Christmas Gifts for Jake's Family

Here's what Jake's family got for Christmas.

Miss Madeline dress for our niece. I call it a prairie dress.

I had so much fun putting this dress together. It's fast and easy and just so darn cute!!!

Father, son, and son BBQ aprons for Jake's brother (Ben) and our nephews.

These were also fast and easy to make and I absolutely love how they turned out.

Necklace with cream-colored glass pearls and red beads for Ben's wife, Serenity.

White glass pearls on red wire necklace for Jake's mom.

Now it's off to go make the final Christmas presents of 2010 for my co-workers. They'll be getting them New Year's Eve, as long as we can get off the ranch. We're supposed to get a good snow storm over the next few days, but we haven't seen much yet.

Christmas For the Family

Since Christmas is over I can now share the gifts that I made this year.

Hand quilted picnic covers for my mom.

Every summer my hometown does a Concert in the Park series and my parents spend their Friday nights in the local park with their friends and a picnic dinner. I thought these would be fun little covers to keep the bugs out of their food. Here's the tutorial I used.

Travel money/passport pouch for my dad.

Now that all of us kids are out of the house and my parents are closer to retirement age they've been doing a lot of traveling. Over the past few years they've been to Great Britain, have visited us twice in Wyoming and once now that we're in Montana, went on a fall foliage tour in New England, and visited family in Denver a few times. Their next trip they plan to take is to New Zealand. Dad mentioned that he wanted a neck money pouch so this is what I made. This is my own design. It has a clear front pouch which, as you can see, is large enough for his passport. It also has a second pocket for money, other papers, whatever. It has a button closure.

Green glass pearl elephant necklace for my sister.

She loves elephants. Enough said. :)

Friday Night Apron for my sister.

When I was living in Paso Robles, California (actually I was on a vineyard outside of Paso) my mom discovered a great little fabric store in town and decided that I needed to take a sewing class. She signed me up for an apron making class and got me all the materials. (Thanks Mom!) For some reason I missed the second part of the class so I never got it finished because I didn't have my own sewing machine. Fast forward to this summer, my parents came up to visit and I decided that it was time for me to learn to sew. I had a sewing machine now (Thanks Sally!) and I was ready to learn. Mom helped me make a cute top that I wore out to dinner that night. After my folks left I figured I should finish the apron I started a few years ago. I had a few mishaps, but I got 'er done. I think it's very cute, but it's not really my style. My sister doesn't cook, but she makes candles so I thought she might like something cute to cover up her clothes while she's working on her candles.

Tea light candle sets for my mom and sister.

Jake also make candles (well candle holders), and he made a few sets of these tea light candle holders for my family. He made a set of three, that are from the bottom of our Christmas tree, like the ones above. He also made four sets of two from an old cedar fence post he found on the ranch. They smell wonderful and look nice even without the candles.

My brother got a gift certificate from me and my sister to our family's favorite restaurant, Domenico's. Yum! We thought he might like a nice date night with his girlfriend.

Well, that's what my family got this year. Tomorrow I'll share what my In-laws, nephews, and niece got. For now I'm off to finish my first ever attempt at sourdough bread. So far it's looking good. :)

Ready for Christmas?

I think I'm finally ready for Christmas. All gifts have been made and shipped, and hopefully the packages intended to be delivered before Christmas are. I can't post pictures of gifts yet, but here are a few teasers in the meantime.

And Jake modeling my Dad's gift. :)

I still need to make gifts for my co-workers, but I don't see them again until New Year's Eve so I have a few days to put them together. How's everyone else's presents coming along? Have you been ready for weeks or have you been frantically packing stuff up to be shipped across the country like me?

Now it's off to work on my first quilting bee block. More on that another time. Until then....

Happy Solstice!

And the Winner Is...

...Ms. Knitsalot! An email has been sent.

Here's another picture of the prize.

Thank you all so much for participating in my giveaway. I had a wonderful time surfing the other giveaways and reading all the wonderful comments everyone left here.

Giveaway Day, Part 2

As I mentioned last night, I am participating in Sew Mama Sew's Giveaway Day. Here is the completed necklace that one lucky winner will receive.

Be sure to leave your comment here to be entered to win. Do not leave your comment on this post or you will not be entered in the drawing.

PS I will have another giveaway next month to kick off the grand opening of the Etsy store my husband and I are opening. Become a follower to stay updated on when this is happening.

Giveaway Day

Sew Mama Sew, my inspiration and one of the first blogs I followed, is hosting a Giveaway Day so I thought I'd join in on the fun.

I am offering a handmade glass pearl necklace. The pearls are a coppery/deep gold color and are strung with copper wire. There are a few blue disc beads throughout the strand. As I am posting this, it is not quite finished, but I will post a picture of the final product sometime tomorrow (Monday). Until then, here is a sneak peak of what it looks like so far.

To enter the drawing to win this necklace just comment on this post telling me your favorite Christmas gift that you are giving to someone this year. My favorite so far is the BBQ apron that I made for my brother-in-law. I will keep comments open until noon(ish) on Friday, December 17th. Be sure to leave your email address in your comment so that I can contact you if you win. Thank you and good luck!

*I've decided to leave comments open until I get home from work tonight. So you have until approx. 11pm Mountain Time for a chance to win.

Busy Day

Jake and I have been busy working on Christmas presents today. Here are a few things that we've been making.

BBQ Apron for Jake's brother. His boys are each going to get matching ones.

Action shot.

Except that it's way too cold to actually cook outside, that's way there's nothing on the grill. :)

Sneak peak at something for our friends. I finished binding the last one today.

These go with the picture above. Any guesses of what this used to be before Jake sliced it up for me?

Gorgeous candle holders Jake made for me.

I Won!

Yesterday I showed you the gorgeous fabric that I bought for Christmas gifts, but I forgot to show you what I received from FedEx the day before.

By Weeks Ringle & Bill Kerr

I won this book from Sew, Mama, Sew! and their Handmade Holidays giveaways. Every day in November Sew, Mama, Sew! put together a large list of handmade gift ideas (with tutorials) for the various people in our lives. Here is the link to the master list for 2010 and links to previous years lists as well.

Every day they also gave away tons of fabulous prizes, and I was lucky enough to win Quilts Made Modern by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr. I've only briefly looked through it so far, but the little I have read I've enjoyed. I love the section on selecting colors/patterns and I like that they mention not only their successes, but their failures as well. I do wish that there were more pictures, but I know that there is lots of valuable information within this book and I look forward to sitting down and reading through it once the holidays are over.

Fabric!

Look what just arrived at my door!!!

(A big thank you to my neighbor, Nancy, who brought it by on her way to town.)

My order from Sew, Mama, Sew! has arrived!!!

Logan home dec weight fabric by Vicki Payne

I know these two fabric don't seem to go together too well, but look closely at the fabric on the left and you will see a bit of the periwinkle from the other fabric.

This is going to be a Weekender Travel Bag, pattern by Amy Butler

It's a Hoot fabric collection by MoMo for Moda

These will become Miss Madeline dresses for the daughters of our friends. How cute will those dresses be?

Getting Our Christmas Tree

We went up "the high country" aka the Northeast pasture yesterday to find our tree. Here are some pictures of our adventure. Enjoy!

"Hey guys! Wait for me!" Cord found all the deepest drifts. Or maybe they just looked deep because of his short legs.

Shaking off the snow. Gotta make sure this is the right tree.

The trucks down there somewhere. Thanks honey! :)

Our lovely Charlie Brown Christmas Tree

Please excuse the ugly wall in the back. They put in an air conditioner before we moved in (which works great, by the way) and haven't gotten around to finishing the wall yet. The A/C is covered in plastic and tape because the wind blows through when it's uncovered. At least the red and white is festive. Right?

A great day!

Eek! A Mouse!

The other night I was sitting at the computer when I heard "scratch, scratch, scratch" coming from the kitchen.

Since winter has set in the field mice have decided that my house is warm and toasty and a great place to make a nest. We've been battling them since we moved in, but it's definitely worse in the cold weather.

The dogs didn't hear the scratching since they were down in the basement so I decided I would investigate. I quietly climbed over the baby gate (which keeps the dogs off the carpeted part of the house) and tip toed over to where I heard the noise. I've tried to discover these bastards before, but the noise usually stops once I've gotten about halfway across the kitchen (and it's not a very big kitchen), but this night the noise continued. Since the lights were out and I could still hear the mouse I decided to grab a flashlight so I could try to see something when I opened the cupboard.

This is what I found.

The piece he is sitting on goes to our dehydrator. The piece above him is from the food processor and the the paper is parchment paper that I had cut for the dehydrator so small pieces of food wouldn't fall through the slits. There were actually 2 mice in this nest, but one got away as Jake was pulling this out of the cupboard. This one was taken outside and set free. The dogs tried to nab him, but he got away. Bad Dogs!

Ugly Sweater, Cute ?

As I mentioned the other day. I've had several chances to do some thrifting in the past month or so and have found some wonderful fabrics in the form of hideous sweaters and other clothing.

Here are a few...

UGLY Sweater, Cute Purse

This sweater is hideous! But the I love the fabric. It is a hand knit sweater with the cutest buttons. When I saw this the first thing I thought was "This will make a really cute clutch." My one worry is that I don't want to cut it and have the whole thing unravel.

Ugly Sweater, Cute Stuffed Animal

Doesn't this sweatshirt scream rainbow sherbet? I'm thinking this needs to be turned into a cute stuffed animal, or 2.

Ugly Sweater, Cute Scarf

I like orange. Can you tell? Actually, I kinda like this sweater, but it's too small. I was thinking this would be fun to make and a nice way to brighten up a cold, winter day.

That's the plan, but for now they're going to sit in the closet for a bit because I have Christmas presents to make. I'm currently working on "Our First Christmas" gifts for our friends that got married this year. We missed 4 weddings (because of distance and our move) and couldn't afford to get them gifts at the time. I will post pictures once they are finished.

Thanksgiving Dinner

So, yesterday was the first time I had ever made a full holiday meal. I've made dishes for potluck holidays and I help my mom with a couple of the dishes when I'm in California for the holidays. But I've never had to plan the entire meal and figure out the timing on everything before.

It was a surprisingly successful meal!

A light lunch

The spread

I know it's difficult to see everything, but here's the line up: Turkey, green bean casserole, sausage and cranberry stuffing, fresh cranberry sauce, deviled eggs, mashed potatoes, and...

Blush apple pie!

Replace 1/2 the sugar with cinnamon imps candy. Yum! Yum!

I even made the crust too. I was a bit nervous about it, but it turned out really tasty.

It was a very nice day with Jake, his dad (Jack), and the assistants.

Lotte and Cord

Festus and Lady (Jack's dog) were in the basement during this photo op.

Thrifting

I've taken my dog to the vet over in Miles City several times this month and every time I head over there I try to search for fun new fabrics to add to my stash.  OK, not new, just new to me.  There is a great thrift store there that is always full of customers.  I've never seen a busier thrift store, even when I lived in Southern California!  They have a small crafting section in the corner and one day I took the time to go through all the drawers and baskets and found some real treasures.  Now when I walk in I make a beeline for the back and then have to remind myself that there are great finds elsewhere in the store too.  There is an antique/music store that's also in MC that has some goodies tucked in the way back of the store, if you can find anything among all the trinkets.  Here are some of my recent finds...

This was my exciting find at the antique store.  On the selvage it says "'nataraja floral' phillip de leon for The Alexander Henry Fabrics Collection."  I got 2 1/2 yds for $3.50!  Sorry for the color distortion (my house is bright, yet dark at the same time), the background color is more of a rich rust color and the purples are just beautiful.

My boss loves purple.  I bought some denim and am thinking about making a reversible apron for her.

A fun little western fabric.

Thinking this might become the bottom of a Made By Rae's Bonsai Bag.  I'll probably practice my quilting skills (or lack thereof) for the panel piece of the bag.

This whole stack cost about $1.  Lots of fun trim.

I'll try to post more thrifted finds tomorrow, but if I don't...Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Sharon

The Other Morning

I never used to be an early morning person, but who wouldn't want to start their day watching this?