Merry Christmas

Don't know if I will have time to post again before Christmas so just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! We will finally have a white christmas like I remember from when I was a kid! It's been so long. This is what it looked like from our deck after all the know we got Thursday when the kids had the day off of school.
I don't have anything quilt related to post about. I gave myself permission not to work on anything until after Christmas. Just too much going on. Also gave myself permission not to stress out over not doing anything!!

Hope everyone has a fun day with their family and friends!

Stopped to check the mailbox on my way to the christmas party today and this journal was in the mail. It was from Sue Bleiweiss. She had a drawing on her blog and I was picked for this one. What a nice suprise!! She had so many people enter that she picked 3 winners! I love the button!

This is the inside. There are 3 signatures of different sizes and a pocket on the cover with fun paper stuck in. Some of the pages have pockets and the pages on the middle signature fold out. Now to figure out what I'm going to use this for.

The Christmas party was really fun. We had lots of food, talk and presents. Of course, I forgot to bring my camera. We decided on a what to do for our next round robin. We used the idea from the Frayed Edges of their five artists five views grid display as a starting point then we changed it to fit our group. We are each going to pick a photo and a maximum size we want the pieces to be. Each person will make their interpretation of the photo and make it the size they want up to the maximum size. So when I get my round robin back, I might have 8 pieces that are all different sizes. When I get it back, it will be up to me to put the quilts together some way to display them as a unit. We are hoping to have a show to be able to display them at.

Now to pick a photo and make my quilt from it. We don't meet until January 25 so we have time to get started. I'll miss that meeting since I will be taking a painting class with Jane Balshaw that day. I'm disappointed that I won't be at the meeting but I'm really looking forward to the class. It was my birthday present to myself since my Birthday is Jan 27. She also has a class on color theory that I want to take when she offers it next. I had a hard time choosing between the 2 classes and only picked the painting one because it was closer to my birthday.

Blue Box

I haven't had much time to make anything lately. Been too busy!! I did manage to make this box last week. Used the pattern on the Fiber and Stitch site. It will be filled with chocolate and given as a gift. Tomorrow my quilt group is meeting for our Christmas lunch. Wish you could be here Geriann!!! I'm really looking forward to this. I always look forward to our meetings. I'm making a spinach salad with pecans, dried cranberries, red onions, and crumbled bacon. I have poppyseed salad dressing to go with it.

Fridays meeting was fun. We had show and tell. All I had to show was the pieces that I made for Fast Friday Fabric Challenge. Lynn E. showed us some experiments she had done using the new paints she bought when we went to Lowell. Susan, showed us the new quilt she is working on based on dance. It is a lovely quilt. We made plans for our Christmas party in 2 weeks. Wish you could be here Geriann!!!!
After dessert we went to Susan's wet studio and played with Shiva paint sticks. The jagged stripes were done using torn pieces of paper as a mask. Before I went over, I cut a couple of small paper stencils to use. The vase was made using the stencil cut out as a mask.

These vases were done with the stencil onto painted fabric.

These were done using the stencil cutout on darker painted fabric.

I had seen the stencil idea in Linda and Laura Kemshall's book "The Painted Quilt". The torn paper idea I saw in Ruth Issett's book "Print, Pattern & Colour".

After playing with some of these ideas, I came home and ordered some paint sticks. Told Gary they were one of the Christmas presents he was buying me. This way I will get what I want!! He doesn't know what to get me in the way of sewing supplies, mixed media supplies, etc unless I go and show him or buy them myself. The hard part will be waiting until Christmas to use them.

Speaking of Christmas, it looks like we will have a white one unless we get a lot of really warm weather to melt the snow. School was cancelled today and both Gary and I just happen to have today off of work. Good thing, I wouldn't have been able to get out of our driveway at 5:15 this morning!

We are also hoping that our oven will be working by Christmas or we will be thinking of alternatives for Christmas dinner. Gary and my Dad think they know what is wrong and have ordered a part. It's been interesting to come up with easy meal idea that don't involve the oven!! I keep wanting to make something and then realize I can't because I have to bake it. Today, I even looked up a no bake cookie recipe and made those. I knew Kara would like them because they used chocolate and peanut butter.