I'm back!

So I did manage to get out of the storage room. 2 carloads of my son's stuff to his house, a trip to the Goodwill, a few loads of trash and things are looking up. :-)  Even had enough time to whip up this little holiday gift. Art to Heart makes it so fast and easy. A few scraps and you have a great inexpensive little gift on hand for the holidays.

What I really need to be thinking about is the painting and fixing up a bedroom that is going to become my husbands office. I did take wall paper down today. Whew, is that a blast from the past or what?  :-)  Do I really want to squander my precious stitching time to paint?????????

                 Especially this time of year... 

Carolina Christmas

My black Friday shopping found me buying yet more fabrics, but at least this time I had a purpose for them!  :-)  These were my choices for Bonnie Hunter's Carolina Christmas mystery quilt. I have even managed to squeeze in time to keep up with the directions when she posts them. I see this moring step 3 is up. We have to cut 592  2 1/2" squares! Yikes, that will keep me busy.

Maybe I need to put off cleaning up the storage room for another day!  It's my yearly holiday project. Not sure just why the holidays seem to be the time that I decide to do all this, maybe the thought of getting thru the mess to get to the Christmas decorations is it. What ever it is, Goodwill is always the recipient of a car load of things when it's over and I am happier that there is again some order for a month or so!  Now the question of the day... Why doesn't it stay organized? That's the million dollar question with no answer around here it seems!  Wish me luck, I am going in!!!!!!!!!!!!