Perfect place

for the best hot chocolate ever, period.

These placemats are a Christmas gift. I need to make a couple more...maybe tonight. I got the idea and the measurements from the Bend the Rules Sewing book, but did something a little different for the top. The back is solid red Kona cotton. These went together very quickly. Quickly enough that I may make another set. Or maybe matching napkins. We'll see.

My mom, sister, nephew, & new niece are visiting this week. We went out and had a nice dinner last night (which is such a nice treat every once in a while). The baby slept until we were almost ready to leave, and my 3-year-old nephew stopped making engine noises long enough to behave like a little gentleman, so the adults were able to talk and enjoy themselves. Thank goodness for small miracles.

When we got home, my dinner had digested enough that I was ready for something sweet, so I made hot chocolate. Not just any hot chocolate...according to my husband, "the best hot chocolate I've ever had." Quite the compliment coming from this man. I'm afraid I can't take all of the credit, because this recipe was on the package. But I would like to think my special hot chocolate making technique kicks it up a notch.

The Best Hot Chocolate Ever (according to my husband):

1 pkg hot chocolate mix (or make your own if your just ambitious like that)

milk

1/4 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Pour the hot chocolate mix into a mug. Pour enough milk into the mug to just cover the hot chocolate mix. Stir until well-blended. It should be kind of thick at this point...the consistency of cake batter or melted milk chocolate. Add the vanilla (a "plop" of you're not a measurer) and the cinnamon (a sprinkling). Stir. Slowly add more milk, stirring as you go, until the mug is full. Microwave until hot. Enjoy!

Back from the dark side

Sorry about that. I had to take an unintended break from blogging to re-energize and re-group. I'm sure I'm not the first (or the last) person to experience a little drought of creativity, but there for a few weeks I just didn't have it in me. Well, I'm back, and I have the November quilt guild meeting to thank for snapping me out of it. Everyone showed their Underground Railroad quilts, and quite frankly, I was jealous. So the next day, I decided to finish my blocks.

(Sorry for the bad fluorescent lighting at the top of the picture.) Now I just have to decide how to set them together. The book shows quilts in a regular 3 x 4 block grid with sashing and cornerstones, but I'm thinking I want to do something a little different with mine. Something like this maybe? (Gotta love EQ6!)

Also, I've been wanting to learn how to do stack-n-whack properly for months. I did the blocks for this quilt, but I sort of just stumbled through it, not really knowing what I was doing. So another guild member came by the other day and helped me figure it out. Here is what I have to show for my efforts so far... a vast improvement over my previous project in terms of stack-n-whackiness.

Here's what the original fabric looked like before it was whacked:


And last but not least, a christmas gift in progress for a family member that doesn't read this blog (or at least I hope not)!

See, I have been a busy little bee! And that's not all I have to show you... more projects coming soon! So nice to be out of my crafting funk!

post-thanksgiving

So, how was everyone's Thanksgiving? Mine was blissfully unproductive. I visited my parents and sister in TN, and I spent the whole weekend snuggled up in my parents house. Even though it's not the house I grew up in (I have to stop and think where to get a glass or plate or silverware), it still sort of feels like home for me.

On Thursday, I alternated between helping my mom fix the big dinner and watching old home movies. My dad bought a dvd recorder, and he is in the process of transferring our VHS tapes to DVD. Unfortunately for him, my sister was quite the entertainer as a child, so he has quite a few hours of dances, piano recitals, and choir performances to watch.

On Friday & Saturday, we slept in, ate leftovers, and put up the Christmas tree. Oh yeah, and my nephew "made me pretty" with VCR sticker labels.

We opted not to hit the shops on Friday, some of which opened at 4 a.m. None of us are really early risers, and dragging everyone out of bed to go to a crowded store before the sun even comes up is not our idea of quality family time.

This is one of my new niece's rare waking moments. I suppose she's like most babies - only wakes up to eat or soil her diaper. But we sure think she's pretty special. I can't remember what she was getting ready to do in this picture, eat or soil.

Not too much happening on the craft front for me right now. I've been spending lots of time catching up on longarm quilting. I do have a few gifts to make before Christmas, so I've got lots to keep me busy. If you are looking for ideas for handmade gifts, hop on over to the Sew Mama Sew blog and check out their Handmade Holidays posts. Lots of good stuff.

It's a girl!

My new niece, Eva Ryanne (pronounced "Ryan" - it's my sister's middle name as well), was born at 3:50 this morning! Finally! She weighs 8 lbs, 6 ounces, and mom, dad, and baby are all doing well. Tired, but well. I can't wait to see her! However, I do need a few more days to whip up a quilt-y gift or two. I'll be sure and show you what I decide to do.

I don't have any pictures yet, but here's a dose of cuteness courtesy of my nephew. It's one of my favorite baby pics of him. I'll meet his sister next week when I visit for Thanksgiving. See ya then, my new homegirl!

Of course 5 minutes after I posted this, my dad sent me some pictures. Here she is!

How many UFOs can one girl have?

Seriously. I must be a glutton for punishment, because I can't seem to stop myself from starting new projects. And to make things worse, I have plans to start even more quilts to give as Christmas gifts. I started mentally counting my UFOs, but I couldn't finish that either. If I had to guess, I would say I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 20 unfinished projects. That includes quilting and crocheting, but I don't think that excuses me from the scolding I've been giving myself.

For instance, exhibit A:

This poor quilt only has borders on three sides. Why? I don't know. I must have been distracted while I was putting the borders on. There is one more border to add after this one, and then this top would be done. It's so pathetic that the only thing standing in the way of this quilt's completion is 5 more strips of fabric and four cornerstones.

Moving on, here we have exhibit B:

A friend of mine brought me a baby afghan book to look at, and I couldn't help starting another afghan. This one is pretty fun to do b/c it isn't just the same stitch over and over. It looks much harder than it really is, which is nice.

Add to the list this afghan, my project for this class, another crochet project, my redwork blocks...you get the idea.

Something I have accomplished over the last few days is longarm quilting this stack of quilts.

There are more tops to quilt where these came from, so I'm going to get back to it. Hopefully I'll have more finished projects to show you very soon!

Frenzied

That's how I'm feeling right now. With Christmas looming not-so-far in the distance, I'm longarm quilting like crazy and trying to stay on top of my own projects. It doesn't help that I keep starting new ones...I just can't help myself! Every time we get in a new shipment of fabric or a new magazine, I dream up yet another thing to occupy my time. So my goal for the rest of the month is to finish up what I've got before I move on to anything else. We'll see how that goes.

Here's what is going on with all of the red and white circles I appliqued last weekend.

This is my very first stack-n-whack quilt. The stack-n-whack blocks were suprisingly easy to put together. If you look too closely, you'll see that they don't line up perfectly, but you can't tell from a normal viewing distance =). I've got the fabric up on the shop's website, with the kit for this quilt coming soon.

Last week I had to make an impromptu trip to Wichita to have my longarm machine serviced, and I just happened to need some ribbon, so I stopped in Micheal's. While I was there, I took a spin through the yarn aisles and found Lion's new organic cotton yarn. This stuff is sooo soft. There are all kinds of free projects on the Lion website, but I decided to start another afghan.

The pattern is simple enough. It's single crochet, working in the back loops. It's going to be so snuggly when it's finished. However, the yarn was $6.99/skein, and it doesn't go very far. So this one will be snuggly but small. Maybe another afghan for my sister's newest addition to the family (any day now!). The quilt in the background is a Turning Twenty that was done in the Scrappy Dots line from Judy Rothermel...still one of my favorites. I love polka dots. In fact, I just got some new ones in the other day that are a-dorable...more on that in my next post.

Free piecing

Here's something I finally got a chance to start on. I think I've mentioned before that I'm taking an online class from Tonya on free piecing. I haven't quite decided exactly what I'm going to make, but one of the first assignments was just to practice making letters. So I started with my name. What do you think?

If you want to try this technique, there are lots of tutorials at Tonya's pages at Quiltville.com.