Babies and Give-A-Ways! We have a new addition to our family. Please meet my greatniece, Miss Jaidyn Alyssa. She was born December 12th. Weighs 7 lbs, 11 oz and is 20 1/2-inches long. And is perfect of course! These pictures are all of her at 1-2 hours old with my sister, her nana. This is her first grandchild and my parents first great-grandchild. The mommy Hillary had a bit of a hard time. Jaidyn was happy where she was at and didnt think she wanted to come out to play with us. Silly girl! LOL I said last night her nickname should be Diva because it was like the paparazzi was there with all the photographs being taken!

And you still have time to sign up for the Give-A-Way! I meant to draw a name last night, but was busy becoming a greataunt thank you very much! So....that gives you one more night to comment and receive your chance. I will definitely draw a name tomorrow and post the prize.

Christmas Give-A-Way and holiday pictures.

All comments, now through Wednesday the 12th will be eligible for my Christmas drawing! You may post once each day. What am I sharing....well this and that. And maybe even just a tad of other. LOL If I have over 25 names, I will draw 2.

And here are pictures of a bit of my Christmas cheer. The nativity is my most prized Christmas possession. My mom gave it to me a few years back and it is sat out on Thanksgiving night. It was my honor as a kiddo to set it out at home. And she knew how much I loved it. I painted the old book page in the frame behind it. The wallhanging is one of the first I ever made. I was so proud of it! LOL Now...not so proud! LOLOL

Michelle stitched and punchneedled this for me. I love it. Her first punchneedle project too I think.

Daddy carved this wooden angel.

This is a counter in my kitchen we do not use. It is a hodge podge of red/white granite ware, old utensils and jars, bears and baskets. The gingerbread men are there year round. I painted the snowmen faces on the muffin tin. I rusted the tin a bit by washing it in vinegar water. Then took it outside and sprinkled salt on the wet tin. A couple of days and we had rust. Flipped it over and repeated the water/salt on the other side.

Happy Sunday everyone.

Here we are. See me waving at you? LOL Lots going on at home. Heather had her second surgery on the 28th from her injury in June. Very intensive therapy for several weeks to come. They cleaned up scar tissue to try to release the tendons and ligaments. She had to start therapy the day after the surgery! About an 8-inch incision all total.

All the sitting and waiting gave me tons of crocheting time. Made me feel a bit guilty to be using my hands to much in a hand surgery center, but hey! I have had my share of surgeries there, so can be the poster child for recovery I decided. And no way could I just sit for hours all alone and wait.

FYI-After I posted and was looking it over, I noticed the flower looked really offcenter. It isnt, I measured it to double check. LOL Just the way it squished in the scanner I guess.
Here is a pic of the small clutch I crochet/felted. It started out 10 x 8-inches and shrank to 8 x 6-inches. These are addictive to make. Mindless. My new "doily therapy". LOL Cause I have gifted out all the doilies anyone is ever going to need. I also started another smallish tote like the blue one, this version is in red. Ran out of yarn at the handle! But the order should be in soon. It is a bit rustish in color. I wanted RED red. Hmmm? Am wondering if it will darken a bit in the felting. Does anyone else do this? If so, do you add the baking soda to the water? What does it really do??? I havent done it without it, but curious.

I was gifted with this book today. I LOVE it and highly recommend it. A great hardcover book filled with blocks and ideas on what to do with them. Applique, patch and paper (foundation) piecing.

We were at 14 degrees at 5:30am. Brrrrrr! Stay warm everyone.

Blech on no reply comment settings. It makes me sad when I send a heartfelt reply and get it back. So come on girls...change that setting so we can write ya back. Makes me feel rude not to reply to nice comments or to answer questions. So plezzzzzz make nice with me :o)

Since I have been so picture poor on the blog lately, I thought to share this one. This is a 6ft shelf in my playhouse. It hangs above my sewing table and is filled with favorite things and tools of the trade.

I need to go close up all the blinds, it is definitely winter now. Last night it was down to 23 degrees!

So did we all survive Thanksgiving? We had an unusual one. The first time I have not had dinner with my family on The Day. For many reasons, we celebrated with my family on Saturday. Which was nice, just wierd not to have our routine. We spend the lunch meal with my inlaws and then supper at Debbie's. This year it was lunch then home for a huge rest! LOL Time well spent for sure. Then Saturday evening a wonderful meal at Deb's. She always outdoes herself. We pitch in some, but she does the brunt of it all. It is "her" holiday. LOL I like the fact that the tables go together and we all eat together. At my house, it is every man for themselves. Six at the table and the rest scattered. Course this also means that no one notices too much any trips for seconds and thirds....

Here is a photograph, well 2 actually I put together, of my felted tote bag.

Can you say WOW on how much it shrank? It started out 18" wide and ended up 12". I didnt measure the strap length. I love it! The texture came out just as I wanted it to. Nice and thick! There is a large pocket inside. The tote was done entirely in half double crochet with a H hook. One row of single crochet along the top edge. I like that the handles are felted into the bag. They will not come off! It becomes one piece of wool. Now I am working on a red bag. Well it was called firecracker, but is more rusty red. :o( I am hoping in the felting it will darken a bit. The blue tote is not as bright as it photographed. The felting process I used was simple. Hot wash/cold rinse, full cycle, 2 tablespoons of baking soda in wash water and added in a pair of jeans. Put it in the dryer until the squish was out of it. Laid it flat to complete drying. But another WOW on it stinking!! Like a nasty dirty ole wet dog. Well in this case, sheep. Until it was totallllllly dry, it smelt. I ended up leaving it outside a couple of days in the sun with dryer fabric sheets inside it. It was really bad! Now it is fine. Thank goodness!

This is a crazy week for us. Heather has her second hand surgery on Wednesday. Then the next 2 days of very intensive therapy. We will be staying in Indianapolis thru Friday evening. This is a very needful surgery to clean up scar tissue and release tendons and ligiments. But I hate for her to go through all this. Her incision they said will be about 8-9 inches long. Please pray for her. They have to start the therapy the next day to stop the scar tissue from reoccurring. It is going to be extremely painful for her. I know she is strong and can do it. She has proved that already. :o)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Go HERE for a great holiday link. No not silly like the other one. LOL But tons of recipes and great homeschool ideas too.

We are still on baby alert! Please say prayers for the mommy to be.

Go HERE for some hilarious photo fun! I mean this is the best! LOL

FYI-I have a ton of stuff posted on eBay. 32 listings right now with several ending tomorrow. Go HERE to see our auctions. Thanks for looking. And I think winter is here. I added the extra blanket to the bed today when I changed sheets.

We are still on baby alert too!

Christmas gift ideas to give and receive...

Look at more awesome jewelry pieces HERE!

These are the finished pincushions I just added to my website. All 100% wool and filled with crushed walnut shells. Each comes in its own metal pan.
I saw this book and thought it looked fun. You can read about it HERE. Quilts and pincushions!

Still trying to get over our Oprah trip. Had a dr run this morning to get a shot for my head. No not a shot TO my head. I asked, he won't do that. LOL Grocery shopping finished me off. I thought. Came home and saw the dirty floors and just had to do something about them. THEN I was done. Long nap and now up for a bit to catch up on emails and such. No baby yet!

Happy Sunday everyone.

What a great time. Go HERE to see what we saw at Oprah. Well part of what we saw. The behind the scenes is alot of fun. That is when funny things are said and alot of joking happens. Oprah is gorgeous! I knew she was, but in person...she really is. It was cool to see Marie do one of her Dancing With the Stars routine with her partner Jonathan. Marie is so tiny. Much much more so than on tv. We had wonderful sunshine driving up. No major issues finding the hotel. Something we did that I was waffling on and Deb was smart enough for both us, was taking a cab downtown to Harpo Studios. We left at 5:45am and it took about 45 minutes to go 13 miles! And this is with our cabby knowing all the ways around highway construction and traffic jams. The stress would have not been a happy way to start the day and that is IF we had even found our way. It was such a great trip and time spent with my sister Debbie.

We are on Baby Alert with Hillary, Debbie's dd. They kept her last night until this afternoon and sent her home. Anytime now though. Please help us pray for an easy delivery for her. First baby and first grandbaby and first GREAT grandbaby.

I posted a few finished goodies on my website. Take a looky if you like Raggedies and pincushions please.

Oprah here we come!! Yep. We got 2 audience tickets! So we are Chicago bound today. They do not allow any form of electronics, so no pics BUT I will have lots to talk about I am sure. I am, shoot this is OPRAH~! She is an incrediable woman.

I love this book. Debbie got it for me as a present this year. You can go HERE to check it out. Sweet sweet quilts.

Same wall, different corner. LOL Scooted the chair out from the table to take the picture. We have a long farm style table. I love it. It has drawers on each end where we keep the placemats and napkins. The dollhouse is my happy place to go. LOL Mr. Brown the bear has been around here a long time. The Longaberger basker holds all my "sacred cow" issues of the no longer, Miniature Quilt magazine. I loved that magazine!

The chair was being thrown away after my granparent's estate sale and someone snagged it for me. It hung in my shop for years, then my playhouse and now in the house. The quilt is another quilt of love made for me by online quilting friends. The black doll's story is she was made on my trip to Michelle's in Victoria BC. We each made one. Her face is there. Just doesnt show up well in the dark corner. I made Miss Scary Hands. Shayla calls her that. LOL Heather did the turning and stuffing. I think we made 3 of them. She said no more! Hated the stuffing of the toes and fingers. Oops about missed one! And Michelle made me the sheepie for Easter a couple years ago.

It is gorgeous here! The sun has shown all week and the temps are perfect for autumn. I have a couple windows up and am loving it!