Red Jacket Progress

You may remember me talking about this jacket a while back.  I was hoping to have it finished for the Christmas season, but obviously that didn't happen.  I did manage to finish all those French knots during a binge TV session of The Big C.  I watched four whole seasons on two snowed-in days, but that's as far as I got.  I did sew the two back sections together and the fronts to the back.  Then Christmas festivities and house guests intervened.

Speaking of house guests, my sister was here from Long Island for a few days and my son, Kurt, and his girl friend, Katie, were here from Portland, OR.  It was great to have them here.  I do see my sister fairly often, but I do wish she lived closer. She drove home yesterday. I see my son and his sweetie just a couple times a year. Portland is much too far away. I drove them to the train station today which they were taking into NYC to spend some time and then take another train to the airport.

Tomorrow (New Year's Eve) and Wednesday (New Year's Day) I have no commitments.  I am going nowhere, which suits me just fine.  I will spend the time taking down all my Christmas decorations and putting all those Santas away for a nice long nap.

Then I will be free to work in my studio.  The first project in line will be to finish this jacket.  Although I have no place special to wear it, I will enter it into the Woman's Club Arts and Crafts competition in February.

Jacket front

Jacket back

French knot details

Now I have to add the collar, facings, sleeves and lining.  Wish me luck!  I'll show the results when finished.

Merry Christmas!

I'm wishing you and yours a wonderful Christmas and a happy, healthy, creative 2014.

Exciting News

Several weeks ago I was contacted by Nancy Samotis, an art constant for health care facilities asking if two of my big works, Emerald City and Fiesta were available for sale. She was going to present them to the powers that be at the Yale Maternal Fetal Center, a place for women with difficult pregnancies.
She told me that she would let me know the outcome of the meeting after Thanksgiving.  Since I hadn't heard from her, I surmised that they must have gone with something else so I was surprised and delighted yesterday when I received her email telling me that they thought that my Emerald City would be perfect for the waiting area where all clinical patients enter.

I am so excited to be having a piece of mine hanging in a public place. It will be my first. This piece is the last of my "city" series and I have had good luck with them.  Three have sold, one was a second place winner at Houston and one traveled for three years with the Art Quilt Town and Country exhibit that was first shown at the IQA show in Houston.

Emerald City  45" x 46"

I had dyed forty yards of fabric for this quilt. Needless to say that I have a lot of green left over and am currently working on another green quilt in a very different style. 

I am linking up with Off the Wall Fridays.  Please check it out and see what everyone is up to.

I won!

One of the nice things that I like about blogging is "meeting" new people and having "blog buddies".  These are people whose blogs I visit and leave comments and they do the same on mine.  I will probably never meet most of these people in person, since most live so far away.  Some are even overseas, although I did connect with one in Arizona a few years ago.

One of my blog buddies is Linda McLaughlin. I visit her blog, Thru Linda's Eyes,  every day because she posts a beautiful picture every day.  No text, just great photography.  She also has another blog, Notes From Studio B, that she posts to about once a week about her quilt art and sewing projects.  She does fabulous work and also has daily sewing projects that are always interesting and inspiring.

A couple of weeks ago she had a contest.  If you left a comment on her blog during a certain period you would be eligible for a calendar of her photography and I won.  I was thrilled. It came in the mail the other day and it is gorgeous!  She had it made by Mac so it is very professional looking.  Each month has a stunning photo (sometimes two or three) pertaining to that month. It will have a place of honor in my studio where I can see it everyday and thoroughly enjoy it.  Thank you, Linda!

This is the cover of the calendar.  Yesterday's post was another picture of frost.  I told her that she takes the best frost pictures.

The Last New Santa for 2013

I clear everything off of my baker's rack for Christmas to make room for some standing Santas. Isn't he silly looking and cute?  I like his plaid arms and skinny legs.  I guess that this Santa didn't eat a lot of cookies. My bakers rack is not crowded with Santas.  I retired an older china Santa to make room for this new guy.

Christmas Cookie Santa

On the way to Kennebunkport last week we stopped at Stonewall Kitchen, know for their scrumptious jams and preserves and other goodies.  Of course it was all decked out for the holidays and I found this sugar cookie Santa made of glass. And that's the last of the new ornaments.  Come back tomorrow for a new standing Santa.

Santa Goes to London

Again I found this charmer with Santa peeking out from a red phone booth in the Gump's catalog when I returned home from my trip.

This little Beefeater Santa holding a Christmas was bought across the pond.

Santa Plays the Bagpipe

When I am traveling I try to find Santas that are indicative of that area.  I have a Santa from Arizona who is wearing cowboy boots and hat and is holding a wreath made from Prickly Pear cactus, a Santa from Bar Harbor, Maine who is in a fishing boat complete with Christmas tree and seagull, a brown skinned Santa from Hawaii wearing shorts, Hawaiian shirt and playing a ukulele, and a few others that I showed you last year. 

 When I was in Edinburgh this fall I looked all over for a kilt-wearing Santa, even going into two Christmas shops to no avail.  When I got back home there he was in the Gump's catalog, a little more that I wanted to spend, but he is perfect!  Don't you agree?

Come back tomorrow for more new finds.

Here Comes Santa Claus

Here's another of my new Santas.  I like the gold micro beading trim on his robe.

Ho, ho, ho

If you follow my blog, you will know that I have huge collection of Santa ornaments.  If fact I have one big tree in the family room that's dedicated to Santa.  I try to only buy glass Santas now and look for the different or unusual each year.  The tree is big, so there's always room for one more (or two or three).  so for the next few days I will introduce you to my new Santas.

Here is a golfing Santa.  Even though I don't play golf, I found him hard to resist with his golfing knickers, plaid sweater vest and sparkly golf clubs.

Come back tomorrow and meet someone else.

Christmas Prelude

This past weekend was spent with three good friends in Kennebunkport, Maine for their pre-Christmas celebration, called Prelude.  This small quintessential New England town of less than 3,500 residents comes alive for this annual event that draws over 60,000 visitors.

After the tree lighting ceremony Friday night.  Notice the lobster holding a star  at the top.

Aside from tourism, this is a fishing village with lobster being its main catch.  But for this season the whole town gets ready for Christmas with every building decorated with white lights and greenery.  Even the bridge joining Kennebunk to Kennebunkport is draped with pine swags and red bows.  The telephone poles are wrapped with garlands and red ribbons.  There are shops galore and for a mega-shopper like me it was heaven. HGTV rated it as the second best Christmas town in the country.

We loved this display in the small lobby of simple bare trees and white lights.  Hard to photograph day or night, but it was stunning.

We stayed at a fabulous new hotel, The Boat House.  It has been restaurant for many years, but the new owners did a complete renovation and added twelve guest rooms and suites.  We absolutely loved it for its convenience, being right in the middle of town and walkable to almost everything, the wonderful accommodations and its fantastic restaurant.  It was very hard to get a reservation at the restaurant, but if you were a hotel guest you had a guaranteed reservation.  Since the town was so jam packed and reservations at any restaurant were almost impossible to get, we ate at David's both nights and had scrumptious meals.

This was the view from one of the windows in our room.  The lighted tree was on the deck below that was part of the restaurant.

A different view from our hotel. We liked the hotel so much that we reserved rooms for next year.  Once the word gets out I'm sure it will be impossible to get a reservation.



There were so many activities scheduled: tree lighting ceremonies both Friday and Saturday evenings with beautiful accapella singing from the High School choir. Saturday night we walked to the local monastery for Christmas carols with everyone holding a white lit candle. We went to the craft fair at the local consolidated school and picked up some treasures.

How abut this Christmas tree that was made of lobster traps, buoys, and fresh greens! That's Maxine, Sheila and me.  Claire was taking the picture.

The entrance to the restaurant where we had luch just before leaving to go home on Sunday.

Claire, Maxine and Sheila having out last hurrah (lobster rolls, a nice glass of wine and decadent desserts) at this lovely dining establishment with great water views.

Everyone was in a Christmas mood and many people, including me, were wearing Christmas hats.  You could buy them quite inexpensively in town and many were hand made.  On Saturday afternoon there was a hat parade and we were rushing to get to another event and I didn't get any pictures.

Here's my hat, actually a headband, that I bought, now perched on a my Santa doll. The store had so many that it was hard to choose.  There were Christmas trees, Santas, snowmen, Christmas packages, and so much more.  The sparkly mistletoe on the wire made it a little hard  to wear because it kept bobbing around as I walked, but I had a lot of fun with it.

We were very lucky with the weather.  Although it was cold it didn't snow or rain except for a brief sprinkle Friday evening at the tree lighting.  We were dressed very warmly with fleece, long johns  and down coats so we were just fine. We woke up this morning here in CT to roads and walkways coated with ice.  Thank goodness that didn't happen to us on the way home. All in all it was a wonderful, magical weekend and we are looking forward to next year.

Post Card

A friend is celebrating a milestone birthday soon and I made this fabric postcard for her.  She doesn't read my blog so I'm safe posting it. I'll pop it in the mail in a few days with a first class stamp wishing her a very happy birthday.

Wordless Wednesday