Shelves up in laundry room, cleaned and organized!

Got the pantry done, the buffet, a few of the cabinets......off to the laundry room!

Organization

I decided to stay home from work another day. Glad I did. The kids didn't go back to Louisville until mid-morning, so I got to visit with them a bit more. Today is going to be a day of organization! It is really shameful, all the food that has gone to waste. I cleaned and organized the pantry and filled almost three bags of old food. I need to make a commitment to do this at least twice a year, so I can get the food that we aren't going to use to a food pantry before it goes out of date. I've been counting my blessings this morning. It is truly a blessing to have more food that you can eat, a warm home, clothes to wear, family.

I purchased some new wire shelving for the utility room. I may get ambitious and try to put them up today. I would love to organize the laundry room after I finish in the kitchen. Such a great day to be at home! Probably won't do much sewing today, but today just seems like a good day to GET ORGANIZED! Hope you are counting your blessings and enjoying your day too!

McDaniel Family Christmas Photo

Here is the "normal" photo, at least as normal as we can get!


And here is the annual "goofy" photo....lol

Flying Squirrel

My friends on facebook have already seen this pic. This is a flying squirrel our cat, Jesse, brought in the house last night. It was fascinating. Jim managed to catch it in a dish towel in the laundry room, but not until after it "flew" or jumped from one shelving unit to another. We put it on the screened porch and it stayed a few hours. It was gone this morning (we propped the door to the deck opened). We read about how you can make them pets and they form bonds with their owners, and even will sleep in your pocket! I was so proud of Jesse, that he didn't maim or kill it, but just brought it in to show us!

Christmas Week

Ahhh...Christmas week. How wonderful. Off work. Visiting with family. Cooking. Cleaning (yes, I do love to clean). Walking in the 50 degree weather. What a blessing. Hope your week is just as wonderful.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Phillipians 4:8

finished

I've been working all afternoon and evening on the Thangles quilt. Got it finished, bound, washed and dried. Just put it on the bed. After all my complaining about the quilting, which I am still not that happy with it, the overall look is good. What do you think? You can click on the stitching picture to get a closer look. I've learned a whole lot on this quilt. #1 my quilting machine is maxed out at a 13 inch reach. which means you can't fill a 19 inch block in one pass, #2 better check the length before you decide you are going to reload it to do the borders (barely fit on the machine), and #3 if you are not really good at free hand draw your designs first on the blocks before you try it free hand.

Free style quilting

I dont' know when I will ever get good at this. The pictures show the parts I am pretty pleased with. The holly leaves and berries I put in the solid squares are pretty bad. My machine spread was not enough to do what I wanted so I added ribbon around the holly leaves. I ended up doing ribbon around the other squares also, because I just can't do stitch in the ditch at an angle. The solid squares are so bad, that I dont' want to post them. Thank goodness this quilt will stay in-house. Maybe after I am finished and I wash it, and put it on the bed, I will be more pleased. But now......hummpht!

Pictures

The pictures don't really do this little project justice. It turned out very cute. It is for our department secretary for a Christmas gift/going away combination. She will be going to a new job soon. Hope she doesn't look at my blog before tomorrow. I plan on giving it to her in the morning.

Gift Quilt

Here is a little project I just completed. It was a very inexpensive kit from Fabric Cafe. I used the plummage pantograph on it, but this isn't a good picture to see it. It will be a Christmas gift for a co-worker.

Thangles Christmas Quilt

I finally got the Thangles quilt top finished. This will be a bit of a challenge to quilt, because it will need to be custom quilted. I am still not quite comfortable doing custom quilting, but I am going to give it a try. This one we are keeping, and I hope to have it finished and on our bed by Christmas. Jesse wanted to get in the picture.

New Pantographs

I received two new pantographs today that I had ordered. I am excited to use them. Both are Jodi Beamish designs.

Miscounted

I didn't count my squares right; there are 112 and I finished them tonight! I hope I can get some more of the white pieces made and sewn on this weekend.

windows progress

when I finished the last six here, I will have completed 104 - yippee! only 1700 more to go.....ugh, that sounds terrible.

Present Pillow

I know comforter sets are beautiful, but, I admit that I prefer to see a quilt on a bed. I removed my beautiful comforter for a brightly colored quilt. I added a Christmasy lap quilt and topped the bedding off with a little present pillow I made this morning. Isn't it cute?