2010 was the third year that I took a photo (almost) every day.  I'm missing 2 or 3 over the course of three years - not bad!  One of the reasons that I continue to do this every year is that I love looking back and having memories of our every day life, of the little moments that make up our days.  This year, I decided I'd compile the least memorable, but still recorded moments of the past year month by month.

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Most of these are every day life types of scenes - things that don't mean much to anyone other than me.  I find it interesting that I glazed over a big construction project...I wonder what that says about me.  Hmmm...

Wishing you all a Happy New Year.  Here's to a wonderful 2011 full of many memorable events and ordinary moments, too.  Cheers!

I bought myself a spectrum stack of Liberty prints from Purl for Christmas. I'd wanted it for a long time, hemmed and hawed and then added it to my Christmas list at the last minute.  Fatty emailed me and said, "Buy it." So I did.  It's made up of 52 fat eighths (each approximately 9" x 26") and was a total splurge.  This morning I started out cutting them into 4" squares - I can get 12 from each print.  The plan is a king-sized quilt for Fatty and I during the summer months.  This pile won't yield quite enough squares, but I plan on supplementing with a solid white cotton lawn and a few more Liberty prints from my stash.  I want to hand quilt this and so I am starting now, hoping that by the end of May, I'll be sleeping under it.

One thing I love about this stack is that there are many prints in it that I probably wouldn't have bought individually, but are going to be great in this big Liberty mish-mash of a quilt.  This one, though, I love. I've never seen it before and its subtle blues and greens in that large scale print are stunning.  I'm sure I'll find more treasures like this as I make my way down the pile.  I spent an hour and a half cutting and I only managed to make it about a third of the way.

This is definitely a long-term project.

I bought myself a spectrum stack of Liberty prints from Purl for Christmas. I'd wanted it for a long time, hemmed and hawed and then added it to my Christmas list at the last minute.  Fatty emailed me and said, "Buy it." So I did.  It's made up of 52 fat eighths (each approximately 9" x 26") and was a total splurge.  This morning I started out cutting them into 4" squares - I can get 12 from each print.  The plan is a king-sized quilt for Fatty and I during the summer months.  This pile won't yield quite enough squares, but I plan on supplementing with a solid white cotton lawn and a few more Liberty prints from my stash.  I want to hand quilt this and so I am starting now, hoping that by the end of May, I'll be sleeping under it.

One thing I love about this stack is that there are many prints in it that I probably wouldn't have bought individually, but are going to be great in this big Liberty mish-mash of a quilt.  This one, though, I love. I've never seen it before and its subtle blues and greens in that large scale print are stunning.  I'm sure I'll find more treasures like this as I make my way down the pile.  I spent an hour and a half cutting and I only managed to make it about a third of the way.

This is definitely a long-term project.

The one handmade gift I gave this year was a quilt for my newest nephew, Liam.  I used Denyse Schmidt's Proverbial Quilt for the letters and the instructions for her Sleep quilt pattern in the International Quilt Fest: Quilt Scene magazine.  I wanted a subtle palette of blues and grays for the letters with a mix of pattern - I used mostly scraps.  The back is Four Square in New Day from Denyse's Hope Valley line and the binding is a gray solid I had in my stash, probably a Kona cotton if I had to guess.  Because the letters in the pattern do not have seam allowances, I traced them onto freezer paper and ironed that to my fabrics.  With the quilting ruler as my guide, it was very easy and fast to add the seam allowances at the same time I cut out the letters.  I will definitely take this approach when I make it again, especially with a limited number of letters to cut.

I used off-white thread to quilt it.  I didn't mark any lines - just started sewing straight-ish lines at random intervals being careful not to cross them.  I wanted a grid-like look without uniformity if that makes sense.  I'm really happy with how it all came together and will definitely be making this simplified version of the proverbial quilt again.

If you haven't seen Melissa's quilt from this pattern, go look now.  Awesome.  So so very awesome.

I'm am really excited for Christmas!  Like over-the-top, giddy, excited.

It's awesome.  And silly.  But mostly awesome.

So, really the anticipation around these parts is at an all time high and I'm looking forward to spending the next few days hanging out with the people I love best.  I'm especially excited that Christmas day we are staying home  - we have planned some yummy meals and the thought of eating too much and staying in my p.j.'s for over 24 hours is really appealing!

If you are celebrating Christmas, I hope you have a magical holiday full of warmth, happiness and maybe a surprise or two.  I'm looking forward to starting the New Year in high spirits and I can't wait to see where it will take me.  I hope you'll join me for the ride.  It wouldn't be the same without all of you.

Cheers to you!  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I like making small food gifts at this time of the year.  Last year, I was all about the popcorn - Jennie's maple version and Molly's caramel and peanut stuff. Yum.  This year I opted for gingerbread for friends and neighbors.  I used Jen's recipe and it is super easy and super delicious.  I made the labels in Illustrator and then used one of the Reprodepot designs on card stock as a band.

Fatty and I also exchange culinary gifts with my family.  I put up pickles this summer and saved a jar for each of my brothers and my parents.  Amisha's packaging was my inspiration for those jar lids, although hers are much better looking.  Fatty read about Giada's orangecello in the newspaper and decided that he was going to make that.  He did - yum.  I can't find a link, but it's similar to limoncello, just with oranges instead.  I also made some brioche because really, a jar of pickles isn't that difficult.  I used the recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.  It looks delicious (no photos, though) - I'll report back after we taste it.

Do you cook or bake or make food gifts?  What consumables are you giving this year?

You still have time to make a small gift or two.  Really.  I know this because I sat down at the sewing machine yesterday with the bag of scraps at my feet and pieced together this little number in about an hour.  I picked two scraps off the top of the pile and just started adding others in the same color family. I was planning on staying with the blues/greens/golds until I accidentally grabbed a tiny pink-ish scrap.  It was the happy accident that this needed so I added two more pink bits and that ribbon loop for hanging.  Two layers of batting (one insulated, one not), a back and a little quilting - good to go.

I love how freeing improvisational patchwork is.  You just grab fabrics and start sewing.  I need to remind myself of this to battle my tendency to over-think.  I'd like to be less restrained with fabric and design in 2011.

See. Life isn't always so calm.

We had a super busy weekend - a two day swim meet and piano recital plus our company holiday party. Can you say tired? Actually, that doesn't quite cover it. Exhausted is more like it. Sunday night I went to bed at 7:45 p.m. and didn't get up until 6:30 Monday morning. Just shy of 11 hours. Crazy, huh?

Monday was a snow day for the kids.  A pathetic - we had one inch of snow - day.  Considering our weekend, it was nice to have little on the agenda, but it is the last week that the kids are in school before the holiday break.  Losing a day kind of pinched my schedule.  I didn't get to quilting the one handmade gift yesterday.  I did manage to finish the quilting today, but everything shifted a day down the week and tomorrow the stuff on the agenda can't shift.  I found myself agitated and yelling at the kids.  Fatty saw it too - told me I didn't seem myself.  I hate this.

And then I uploaded my photos from the last two days and I saw calm in them.

I made a list, put my laundry away, went through the mail and neatened up the girls' rooms.  Then I walked the dog and celebrated Tuesday with Fatty and a bottle of champagne.  And then came to the understanding that I won't make any other progress on the gift wrapping and card addressing and quilt binding until Thursday.

I'm going to be ok with that.  I've made it 14 days into December without feeling a moment of this stress and that, my friends, is an incredible achievement for me.  So, yes.  I'm ok with a bit a stress because tomorrow the calm returns.  Until then, take care.

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There are still a handful of camera straps available in my shop.  Orders must be placed by Monday, December 20th in order to arrive by Christmas in the U.S.  You can get 15% off by using the code CALM when you check out.