The pillowcase donation thing

So, Bonnie and Muggs have sent out information on pillowcase donations for Sandy Hook children.  Pillowcase instructions are here.

My two pillowcases below are made from that adorable, soft flannel that I had bought from JoAnn's fabrics last year on Black Friday.  I must admit that I had been hoarding them.  It was such a great sale and I bought so much and I love it so.....hello....using them now for the good cause.  It is the first time I really got the burrito method.  Once I got it, I will never look back.  It was great fun, so easy and I even did the French seam inside.

My Birthday Dinner

My dear girl cooked one of my favorite dinners last night for my birthday.  She  is so fast and so good...I am amazed!  She made my favorite bread, Pretzel Bread.  

And my favorite soup....Italian sausage tortellini soup

I loved my birthday and I love my girl!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

The day of all days....Happy Birthday to ME!!!  I am so proud that I lasted so long...!!!  Ha ha...my Medicare card has arrived and I am today 65....life is sweet.  My daughter surprised me with my car all decked out, my friends took me to lunch...a wonderful day.  My mother even remembered that it was my birthday and had the staff call me for her.....wow...

Now, according to Wikipedia...."It is well accepted in the Western World that "elderly" begins at 65".....Hello????  A brand new start, a brand new adventure...lucky me....hugs to all my friends and family and fabric:)

A new day shining....

My son, my three grandchildren and you know who!!!

My heart.....

Susan Branch

Why say it any other way when Susan Branch says it best.

The lemonade and lemon thing...

The lemon thing....I have spent the past 24 hours in back pain, in the bed on muscle relaxing meds...here we go again said the whiner in me...I am missing a wonderful Christmas party tonight...that my daughter...just in from Europe and her father are attending.  

 The wreath is one of my favorite Christmas things...made for me 30 years ago by a friend in Miami.....check out the vintage fabric.   It is just made with little fabric rectangles stuffed with batting...nice...

As my mother aged, she could no longer go shopping for Christmas presents.  She had us get cute gift cards from the dollar store, put family names on them and hang them on the tree.  It was a wonderful, well remembered tradition...At first she gave $50, then $40, etc..as her care required more money..it was only the children and then it stopped.  This year will be the second year in a row that she cannot even leave the facility to come to my house for Christmas. Tonight the lemonade was the little stockings I made for the grandchildren.  When I put their names on them, I will put these 5 crisp dollar bills inside...a gift of love from Great-grandma..The tradition will live on.  The children are 7, 2 and 3.  They will be delighted as will my mother.  Now, back to bed for me before Mr. O'Quilts gets home and finds me out of the bed!!!.

Holiday this and that.....

All pumped up with pain meds, I had the cookie exchange Wednesday night.  These friends have been with me thru all my concussion, asthma and now pulled back from asthma coughing...blah blah again!!!!  So I gave them the covered composition books last night to say thank you and thank you again.  It takes a real friend  to put up with non-stop whatever....  Here I put the books out on the piano.  I must say that I like them.  It worked out perfectly since each person had a different taste.  Bye, bye button collection...hello happy faces:)

 This was my first cookie exchange.  Fudge is my no-brainer, fall back treat....After my cookie failures...fudge it was...chocolate and penuche!

 I have finished my ornament for the exchange. My daughter said that it was not going to be that cute...I think she was right.  But, I am done with it now..  I thought it was going to be a modern bird for the Modern Quilt Group...but it turned out a bit on the old and lumpy side...maybe I am over identifying:)..

just sayin..........ha!.........

Help needed...oh, yes please.....

Some friends are coming to my house for a cookie exchange...not my idea...but my second name could, might be...Cookie Monster!  With my ailments, I really should just make the tried and true...Not me!  Gotta try the new and exciting.  Already one cookie failure tonight.  Mr. O'Quilts went into the garage for me to fetch my box of vintage cookie cutters.  With excitement I opened them up....NO....Oh, no....they are all rusty and smelly...how did that happen???  And what to do now(:  Please send me the cure...thank u...

Lazy Winter's Day in Charlotte

Just hanging around the sewing room putting bindings on the hospital quilts.  Thank u Terri for quilting them.

I am working on the energy to put up the little Christmas village on the piano.....Fabric.com  is not making it easy for me.  In case you are following the 12 days of Christmas on this site, the code   15savings     will give you an additional 15% off.of the sale price...Just sharing the joy!

Bowl Covers...ad nauseum:)

This is the smallest cover put on two different bowls.  I did not make a medium size..Check out the cute Chinese New Year fabric that I found in my stash...

 I do not like the large overlap on the small bowl, so I have adjusted my freezer paper pattern by 1/2 an inch all around.  Remember this is the same small size on two different bowls.

The Eco-Travel Bowl Covers, third time...

Here we go again with one more thank you to Allyson .  Now that my obsession with composition book covers is complete...I think I will move on once more to the bowl covers....travel or not!!  These are so handy and so green, that I decided to make them in other sizes.  Right now I only have them in the big size on the left...tomorrow I will have one in the smaller sizes too.  How pleased am I that one can learn organization at any age:).  I have made templates on freezer paper so I can just whip them out.  I am keeping these templates in the project box with the lining material......soo very proud of myself.

--- a tiny peek in my fridge with the rest of tonight's homemade stew dinner:)  All ready for hubby's lunch tomorrow..Although I have never tried it in the microwave...not a good idea I think because of the lining..mostly they are for cold dishes...tonight I got lazy and used one anyway.

 I keep these hanging in my pantry on clothes pins..but with more in the making, I think I will just throw them into the dishtowel drawer.  The holiday ones are great presents covering bread or cake or whatever....a plate of cookies...

 A few years back I gifted this to a friend.  This year she made an Irish trifle for my husband for Thanksgiving and she delivered in in a trifle bowl with her gifted cover...isn't that nice.  For her, I had found her initials at Hobby Lobby....so perfect....and the shamrock fabric.

I have to record what I am doing on my blog here...lest I forget someday.....later, I hope.

Possessed by the place mats!

Decided to take place mat number 3 and make one of the composition book covers.  Oh, fun...I will first offer this one to my sister.  If she does not want it...I will keep it myself...Grandma are you watching???

The Swedish connection

My mother is 100% Swedish, both her parents having come from Sweden....Grandma from the Island of Oland and Grandpa from Gothenburg.  My mother has been feeling sad lately.  I went over there last night to cheer her and my sister tonight.  She gets "emotional incontinence" a disturbing by product of Parkinson's disease where she will sob with a physical distress out of the blue.  Last night I brought home one of her travel pillows with a Halloween pillowcase on it, to make another cheery Christmas one.   I was opening the Christmas boxes and found these place mats...from Stein Mart of all places in an after Christmas sale years ago.  I had mailed them to Arizona when Mom was living there 12 years ago.  No one here wants to use place mats that have to be ironed.   The light bulb went on to make a pillowcase for her little pillow with these memories of her childhood.  I love how it came out.  I know it will make her room more festive.

The Joy of Gifting!

One of the benefits of this cursed, ongoing concussion ...is that while I still cannot do somethings, in the quiet of my sewing room, I can still create.  I can make things for people I love and friends who have given me such great support.  These travel pillows I got at Bed, Bath and Beyond with my coupon...so much easier than making a pillow and just the right size.  Covered with pretty or seasonal fabric...a wonderful gift.  My mother has tons to keep her supported as she tends to twist and bend in her wheelchair with her Parkinson's.

 These will be gifted tomorrow when I get my hair cut.

 And who gives me such loving support, day and night and only requires food????  My Milito...enjoying an empty Christmas box!

 And of course, Tigger...Emily's cat from college that for nine years has somehow ended up here, instead of still in Pittsburgh!!! Now Tigger knows full well that I just washed this quilt to hang for Christmas...Guess he feels that a quilt without cat hair is hardly a celebration!

Fast and Funky Coasters

Just playing around tonight with some funky coasters...not for fine dining!!!  Make the strata...I always have some around because it is relaxing to do.  Pin it to the batting and backing.  Trace the bowl on the strata; freemotion quilt concentric...kinda...circles....

 Cut out the circles

 Blanket stitch around the edges...just for fun...You can bind them if you want, but I was lazy tonight and just wanted to chill....

December starts:).

Tomorrow is December...I am so excited...I got out the tissues I had made two months ago and arranged them in the basket ready to go...  Happy December (even though tonight is still November:)

In the holiday spirit!!!!.

I feel in the holiday spirit!!  I am thrilled to have made these composition book covers.

 This button below is a very cool button, but very flat...so I put another button under it to raise it up for the loop.

I think that there is truth in the scrap thing...you can never use them up.  Though, I must say that in this project, I made a dent.  Everything was scrap....I used scrap cottons, scrap broadcloth  for the backing.  I used the big jar of hair ties that I got several years ago at the dollar store and I used my button collection. See...nothing like the concussion to realize that maybe I did not need to hoard buttons too.  It was much more fun to use them.  The only out of pocket expense was for the composition folders.  My husband picked them up for me during the back to school sales... fifty cents each.  Fifteen composition folders were $7.50 if my math is right.  My kind of present giving while I have the free time to do it.   Hope you are in the holiday spirit too....  

Vroommm.....

I now have two more composition book covers to make....my goal is to have them done today..because tomorrow is December 1!!!!!  I have a few more coasters and a few more potholders, but I can do the coasters tomorrow and the potholders ....maybe tomorrow too....humming along here.  So much easier to do  things in bunches because if I stop and start a new project, I will have to re-figure things....not my style.

Last night at Charlotte Modern Quilt Guild, it was announced that Leah Day was teaching a class on free-motion quilting at Sew Much Fun in Gastonia, NC on March 2.  I have been waiting for this.....First thing this morning I called, signed up and paid....so excited.  Their phone number is 704-824-1961.  The class is $60. Hope to see you there with me:)

Bingo

The morning brings the answer from Dawn...from the other side of the country to North Carolina comes this!!!!  Perfect.  Thank you Dawn....The two button answer...................

Choices at the Midnight Hour....again

I think it is because it is late...then I think it is because I am full of myself because I got to go out...then I think....oh, Dear...Well...I cannot decide the button on this book cover...so I am going to put it out to all of you to help me please.  I got carried away with the inside cover:)

Especially since this is the outside:

Several of these buttons are vintage.  I like the red one, but it does have paint chipping off of it...gives it character, maybe too much?  Actually I like all of them, but cannot decide.  Maybe after seeing them online and hearing what others think....Probably doesn't matter at all...I know one thing...things are different in the morning light:)