Christmas Stockings

I know I said I wouldn't be back but I wanted to share the Christmas stockings I made this year.  

My daughter's best friend had twin girls and this will be their first Christmas. 

 I made stockings for their mom and dad when they got married (my shower gift)

 and I bought enough fabric to make stockings for future kids. 

 I really loved doing this and did the same for a few other close friends and family.  

While stockings are not my favorite thing to make I have it down pretty well now! 

 Here are the ones I made for the mom and dad of the twins.

Here are the ones I made for the girls.

It was my first time making the one with the Santa faces and the pinwheels. 

 I LOVE these Santa faces.

These pinwheels are NOT for the faint of heart!

I really love how it turned out though.

Amy was kind enough to send photos of the girls with their stockings.  Here is little Brooke.

Cuteness overload right here.  

Here is little Audrey.  They both have red hair too.  

She looks like she is going to climb right inside!

I have to say that Amy writes some of the best thank you notes I have ever received.  

I am not sure anyone makes me feel so glad to sew for them as Amy does.  

She always lets me know how much she loves whatever I have made her throughout the years. 

 I love her like one of my own. 

 I wish they didn't live so far away.  I am hoping to get to see her 

(maybe the girls too)

 over the holiday as they are going to be in town.

I made one more stocking but can't show it just yet.  I am not sure it has been gifted yet.

Stay tuned.  I will be posting a few more times before the new year too.

~XOP~

Sew Beachy Retreat

I have just returned from a quilt retreat in California.  Venture beach to be exact. 

I fly in there and meet up with some other quilty friends.  

This is the third year we have all been together.  

There are old friends and new.

 I always bring Captain Jack along to my retreats.  

I get photos of him throughout the time we are there.  

He is now the official mascot of Sew Beachy!

As you can see it was mostly cloudy and gray when we were there.

This year we did a secret Santa gifting. 

If you remember, I made the blue dragon wine mat for my person.

We also played a plastic wrap game (we call it Satan ball) 

where you unwrap a ball of plastic wrap full of small gifts while the person to your left rolls dice and when they get doubles you have to pass the ball.  

Jack met up with a new friend this year. 

Kooky (I think) was his name.

 This shows our sewing space. 

It is the garage of the house we stay at.  

The organizers bring tables and chairs and we sew in this big open space. 

 There are windows to the right and we can see the beach/ocean while we sew.

I usually get some pics of Jack and his friends when we are here.  

Michele brought the Koala to be Jack's friend.

This is Karen, she was the person I made the dragon wine mat for.  

You can see the shirt she has on. 

 It was the official shirt of the retreat.  

On one side it says "What's up beaches?" and on the other Sew Beachy 2019.  

The tail of the mermaid is made up of Tula fabric images. 

 They were so cute!

This is my friend, Jamie from Made by Jamie. She is the SWEETEST!!

Here is the "other" Pam of the group.  

She taught us our clam shell pillow project this year.

This lady is super talented.  

She attempted to teach me how to crochet (LOLOL).  Better luck next time, Pam.  

What can I say? 

I'm not the most adept student!

Some of my roomies.  Paula, who flies in from Kansas.

And Melanie, who flies in from Colorado.

I managed to get one top all finished.  

My friend, Traci is opening a brick and mortor shop and needed shop samples so I made this one.  

It is all done with Tula Pink Monkey Wrench using a free pattern called Tribute Star.

We visited a shop and I was so excited that I could wear flip flops in December without being cold!

My favorite part about the second shop was Pearl, the cat!

Traci managed to find the "happy to see us" snowman at one of the shops, LOL.

She flies in from Wisconsin.

I only have this photo of Traci and I from the trip. 

 She was one of the roomies and also the designated driver for our group!

We did get a photo of the whole "room".

L to R Nancy, Paula, Traci, Me, Jack and Melanie

(Sorry Nancy, I don't have a photo of the 2 of us)

They are "amazing".

I LOVE all of these women!

One of the 2 projects we made were these project bags.  

I used Sebastian from the Gastlies collection.

You may or may not realize that I don't really like making bags but at the retreat, 

with someone to hold my hand, I can do it!

Our room bought shirts for our room, HA.  

We called ourselves the "Midwest Mermaids". 

Paula brought her Bedazzler and we glammed them up with some bling!  

My friend, Susan, made me hold her wine glass for this photo, lol.

It was a great trip!  We had one nice sunset.  

We also got to see some dolphins playing in the waves right outside our door!  

The organizer of the retreat is uncertain if we will be able to return 

as the rental rules in CA have changed.  

She is working on figuring it out.  

Jack and I flew home on Monday afternoon.  We were both pooped!

It was an amazing weekend. 

I will show you the clam pillow once I have it finished. 

(please don't hold your breath, LOL, hand work takes a back seat at this moment)

I think that catches you up with what I have been up to.

I will likely be away now until after the first of the year. 

 I don't really have a great computer to post from at home.

I might try though as that is a long time to be away.

If not, have a great holiday and I will be back in January!

~XOP~

Christmas Sewing

I have not really had loads of time to sew lately.  

I'm not sure what I have been doing but I am busy, LOL.  

I finished a cute piece for a friend and I will show that now. 

 It is a surprise for her but since she is not expecting anything she won't realize it is for her, LOL .

 I am calling it a wine mat.  

I hand quilted around the dragon using 6 strands of embroidery floss and 

did straight line quilting using the machine. 

 I am really pleased with the result and hope she likes him too. 

If you click on the photo you should be able to see him larger and 

notice the "eye" placement of fabric.

A friend from IG sent me this amazing Unicorn Thread Gloss.  

You guys, you really need to go to Robot Mom Sews shop and buy some.  

You pull your thread through it and the thread doesn't tangle when you sew with it for hand sewing.  

I used it for my binding thread.  

I happened to use Gutterman thread for this binding.  

It is NOT my favorite hand thread but the color matched.  

Using the thread gloss was a total game changer. 

 No more tangles!

I have three Christmas stockings to make and thought I would see if I could make one last weekend.  My hope was to get the pieced front made, which I did.

Then I decided to "go for it" and actually got the whole stocking made (sans the name).  

I had to print the name out on my computer from work as my home computer doesn't have that font.  I have finished this one and put it in the mail.  

I can't show the name just yet, but soon.

Hubby has been continuing the cleaning and has gotten our family room all cleaned up.  

We might even be able to get it painted before Christmas!!!  

Maybe. 

 This means all the junk that was in that room is now in my living room and must be dealt with. 

My plan for the weekend is to get the living room cleaned up so we can decorate for Christmas the next weekend (after Thanksgiving) and 

also get the upstairs guest room tidied up for my friend, Sue's visit in 2 weeks. 

 So I don't anticipate much sewing over the next few weeks.  

I am leaving on a quilt retreat to California on Dec 5th so there are supplies that I need for that also.

So much to do!

Are you all ready to decorate for Christmas?  Shopping done?  Tips you can share??

~XOP~

Weekend Chatter

I had a really great weekend.  

I got a lot of cleaning and meal prep done in the house on Saturday.  

I spent most of the morning cleaning out the canned good pantry.  

I took everything out of the cupboard, cleaned all the shelves, tossed out all expired food and put everything back inside grouped by what they were.  

I also used a marker to put the expiration on all the canned goods.  

That way if there were 2 cans of the same thing I would know to use the oldest one first.  

I know there is Spam in there but hubby loves it, HAHA.

On Sunday I cleaned some in my sewing room and 

made the binding for the purple quilt you see in the background.  

As you can see Finn was hard at work "helping".

Then I set to work on another paper pieced project I need to make for a friend.  

She doesn't read this so I feel confident showing you this sneak peek.  

As you can see, Cole was holding down the dragon so it could not fly away.  

Cats are such big helpers in the sewing room, aren't they?

Most of the weekend was spent either cleaning, running errands, cooking or sewing.  

I LOVE these kind of weekends!  I can't wait to retire and do this full time!  

Hope you all had a great weekend too!

~XOP~

Friday Chat

I have a little bit of this and a little bit of that to catch you up with.  

We are all settling back into a normal routine now that Finn is home. 

 He and Cole and he and Chris are setting in to their old routines.

On top of this, I trimmed up the Shooting Stars quilt, with some help of course.

I don't think I have shared this quilt yet either.  

I need to get the binding on it but it has been quilted and will be gifted at Christmas time.  

The intended person has no idea I have been making a quilt for them but I don't think 

I will share the quilt until it is gifted.  

I volunteered to do some pattern testing (I know, I know, I shouldn't be taking on one more thing!).  

I did it anyway, so there's that.

One "in progress" shot and one of it all finished. 

 I'm trying to decide if I should try to make the whole quilt or just make this into a pillow. 

 I am leaning toward the pillow. 

Thoughts?

I have also been making major dietary changes in my life.  

I have switched over to a Keto way of eating (WOE).  

It has taken a lot of work to change over what is in my pantry. 

 I have had to find recipes to substitute into my menu that will fit this new WOE. 

 It has taken a bit of my time as more meal prep is required. 

I am actually enjoying it now and I feel a lot better with lower carbohydrates on board.  

I have also lost some more weight. 

 I would say I have about 15 pounds left to lose.  

Since the wedding is over there is no particular hurry now though.  

I found a great coconut flour zucchini fritter recipe and adapted to make it in my mini waffle maker.  It was so good!

I made some Maple French Toast bagels too and they were SO good!  

I mistaked and made 6 when I should have made 12 but they are delicious anyway.

Are keto recipes anything you would be interested in reading about? 

I will probably be posting some of my newfound recipes.

So this is what seems to be taking up most of my time lately. 

 I have a few "have to" things to make between now and Christmas.  

Next up will be my swap gift for the Sew Beachy retreat in the beginning of December and binding the quilt I showed a sneak peek of above.  

Then 3 Christmas stockings.  

Life is good and I am happy to have my Finn home.  

Cole is my cat though and is never far from me.  

The other day he brought me his ball (into the sewing room) 

for me to throw so he could fetch it back to me.  

Have a great weekend and wish me luck with my upcoming projects!

~XOP~

Finn Update. HE IS HOME!!!

On Saturday, 5 days after he went missing, our Finn is finally home.  

I got up on Saturday am feeling very depressed. 

 I went to the crazy cat house at the end of our street hoping maybe Finn had found his way to that house since she leaves out food and water and shelters for our local stray cat population. 

 No luck. 

 Later in the morning, a man called.  

He was walking his dog and thought he had seen Finn. 

 I RAN to where he was but no cat.  

Then he told me it might have been a gray long hair cat. 

 There is a long hair gray cat in the area that we see from time to time too.  

A previous young man had told me he had seen Finn and his mom messaged me the address,

 so I walked over to where that was.  

I skulked about back yards calling but again, no luck.  

I did stop and hand out a flyer and the neighbor told me that it was probably the long hair gray cat that lives across the street.  

Whelp, now I know where that cat lives!  

I walked home. 

I stopped at the cat lady's house again and then went tromping through the woods, 

calling Finn the whole time.  

Nope.  

Chris had been at our church working and called to say he would be home soon.  

He got home and wanted to go out and do something. 

 I didn't feel like doing anything but thought I should probably get out of the house. 

 Every time I did anything that gave me joy I felt guilty, like I should be out looking for the cat. 

 I checked the cat lady's house one more time, then we went to the apple orchard. 

 It was so cold and rainy!  

All I could think about was how miserable Finn would be in that weather.

We got home and I puttered around, and we turned on the Hallmark channel. 

 We both love the Christmas shows.  

A new show was on at 8pm, so we settled in to watch.  

After just a little while, Chris shouts out my name, "PAM,  FINNY IS ON THE DECK!"  

I jumped up ran to put my boots and coat on and headed out the door.  

It spooked him when we got up as he could see in our door. 

So the hunt with flashlights was on.  

I went back inside to get a food container and some wet food and his dishes.  

By the time I got back outside Chris was (angrily) shouting my name again.  

I think he had been trying to draw my attention but I had gone back inside for the food.  

He shouted, "He's on the front porch!"

I went around the house in the opposite direction from Chris and there he was.  

Sitting on the bricks meowing VERY loudly at me but not moving.  

I slowly approached him, talking softly the whole time, with tears running down my cheeks.  GRAB!!!  I had him in my arms!!  

His eyes were as big as saucers and he was hissing at me, but he was home!

I took him inside and Chris got some wet food in a dish for him, which he greedily wolfed down.

He was no worse for the wear though.  

PHEW!  

He was very jumpy and walked around checking everything out. 

Meowing the whole time.  He eventually settled down and could not stop purring.  

I want to say that on Friday, I said a rosary asking our blessed Mother to guide Finn home. 

 I promised to say a rosary every day forever if she brought him home. 

 Totally worth it!  

I am so grateful for her divine assistance.

Chris and I want to thank EVERYONE that said a prayer, sent good thoughts, handed out flyers, went looking or offered to come over and help us look and just provided positive moral support. 

Our blessed Mother sent Finn home to us and for that we are eternally grateful! 

I have no words to express our gratitude to each and every one of you! 

THANK YOU!! 

Cole is still not sure it's his brother and alternates bathing him and hissing at him.  

Hopefully that rift mends quickly.  I alternated between crying and cuddling for the rest of the night.  

Our Finny is HOME and once again all is right with the world!  

~XOP~