My Son's Birthday

Birthdays are great except when they happen around the holidays. 

 Well, they are still great, but it is more difficult to make them special.  

My son's is the day after Christmas!  

This year we drove to GR to see my sister and her boyfriend and exchange gifts.  

We all went out for dinner and my son got to have steak for his birthday dinner.

He had asked me to make him a Samoa cheesecake for his birthday cake.  

I gave it a try and it was AMAZING!  

Just let me tell you how much I wanted to face plant right in that cheesecake!!!

This is supposed to mimic the Girl Scout Samoa cookies. 

So amazing!

He thought I had forgotten him as I had a handmade gift for everyone but him on Christmas.

 I think he knew as soon as he lifted it out of the box what it was.

He had asked me to make him a Detroit Sports Quilt.  

The very first thing he said was "Why did you put Michigan in there?" 

 I laughed and reminded him that when he originally asked me to make the quilt he asked me to include both Michigan and Michigan State.  

I put gray Minky on the back and it was so soft.  He loved it.

 Happy birthday to my son.  

You are an amazing young man and I can't wait to see what the future holds for you!

Love, Mom xoxo

~XOP~

WIPS with Friends

It is the day before Thanksgiving and 

I have managed to work on a few things this past weekend and this week.  

I'm sure, just like most of you, 

I have LOTS to get done before Christmas.

First thing was to clean up my sewing room after Sew Beachy.  

I just kept putting all the stuff on my sewing table.  

Then when I decided I needed room to sew I realized I  had to clean off my table to do so.

YIKES what a mess!!

Cole was right at home "helping" me clean up.

I joined a swap online that was to trade soup recipes.  

We are supposed to be sending an extra with our recipes.  

It took me a long time to decide what I wanted to send, but I finally figured it out.  

I saw this tea towel pattern on a website here.  

I thought it would be the perfect extra!  

My friend Crazy Quilt Girl is selling the tea toweling if you need to make some too.  

They are amazingly easy and look so cute when finished!

I also received one of my quilts back from the quilter.  

I decided that I needed to sew the binding on.  

I managed to get that sewn down so maybe this weekend I can work on getting this finished.  

I still need to glue it in place, but Thanksgiving is kind of getting in the way, LOL. 

Shhhh this one is a gift.  

Thankfully he doesn't read my blog!

I am linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts

Cole seems to be the one most interested in helping me in my sewing room.  

Finn is more interested in knocking things down.

 They are getting so BIG!  This is Finn's favorite position.  

In the arm of my husband.  

He climbs up, settles in and shoves his little fluffy face into my husbands face. 

Chris pets him and fusses over him and Finny gives him some kisses 

then he just settles in and sleeps like that.  

It's the cutest thing!

I hope that if you celebrate Thanksgiving you have a wonderful one.  

Spend time with your families.  

You will never be able to get that time back so take the time and enjoy your family and friends.

  If you are going out for Black Friday, be careful.  

Pay attention in the parking lots to cars parked next to yours with people in them.  

If you are uncomfortable, have someone walk you to your car.  

Human trafficking is real, as is theft!

From our house to yours Happy Thanksgiving and 

thank YOU all for stopping by and leaving me such nice comment through out the year.  

I appreciate each and every one of you!

If you have a WIP or 2 that you would like to share please use the blue linky button and share!

We would all love to see what you are working on.

~XOP~

An InLinkz Link-up

TEXAS Completed!!

I finally have the Texas quilt finished!!  I designed this and made it for my son who is a HUGE University of Texas fan.  I have shown the top on this blog before but this is with it all finished and I had to show off "Liz the Quiltin' Whiz's" awesome quilting!!  I told her what I wanted and she executed it perfectly!  

I wanted these little circles around each longhorn to simulate leather.  They really, really do too!
Then I had her do stars and loops in the rail fence parts.  Texas is the lonestar state.
I had a small inner border and you can see it on the left, she make barbed wire in this border.
The cheer or chant at UT is "Hook Em' Horns" which she stitched in each outside corner
On the stars, she outlined each one.

Here is the only photo I could get of the finished quilt as it is pretty large and I have no place to lay it out.  I think you get the picture.  You can see the whole top here.
Here is what she quilted in the outer border.  Stars, swirls and repeats of the longhorn that I appliqued.

The only thing I didn't have a picture of is the label.  I gave it to him on his birthday, the day after Christmas.  He turned 17.  You know how boys are and he never wants to show me any affection, but he scooped me up and gave me a HUGE hug.  He just loves it!  Thank you Liz for helping me bring my dream to life.  You are so good to me!  Are you up for Santa's Village ala, my head??

Texas here I come

Texas is almost mine! muwahhhh. My firned, Liz the Quiltin' Whiz just sent me this teaser photo of the Texas quilt I made for my DS. She got a chance to work on the quilting over the snowy day we had yesterday and last night and guess what?? She is finished!! I didn't brave the roads today but she is at work with my quilt!!!! I am so excited. I was hoping to have it done for him for Christmas. Isn't the quilting on it so neat? She did all those little circles around every longhorn (there are 20)to make it look like leather. Then she did barbed wire fence in the sashing between the blocks!!! Ohhh, I can hardly wait to see it in person. I will take more pictures once I receive it.