More Christmas Projects

Good afternoon,

The sun is shining, but it is really cold outside. Still in the teens and should be there all day. Tonight is supposed to be single digits. So we are bringing in the new year really cold. At least it isn't snowing today.

I took the leftover pieces of fabric from each grandchild's pillow case and made them small tote bags. I think they turned out really cute. Since I used their stockings to put candy and junk, I used these to put good things, like apples and oranges in them. (grin) I think I will also stick their money in them. The back row has Izzie's (pink) and Ashton's. Front row has Ava's (Tinkerbell) and Noah's (Cars). I am sure you probably figured that out, though. LOL  Madison didn't get one this year, but should be walking by next year.

I also decided to make a pillow case for each of our kids. I am really quite proud of myself. I only bought 2 yards of fabric and used at least 12 yards from my stash for pillow cases. These are all in pairs for the married couples.

These are for the singles.

I bought new pillows for Noah and Izzie, but Cathryn told me she had just replaced Ava's and Ashton's in the past couple of months, so they didn't need new ones. Instead, I finished these place mats for them. They both love dogs, so I think they will like them.

 

Well, that is it for me today. I decided it would be better to do shorter posts, but more often. That has been working out fine for me. We are having our Christmas celebration tomorrow, so I may not get here, but I'll try on Saturday or Sunday. I have to go to mom's early in the morning to get her bills and meds ready for the month. Our gathering is late afternoon, so that will work out ok. I hope you all have a safe and Happy New Year. Thank you for visiting.

Two Days in a Row!

Hello everyone, 

Can you believe I have made a blog post two days in a row? LOL It has been snowing here again, but so far only a couple more inches of the nasty  lovely white stuff on the ground. Not much wind, so no drifting. For that I am very thankful. The forecast is for very bitter temps for at least the next week or so. I guess we won't be having a meltdown any time soon.

I decided today to show you a few of the things I have worked on for Christmas. I started out with stockings for all the grandkids. These were fun to make. I even embroidered their names on them. These are wonky stars, so they are supposed to be all off kilter. LOL I found them on this blog about a month ago. She did a fabulous tutorial on making them.  Here they are all lined up and ready to be filled.

Here are Noah and Izabella's. 

I made Ashton's more grown up looking. After all, he is 6 now. LOL His and Ava's.

This is little Madison's stocking. I filled hers with baby food and a few small toys.

Then after getting the stockings made, I found a pattern for really nice pillow cases here. I love the French seams. This link has lots of pictures which help to explain this process and make it easy.  I bought Tinkerbell and Cars fabric for Ava and Noah, but already had fabric in my stash for Izzie and Ashton. Madison isn't old enough for a pillow in her crib yet, so she will get the Peter Rabbit quilt I made last spring. Here are Ashton's and Ava's pillow cases.

Here are Noah and Izzie's pillow cases.

Here is the Peter Rabbit quilt that I made from a panel given to me by Milah last spring. I think Madison will like it.

Well, I think that is it for me today. My dh just left for work. He has been home since last Thursday, so I have lots of cleaning to get done. For some reason, I just can't get the housework done up when the hubby is home. LOL I hope you all have a great day. Thanks for visiting.

I'm Back!

Good afternoon,

It seems like forever since I did a blog post. I guess it has been quite a while. (grin) So many things have happened, that I don't know where to begin. We had Noah's birthday party, Thanksgiving, my mom's Christmas party, working on lots of gifts, and 2 blizzards. Hmmm, I guess I will just jump around some. It will probably take several posts to catch up, but that is ok. I am several behind. LOL

I guess I will start with the blizzards. We have not had a blizzard here in northwest Missouri in many, many years. Then we have 2 in about 2 weeks. It has been rough. About 3 weeks ago we had a blizzard move in. My dh was at work and I was here at home. We received about 11 inches from this storm. He was snowed out and I was snowed in. He stayed at work from Tuesday morning till Thursday night. Even then, he had to walk in the last mile. He decided steel-toed shoes are not for walking in snow. LOL I sure was glad to see him. Then, there is the Christmas blizzard. That was a bummer. We still have not had our family celebration. We plan to get  together on New Year's. Even though I was sad to not see our kids and grandkids, it wasn't so bad. We had been having rain for a couple of days and they predicted it would start freezing about noon on Christmas Eve day. So we got up early and headed to town to get a few treats for ourselves. We got home at 8:45 a.m. and by 9 a.m. it was freezing all over the sidewalk. We hurried up and got all our chores done. Then prayed that we wouldn't lose electricity. We didn't but we did lose internet service for a while. This was some storm! We had rain, thunder and lightning, freezing rain, sleet, lots of snow, and strong winds. The actual winter storm was from Christmas Eve morning till Christmas night. The drifts were bad. Most of the roads around us were closed. It even snowed most of Saturday and some of Sunday. This was a monster storm.  As I said, we cancelled our celebration, but I was so relieved to know that none of our kids were out on those roads. Kevin and I ate pizza, cookies, ham, chips and dip, and any other junk we thought to pick up. (Eye roll here! Not looking forward to getting on the scales after the first of the year!) We also watched Christmas movies all day Christmas and talked to all the kids on the phone. So it wasn't so bad. Our house was cold like it always is in the winter with the wind blowing, but we bundled up. Kevin bought me a pair of deer skin slippers with wool lining so my feet have been staying warm. They think we may have gotten about 14 inches of snow from this storm, but it was hard to measure because the fierce wind was blowing it around so bad. We finally had the grader go through on Sunday afternoon, so Kevin got out and scooped our driveway. It was over his knees, so lots of scooping. 

This is our road after the grader went through. It doesn't look too bad right now, but two tractors tried to get through it with blades on and couldn't. This isn't the worse part of our road. We have 3 sections much worse than this to go through.

We had a drift past Kevin's waist in front of our door. He was glad we put the scoop inside the porch door. He had to scoop in order to even get out. Here is the pile just outside our door.

Well enough about our winter storms. We have been spoiled with mild winters the past few years, but this year we are just getting a regular winter. I don't like it! I am so ready for spring.

I got a couple of nice gifts in the mail from friends in the past couple of weeks. Here is a wall quilt that Bren made for me. Isn't it beatiful? She knows what kind of colors I love.

Look at these tiny quilting stitches. I hope I can quilt that tiny some day. I love hand quilting, but I think I am actually better at sewing on my machine. But then again, I have had over 30 years of doing that, and just really started quilting about 3 years ago. (grin) The first picture shows the colors better. The flash washed out the color on the second picture. Thank you, Bren. I love it!

My friend Ann sent this candle holder to me. I was amazed. She said her husband made it. I believe he is a blacksmith. I love it. She also knitted and felted the two hotpads shown here.

Please excuse the mess behind this and to the side. I have been busy sewing and always make a mess when I sew. I need to take a day after the holidays and just clean up. LOL

Now I am going to wrap this post up, but I will be back, hopefully tomorrow. But before I do, I want to introduce you to our newest granddaughter, Madison Nicole. She is 5 months old today, but I have never posted a picture of her. For shame on me! She is our son, Isaiah's and Lori's daughter. Look at those round cheeks. She has the bluest eyes and dimples in her cheeks just like our boy. She is so loveable.

Here she is with her proud daddy holding her. I was holding her in the above picture. I wish she would grin so you could see those adorable dimples. So now we have 3 granddaughters and 2 grandsons. (grin)

Well, that is enough for now. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. I am sure ours will be once we get to have it. LOL It is good to be back among my friends. I have missed you all. November and December are always very busy times for me, so I don't usually have much computer time. I am going to try to change the look of my blog again. I have tried several times on Firefox, but it didn't work, so now I am going to try changing it on IE7. Everyone have a wonderful day. Thank you for visiting. Hopefully, I'll see you tomorrow.