A Happy Thanksgiving!

 I love Thanksgiving----it is my favorite holiday.  All ten of us were able to be together this year and it was great!  Anne and Paul did a fine job of hosting all the festivities.  We kept very busy and that was good for the kids -- they had a ball swimming, jumping at Jumpoline, playing games, attending Isabel's early Birthday Party and other things I don't even remember!  This Grandma got tired just watching!!!!!

 Isabel and Ilena

Nathan and Evan

We even managed to get a family portrait done!  The time went by all too quickly.  I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving, too.  

Now all the Christmas commercialism is in high gear.  I used the internet to order all my gifts except for one. That is a nice way to go.  The kids and us decided that this year instead of gifts to each other we would take that money and give it to the charity of our choice.  We shared what that charity would be.  It was a very special time.  Of course, we still get to go shopping for the grandkids!

Maynard has a king size quilt on the quilting machine right now.  It is Debi's and it is coming along nicely.  It was nice of Debi to let him "practice" on it.  Thanks Debi!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

Three more quilted!

 Barb's Tumblers

Little Purses

BRIGHT Colors

These are all quilts that I had in the pile for Maynard to quilt when the big quilting machine arrived and he has patiently been working through the pile for practice.  What a trooper!

The machine works great (and the operator understands just what is going on!)  You set the right controls and it goes by itself across the sandwich of top, batting and backing.  What a deal!  Soon we'll be taking customers!  I pray that we will make them happy.  I know I'm a happy camper with the ones for Project Linus!

We are having wonderful fall weather---cool, frosty nights and warm to cool, sunny days.  I know I say it all the time and I'll say it again----------wish it would stay this way, but I know it will get colder.  But in my book colder is better than hotter.  Does anyone out there agree with me?

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

New Quilting Machine and One for Project Linus

Our new quilting machine----a Handi Quilter Fusion 24 is here and installed and Maynard has quilted one quilt on it already.  It is a wonderful machine.  (Not affiliated with company, yada yada yada.)  Lots to learn on it.  The folks that installed  it were great and did a great job with it.  They gave 2 hours of instruction and we will have more classes in January.  The company wants satisfied customers.  Just had to show a before picture---it fit in quite nicely, but glad it wasn't any bigger!!!  We are very excited.  This will be a great retirement business for us.  Maynard isn't retired just yet, but will have time to build up the business before he does retire.

Here is picture of the PL quilt.  Called it Sunbonnet Sue YBR (Yellow Brick Road.)

It's finally cooled way down here---highs in 60's which we call cool.  Temps in mornings in the 30s---that's cold!  Love to wear sweatshirts!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

Quilt Show and Two New Tops

Hope some of you got to go to the International Quilt Festival in Houston.  It was wonderful!  We were there for 2 days and had such a great time.  I don't think we saw everything even with being there two days----it wasn't because we didn't try!!  LOL!  I even got to sew a quilt top at the Project Linus booth---what a neat set-up they had.  The kits were ready and all you had to do was sew straight lines.  I saw a couple of kids sewing, too.  It was nice to see that they could participate too.  Made me really want to come home and sew and so I did.

Here are two log cabin quilt tops I did from a layer cake from the line called "Amelia."  It is very bright and cheerful.  Fun to work with!

Project Linus has published book written by National Vice President Mary Balagna and President of  Project Linus Carol Babbitt.  The book is "Quilt It With Love,  The Project Linus Story."  It has 20 patterns in it and I have called it another challenge book. I want to try to make all the patterns in it within the next year.  Should be a fun challenge to myself!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

Fall Medley

 This quilt is called "Fall Medley."  It is "Yellow Brick Road."  Sorry the color is so bad.  Much prettier in person.  We are getting room ready for new big quilter, so have not been quilting many quilts.  We moved my sewing room and so I share room with computer.

This is the pile of quilts that wait for the big quilter to arrive, so Maynard will have some for practice quilts---that's where I'm putting most of my tops.  So if you don't see much from me in the next few weeks you'll know where they are!

I'm working on a Log Cabin quilt from a layer cake right now.  It is an "Amelia" layer cake and the colors are nice and bright----a joy to put together.  I'm using Kona Snow as the background light color.  Very much fun!

Fall arrived at our house last night.  Temp got down to 39 degrees and it felt so good to cuddle up in a quilt or two!  Going to be nice and in 70's for the rest of the week.  Hope this weather continues.

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

Two from Barb for Project Linus

Barb gave me 2 tops for Project Linus and I got them quilted and bound, ready to go.  The top one I called "Hearts Aglow," and the bottom one is "Squares in Squares.  This was so generous of her.  Thanks, Barb!

Some of her tops (yes, there are more!!!!)   hubby will quilt on the big machine when it gets set up.  Just a sly way of telling you that we are getting a Handi-Quilter Pro-Stitcher Fusion 24 Quilting Machine .  This is the one with the computer and all the bells and whistles.  We are starting a small business of computerized machine quilting.  My hubby will be the one doing the quilting.  He has been quilting for quite a while now and has made some quilts, too.  He is an engineer, so the computer part is very exciting for him.  Start up date will probably be January 1, 2013.  We are very excited and hope to get our machine at the Houston show.  We will work with Quilt Mercantile, Celeste as our dealer.  It's very exciting and a little scary all at the same time!!!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

Two Retreats!

What a week I had----full of fun and quilting!  Two retreats in one week.  Monday through Wednesday was spent with the girls from Sit and Sew.  A day off on Thursday to do laundry.  And on Friday off to another retreat with the girls I have met online--the DFW Gang.

The top three pics are from the first retreat and the bottom two from the second retreat.  Both facilities were wonderful.  Create-A-Way near Collinsville and Rayline's Retreat in Springtown.  The second facility had a family of ducks that even came up and tapped on the door for us to come out and feed them---we had a good laugh at them!

It was so much fun laughing and talking to everyone.  What nice ladies go to these retreats.  Now it's back to the mundane, everyday tasks.  Doing lots of laundry to catch up today.  Even though I have to brag, my hubby did laundry while I was gone and *gasp*  he made out the menus for the meals this week AND went grocery shopping for them!  He is a keeper!  After 44 years, he still gets my vote!!!!!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan