My Last Design Wall Post......

......For the year 2013. 
These last couple of weeks was a steady pace of pre-cooking ~ baking ~ cleaning ~ laundry ~ shopping ~ wrapping and all those 'must do' things to get ready for our family Christmas Celebration.
We had a wonderful time of course.  Like we do every year.
My kitchen was filled with enough food to feed an army.
I'm not kidding!!  I cooked soooo much and the girls brought their dishes to add to the mountain of food.  Topped off with the traditional sweets and cookies.
Oh yeah ..... we were all stuffed.

And then the FUN really started for the kids.  Opening the presents.
And then..... that excitement was topped off by our traditional "Christmas Clue Hunt".   I've been making up clues for 13 years now.
I start by reading the first clue for the oldest.  When that clue is found the next clue is read to the next child and then the next child on down to the youngest.  When all clues have been found.... it's a race to the stockings to find out what's been added this year.   

Since this is the end of 2013 I thought I'd share all of the Christmas Snuggles that I made for the girls this year.  Some of them you have seen.  But several I didn't want to post about because they might read my blog.  So here's the run down......

Alivia's Snowmen

Bethany's.  There was another 2" green border on this. 

This is Gina's. 

And Jessi's. 

Debbie's

Kianna's

I gave this one to Evelin because she loved it so much last year. 

So that's the show.  All seven of the girls now have a Christmas Snuggle made by me.  I was going to do the same for the boys next year.... but after a few discussions with some of them they assured me that maybe I could save some fabric and a lot of work and think of something else.  LOL 
Gotta love my guys. 

I sure hope you all had a wonderful 2013 and wishing all the best to you in the New Year. 
Now I'll be linking to Judy's Design Wall Monday for the last time this year.

Happy New Year!! 
 .....Linda

Back Home....

Last Wednesday we went to Joplin to spend Thanksgiving with our daughter and her family.  Of course the day was filled with fun and lots of yummy food.

This year our oldest granddaughter will not be coming home this Christmas because she'll spend it with her fiance's family.   So I took her Christmas snuggle quilt to her so I could give it to her in person.   Now that she's seen it I can show it here.    Yeah she loved it!   (I had to giggle when I saw this pic with her peeking over the top).

Jessi & Grant's wedding will be next Oct and she wanted to wait until I came down so I could share the dress hunt with her & her mom.   See the little pink paper heart in the center/top of the picture.  Behind those mirror doors is her dressing room.  It didn't take long at all.  #4 was The One!!  She looked so beautiful!!

The next day Deb had scheduled a pedicure & manicure for us.  Believe it or not but I have never had either one before.  I've always done my own nails and have never polished my toes.  How Fun.  Made a believer out of me.  haha  I will absolutely have both again.   First was the pedicure then came the manicure.  What a sweet little gal that worked on me.  

BTW.... see my feet?  Those are called flip flops now.  NOT thongs!  (As those of us of a certain age used to call them).  I cracked everyone up as my daughter corrected me.  LOL  

Now we're back home and I'm starting to get back into the groove.  Spent yesterday doing a bit of cleaning.  Then back to my studio to sew on a binding.  One more binding to do today and I'll be ready to get all the snuggles washed and wrapped for Christmas.  

It's been a wonderful week.   Glad you stopped by.....Linda

Number 7....

The last Christmas Snuggle (number 7) has been started.  I'm using my favorite Go die.  (The  Tumbler) and had originally thought I would lay the pieces out like I always do .... all mixed up.

And I did.

But then I thought "What if"??  Soooo I started rearranging the tumblers and quickly had this layout.
What do you call these shapes?
My brain sees a martini shaker (block #1) and the other one looks like an hourglass.  ;o)
Well ... whatever they're called I love this layout!!

I'll be adding a ½" strip of Kona White to separate the tumblers.
And I have the border figured out too.
Of course that could change any day now ..... but for now I'll be adding more tumblers to get this the length I want.

And....I'll be linking over to Judy's Design Wall Monday (yeah I know yesterday was Monday)....

I hope you're having a great day. Glad you stopped by.....Linda

Bindings....

I've had these Christmas snuggle tops finished for awhile now so it was time to start getting some of the bindings done.   On the snuggle quilts I make I finish all of their bindings now by machine.  Considering the wear and tear and washings they go through I've found they hold up better than hand sewing the binding.    And besides .... it's faster.  
These three are finished....

One more quilt still at the quilters and another top ready to go to them.  I still have one more to make (or possibly two).
Stay tuned.  ;o)
I hope you're having a great day.
 Glad you stopped by.....Linda

One new snuggle....

coming right up.  I've taken the last one that I made to the quilters and have since cut the fabrics for this new snuggle, marked and sewn the light and dark fabrics together to make half square triangle blocks.

Here's a small sampling of the blocks.  There will also be greens added to this pile soon.
And this will be the only picture I'll post about this snuggle because I don't want to take the chance that my granddaughter will see it before Christmas.





However I do want to tell you about a new gadget I have that makes squaring up small blocks so easy.   This will help you trim a block from 1½" up to 6½".   It's a June Taylor cutter.   I have her large one that cuts strips every half inch and I love it.  So when I remembered that I had this one I dug it out of the drawer and put it to work.  Perfect squared 6½" blocks every time.
Line it up on the square and cut each side.  Turn the block to line up the other two sides and trim.  You can tell by this picture that I didn't have much to trim off but by taking this extra step it sure makes a difference when sewing blocks together.

I'm heading over to Judy's blog to link to her Design Wall Monday.  Come join us.  

I hope you're having a great day. Glad you stopped by.....Linda

Monday on my wall....

Believe it or not I have actually finished putting the borders on this snuggle quilt. Tomorrow it goes to the girls for quilting.   I have no idea why it took me so long to get back to this and finish it up.  ;o(
#2 Christmas Snuggle.

Today will be a bit of cleaning and then off to start on at least one of the guild auction items I will be donating.   I think I know what I want to make but just as soon as I say that then I change my mind.  Sheesh!!
I'm grabbing my cuppa and heading over to Judy's Design Wall to link up.  Come join us.....
I hope you're having a great day.
 Glad you stopped by.....Linda

Fogy Monday

There's something about fog that is so comforting to me.   Well at least as long as my two feet are planted on the ground I love it.  Not so much if I'm in a car driving!  This is what I woke up to this morning....

Yesterday I did get a bit of sewing done for a change.  I finished one more border that I'm paper-piecing.  The nice thing about making so many duplicate pieces is that I can kinda get in a rhythm as to where each piece goes and things start speeding up.   The two long borders are up next.  

 

 Here's what's on my Design wall this morning and now I'm heading over to Judy's Patchwork Times to link to her Design Wall Monday.  

Come join me....

I hope you're having a great day. Glad you stopped by.....Linda

If it's Monday....

It must be time to check my design wall.
I do have a few pieces of Easy Street up there.   But I'm only showing these three pieces. Actually I have all four corners finished and three of the setting triangles.

  I was going along at a pretty regular pace and then suddenly there was another cutting mistake in the pattern.   So at this point I had already had to cut more of the 5½" green squares and now I'm wondering if I'm going to have enough to cut these extra 3½" green.
 
So yesterday I decided to set Easy Street aside for a bit so I could get started on this years project.  I'm going to try to make each of my 'girls' a Christmas snuggle for this year's Christmas presents.   I can only show you those two strips (at the bottom of the picture) because I'm pretty sure the one I'm making this for reads my blog occasionally.   Or maybe not....but I don't want to take any chances.

So I'm heading over to Judy's to post on her Design Wall Monday and then I'll go to Bonnie's Quiltville's Quips to link to her site.  See you there.

I hope you're having a great day. Glad you stopped by.....Linda