White Christmas in Greensboro

The snow started Christmas morning, but it was several hours later before it began to stick.  The photo above was taken right before dusk.

This is the same vantage at about 7:40AM on Boxing Day.  We are cozy inside with plenty of food and can appreciate just how beautiful it is out there.

More Christmas presents

With all of the purple fabric scraps I had left from the wedding, I've made two different kinds of ornaments.  You will remember that I made pennants for porch and prayer flags for wedding decorations.

First I cross stitched Anna and Matty's names and the date of their wedding on canvas.

 Next, I did some crazy piecing around the canvas to create the front of the ornament.

Here they are  all ready to stuff.  One is for Matty's mom and dad, one for Anna and Matty, and one for us.  As doorknob art, ours will hang on the door of Anna's room.

This is a gift for Anna.  The lavender  was in her bouquet.  I dried it and made a little bag with the netting that we used to make bows on some of the guest chairs at the wedding.  The binding is made from the purple scraps and the bow is from the ribbon on her bouquet. The little tag at the top says all of that.

"C is for Cat and Caylan"

Since this is a Christmas present, I'm putting this post together to go up on Christmas Day.  My niece, Caylan, is an artist and adores cats.  She works in a cat hospital in between making art.  I've had this fabric for years and wanted to try to find a way to use it in a quilt for her.

Back in 1999 when Jim and I were in London for the summer, I went to a British quilt show and bought a charm package that was all cat fabrics.  I wanted to use those in the quilt, too.  I finally settled on the snowball block.  Above is Sharon Hultgren's Easy Angle ruler™ that I use to cut the half square triangles.

Here's the first block laid out.

Four together.

Nine together.

All the blocks are assembled and the borders are on.

The backing fabric is flannel.  Everything is all basted and ready for quilting.

The continuous bias binding is a combination of two animal prints.

This is the tag that will go on when the bias is sewn on.

The large meandering or stippling stencil is a great compliment to linear blocks.

Really, I'm still here but you know what it's like during the holidays...

OK, I know it's been ten days, but in my own defense, I'm making Christmas presents that I can't post pictures of until later.  There are already two pre-scheduled posts that are all finished. We wrapped and mailed off everything to family out of state last Monday and Tuesday.  I've been wrapping things here and I made some of the tags.  (Click on the photo above to make it bigger and you can see them.)  Dan arrived last night from LA and Anna is in flight as I write this.  It is such a blessing to be together for the holidays. Matty will arrive in the middle of the week.  

Quilted Librarian is out to finish Christmas cards and make more cookies!

Making cookies with Munchie

My dear niece came over today and helped me make a ton of Christmas cookies for Jim's faculty and staff.

Here's her first batch cooling.  They are called Peanut Butter Blossoms and are a family favorite.

Gingerbread snowflakes came next.  Thanks for the great help today, Munchie!

SNOW!

Look at this!  Our first snowfall in North Carolina.  It wasn't supposed to stick, but it's still coming down and it's definitely sticking.  Christmas cookies are on the schedule this weekend and the snow will put me even more in the holiday mood.

Update at 4:00 PM