Oh, Tannenbaum

The Christmas season has began. We finally got our tree decorated Thursday night, it only sat out without ornaments for a week until we had time to finish it. Lee and I are both at the end of fall semester and very busy finishing papers, projects and studying for finals.

Today we had our first winter snow. Penny has been enjoying it, the malamute in her really comes through when snow is on the ground!

I wanted to share with you my office/quilt room tree. We have two little table top trees that we decorate in our house, one has a popcorn string and ribbon with a few little ornaments, the other I changed up this year. I dug through my scrap bin (I save everything) and tied little pieces of fabric onto the tree. It turned out pretty cute, colorful and was very resourceful. I finished it up with a little tinsel and placed it next to my quilting table. What do you think?

 

My husband loves this time of year. For me it is the runner up to fall. But there definitely is a magically feeling in the air during a peaceful snowfall like today. Happy Holidays!

Pieced Back Together

It has been a very LONG week in my house. Everything has seemed to be done in pieces as I try to find time to get it all done, cleaning, studying, writing, teaching, meetings, dinner with friends. I had very little time to be creative this week. After returning from class tonight I came home to this:

 

I thought since I didn't really have much to blog about I would share what I worked on over the weekend, which goes along with this photo. These are my husbands art pieces from his most recent class, luckily the class is over and he really didn't want to keep them. Now I wouldn't say my dog is naughty, although my parents and in-laws would most likely disagree. She doesn't tear things up often, unless you count my note cards and other paper left on our near the couch. :)
When Penny was adopted two years ago, she was 12 weeks old and kept in a large kennel in our office to keep her, and our furniture, safe. When she reached 2 years we decided to put the kennel away and give her free reign of the house, and she has done great....with a few exceptions.  She loves paper....and my quilts.
I love to drape a quilt over the couch, and occasionally they will slip and she will chew pieces out of the quilt...

So this weekend I decided to fix these quilts with a few patches.  I had to get a little creative, but I really like the way they turned out. I used Heat n' Bond iron on adhesive and scraps from my scrap bins. The adhesive worked well to keep the pieces in place as I lined the patches up on each side and it held them in place as I stitched them on with some fun stitches on the sewing machine that I never get to use.

For the Star Wars quilt, I had to sew 5 patches! For this one I used a piece of the sheet I had left over to match the fabric on this side, and the Star Wars logo on the other. It turned out really well and looks great on the pieced side as you can see from this photo I took with the culprit:

My first quilted quilt, the Frolic Quilt, wasn't really my favorite before, but I think the patch adds character to the quilt and I actually like it now! I was afraid that the iron on adhesive would make the patches really stiff, but they softened up pretty good in the wash and I expect them to soften up a bit more as they get used.

I am most upset about the one I made for my husband. It was my favorite quilt that we have kept and the patches just don't look great to me.

Oh well, I now have three patched and folded quilts...and have learned not to leave the quilts draped over the couch anymore. Honestly, Penny really is a good dog! We just have been so busy with work and classes lately, she gets lost in the mix. It sure is a good thing we don't have kids right now! Guess I should take her for a walk before getting some much needed rest, finally spring break is here!