Month: November 2009

Getting ready for Christmas at D&D Maintenace, my yearly stop…

 Every year I go to 922 Grove St. in Appleton, behind Memorial Florist on Hwy 47, just outside of Menasha.  I love the service and the unique evergreen decorations they have there.  Dave and Debbie Korth, along with their son’s, Craig, Jeremy, Chad and daughter Sheena and a whole bunch of grandkids help them with their business.

There are tons of trees to pick from, but I am really picky…I always want a tall tree that they can lop off the bottom, so I have lots of space to hang my ornaments….I never used to buy a real tree, but I figure they are cut and someone should use them, so I buy one…I love the smell in the house.  The trees I get from them never loose a needle…even when i wanted to save the tree and have all the needles fall off so just the branches were left, well it never happened that tree went to Chicago with me in April when we published our Christmas book, we put our Christmas Tree Skirt and all of our ornaments in the book on it…it looked the same as in December, just a little stiffer…besides the tree, I buy a hanging ball of evergreens for the shop, kind of like a hanging basket of evergreen, see them below…Debbie makes special order bows for me, I go in and pick out what I want and she does them up.  Here is Debbie at work….

Here is A.J. loading the cut off branches from our tree…below is the beauty after cutting off the bottom, now it is the perfect size, not too fat, nice and slim and lots of room for my homemade ornies..

The shop is now decorated with Debbies bows and the hanging evergreen ball, just in time for Christmas Open House tomorrow.  Hope you like our new parking lot!

Just after we were making cookies, our swags that will hang from the lights on our garage along with 4 more matching bows for the garland, were delivered.  They turned out GREAT! I can’t wait to hang them tomorrow.  

Mom and I made 12 dozen cookies for Open House tomorrow..

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I’ll be home for christmas….theme for Christmas Open House…

Here are the FREE-patterns that we are giving away with any purchase at our Christmas Open House on Sat the 28th of November.  We also are giving away our coupon book…I have finished them up today and they have lots of good deals.  If you miss out on Open House you can purchase a “coupon” book for $10.  This quilt called I’ll be home for Christmas finishes 33 1/2″ and was a blast to do.  I have some buttons to put on the gingerbread man.  This quilt will not be quilted in time.  We have had a death in our family and you are going to have to forgive me for not getting it all done.  I have made the pattern for this quilt a little different.  I have used photos to show step by step how to make these blocks…let me know if they help or if I should save my ink…we will be taking orders if you would like a kit for this little quilt.  They will be $70.  Ther are 53 fabrics in this quilt.    You also will get a kit for this pincushion for purchasing at our event.   Thank You, Joanne for stitching this little pincushion.  I would not have gotten it done.  The last free pattern here is a simple mat that can be used all year long, add a candle and it makes a great gift.  I am home all alone.  Nick is hunting… I didn’t think I would miss him so much…I need someone to tell me to go to bed and when it is time to eat.  Maybe that is why i could get this quilt done…no interruptions…but it is a little lonely.  See you all on Saturday!

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3/4″ triangles


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is my latest Christmas Open House quilt.  I bring home a half yards of all of the reproduction fabrics that come in the shop…these are my bennies of owning a shop…anyway…i never get to use them because I have to always use the shops fabric and make kits…so guess what…for this project I am going to use them… my drawers are overflowing so I need to make some space in them…I have picked 13 reds, 13 tans and 13 green for the 13 pieced blocks.  I made 2 sample blocks from my scrap bin to make sure my directions are right. Now I need to power sew half square triangles.  3/4″ finished.  Thangles are a must for this small piecing.  Do not try it without them.  You would be very disappointed.  Beside I think it took me a half hour to sew all 260 or so for this quilt, now the trimming, pressing and peeling the paper will take a few hours.  The blocks are 4 1/2″ finished.  I am making the blocks scrappy.  My sample block was made only using 2 fabrics… this looks ok, but i really like how the scrappy ones look…3 done 13 more to go…in the 12 snowball blocks will be little christmas appliques, with some embroidery work too…I will start them tomorrow.  I got up early today  and loaded Amalie’s Quilt and got a good start on it before my morning work out with Sargent Brenda.  I quickly finished it after I got back…it turned out great!  Got the binding on and we have quilt group tomorrow.  I will get the hand sewing done there…

Getting carpeting on Thursday in the 3 bedrooms that used to be the boys.  So I have to get all the stuff out so Jake can come tomorrow and rip the old carpet out.  I love it when everything is done, not this mess inbetween…I must have sewn a lot today as I am using my mouse on the computer I am reaching for my sewing machines foot pedal with my foot??? think of how good we would all be on our computers if we had a keyboard, mouse and a foot pedal..we would all rock!…all for now…keep stitching everyone!   LB

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life after the quilt shows…

Its been awhile since I have posted…took me this long to get my s&*t together.  I basically took the last two weeks off, after being gone for 3 weeks for Houston and DesMoines. I think I needed to decompress…so this week things are getting back to normal…I am getting ready to decorate for Christmas..yah..Christmas…I figured I didn’t get to do anything for Fall-I bought 2 pumpkings-so I am going all out for Christmas…Robin my sister-in-law painted my living room.  I know I could paint it myself but you see…she is a professional, and also I am stimulating the economy by paying her to do it…she also painted my kitchen ceiling and hallways while I was in Houston…so I puttered around while she painted…I am going from cranberry to what I would call dark butterscotch…when it was wet it looked exactly like butterscotch pudding, but when it dryed it was a little browner…here is Robin in action..the ceiling was actually cranberry too…don’t ask why???…DSC02775

I will do an “after” when it all is put back together and the couch comes in…I gave the boys the brown leather furniture for their pad…See those chairs in my hallway…great for sewing…straight backed and comfy…

so this is what I worked on…inbetween watching Robin paint.  Nothing too intense just a few shop samples of someone else’s patterns for our Christmas Open House the Saturday after Thanksgiving.DSC02801 The quilt, Jules made this sample from Little Stitches, She just let me quilt it…it is my first fussy free-hand on the longarm besides meandering…pretty scary!  

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                      Now I have to do our own FREE PATTERNS for the Open House…I have some really cool ideas…so look for those in my next blog…I am making BBQ Ribs and Twice-baked potatoes for supper…I am starving!

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