Espritpatch

I haven't posted for a while because we have been rather busy. Santa came - with lots of presents -  and went and we had a lovely day at home, with loads to do! I was unwell for most of the day so spent it in bed but we went out in the evening because Baby had decided it was time to make an entrance in the world. So on Christmas evening, our beautiful darling daughter was born for the joy of the all family. We were lucky to be able to come home the same night so she met her brother in the middle of the night when she got home and her sister the following morning. We have all been adjusting to life with a new baby since and of course, I gave the Boxing Day Sew In Challenge a miss - there was so much better for me to do this year! I guess I might be less present on blogland in the near future but I wish you all the very best for 2012! Celine

I hope you are all in the mood by now. I doubt we'll have a white Christmas this year but we'll be together with close family only - because of my own travel restriction - to celebrate the day. The little eyes will be mesmerised tomorrow morning when they discover the tree and the wrapping paper will be ripped off and flying away quickly. The magical Christmas mood will be with us through the kiddies eyes for sure, and will help to compensate for those we can't be with at this very special time of year. I wish you all a very magical Christmas and a happy day! Until next time, Celine

Have you seen this Boxing Day Sew-In organised by Sandy on her blog . You can play along from midnight until midnight (US time), it starts at 5 am for me in the UK. There will be giveaways and challenges on the blog as well. So you can choose either to go shopping or to go sewing. I am sure I won't be able to go shopping so maybe I'll squeeze some sewing, that should be fun! Who knows? Celine

I finished sewing the binding on my Macintosh Rose wall-hanging yesterday evening so it is now finished and ready to be given to my Mum for Christmas. It won't be a surprise to her because it has taken me so long doing it that she has seen it in progress. Never mind, I know she likes it! I started piecing the top in February 2010 (!) and left it until last January when I added the black bias binding and then it waited until earlier this month to be picked up again and finally finished. And it is the 24th at midnight yet, what a performance for me to finish things "almost early". It will go on her stairs wall to compliment the first one I made her about 5 years ago after her trip to Scotland.  Both wall-hanging have been made using the same focus fabric that I hand-dyed in the summer in 2006. I have all the colour wheel and have only use a few pieces for these 2 wall-hanging to date as I was too scared to cut through them! Maybe I'll use some for the Colour Challen...

Thank you for all of you who have taken the time to leave a comment and entered the giveaway from the Quilting Gallery blog hop and thanks as well to those who have decided that they would follow me and my next ventures. I hope I'll keep you entertained! Now let's share with you the news you have been waiting for I am sure! the giveaway winner is #53 as you can see below When I checked back the comments, #53 was Peggy who said: I have emailed Peggy asking her for her snail mail address to send her her prize. This week-end I managed to finish stitching my block #5 of the Life is Beautiful quilt. I am keeping my "one a month" target at the moment, which is great even it is a slow progress as it means it is moving along. I have now stitched all the blocks I had prepared in the summer though so I'd better prepare a couple more that I'll have ready when Baby has arrived, in case I had some free time :-D I also need to pick up the Birdie Stitches BOM again as I...

Yesterday was (this time) the last Friday night Sew in of the year and although I fully intended to participate and get things down, it wasn't until nearly 10pm that I actually sat down and got my fabric and stuff out. But I was determined to at least make a start on the project I had decided to work on last night. So it was a Sew-In with no thread or needle for me (didn't manage to get that far) but I managed to make a start on the Mug Rug I wanted to make. These will be Christmas gifts for my Aunties and Uncle. I bought them a lovely jar of Hot Chocolate and thought it would be a nice idea to wrap the jar with mug rugs. I designed the pattern yesterday, selected the fabrics I wanted to use out of my scrap baskets and bounded the fabric to the background before going to bed. And this were I got to (sorry the pictures are pretty poor quality with the lack of light) I haven't had a chance to continue yet today as we have been out for a great part of the day getting last-...

We had our first dust of snow this morning, last day of school. Sadly, it was all melted by lunch time but at least it was pretty this morning. Last week-end, our tree went up ... before the skirt was ready but I am proud to say that the skirt is now done, I did the last stitch on the binding last night. I made my skirt using blocks I made and received from the Christmas Scrappy Block Swap  I took part in in August 2009! I know that was a looooong time ago... You can read more about the swap  here and here and there . My blocks have been patiently waiting to be used since then. I only got them out about a week or two ago and decided that this was the year I was going to get them into a quilt, they were not going to wait yet another year until next Christmas  so I pieced my tree skirt,  quilted it and finished it with the binding - one stitch at a time - over the last week or so, to finally be able to show you a finished tree skirt tha...