Surprise Gifts

While cleaning my office and sewing room today I looked around and noticed how many beautiful surprises I have received over the past couple months. Again, I want to say thank you to all those creative ladies who thought enough of me to share some of their beautiful work. I know I'm not the first to say or think this... but I wonder.... for years I have always made my friends handmade gifts secretly wishing that someone would make me something. A few years ago when I mentioned this thought to one of my best friends she answered "Why would we make you something when you know how to make everything yourself?" I was a bit stunned at her reply and told her that I love the thought, the talent and the creativeness that goes into something someone makes and would so appreciate the feeling behind anything that was ever made just for me. That summer she showed up at my house with one of her first ever quilts as a gift to me for my Birthday...and it's reversible!! She called it "A Study in Women". Missy, I hope you know I love it more than anything and cuddle in it every night when I am sitting here at my computer.

On that note I thought I would take some time to show ya'll some of the wonderful gifts that have come my way recently.

Well my friend Karen thinks she knows me... I think so. She sent me this pretty CQ block that she made depicting things she knows I like. Let's see.... butterflies, the color blue, hearts and lace. If you look closely you can see a heart with a keyboard embroidered in the middle of it (and even a mouse!).... and also a cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream. Funny girl... she even embroidered a bottle of Kahula as she knows when we sit and chat late at night on the internet that I always have my flavo snacko to keep me warm.

Jessica, my blogger mentor/teacher, made this really cool credit card holder for me. I love the fabrics she chose... only thing is she forgot to put the credit card with the unlimited spending $ amount in it! LOL!

Check these chicks out! Thearica knows my love for the color blue and the ocean. She sent me this pretty mermaid pincushion - Awesome! My new friend Rita (I call her my bead lady) made me this beautiful Goddess of Love doll. You would never believe in a million years that the fabric she used was Halloween fabric!

A while ago a got the prettiest surprise in the mail from Kathy. She made me this gorgeous pin cushion using one of the dyed laces that I had sent her. It is so pretty that I am having a hard time even thinking of putting a pin into it!

This beautiful Christmas Tree wall hanging was made by Elaine. When I saw the one she had made for herself I fell in love with it. She knew I would never get around to making mine in time for Christmas so surprised me by making one for me.

Aren't these adorable! My new friend Barbara sent me the sweet angel doll and the pretty heart Valentine.... so sweet - just like her! The Christmas Tree fabric postcard just arrived from Russia! My far-away friend Roolen mailed it two months ago - Santa must have wanted to keep it for himself as it is so beautiful!

What can possibly be said about these pretty babies?!! Knowing how excited I am about becoming Nana Nicki in a matter of months, my multi-talented friend Carolyn painted these adorable little babies for me to use on a project for Deangelo & Evita. Don't they make you want to just squeeze them!

Thank you ladies for sharing your talents with me and making me feel so special. Every stitch is truly appreciated. I'm so happy that you all now have my address LOL!

CQ 6" Mermaid Quilties

"Slow down, you're moving too fast, you gotta make the moment last..." remember that song? It's already closing in on the end of January and I'm wondering where in the world the month went! Seems the busier I get with sewing ,the faster the days fly by.

This past week I have been sick with the flu and like the good Dr. said... bed rest and relaxation will go a long way into making you feel better. Well it worked. I gathered up bins of beads, boxes of threads and laces and camped out in my bed for 3 days. Hubby wasn't feeling too good either so he slept in the guest room while I played in my Crazy Quilt heaven of a sandbox...my bed. Can you say "ouch" I woke up a few times with a bead or needle embedded in my thigh!

The 3 days proved to be productive. First I sewed up a 14x14 foundation of beautiful blue fabrics - used satins, velvets, silks, and some pretty cottons too. Out of the 14x14 block, I ended up making 3 6"mini quilties depicting an underwater scene with mermaids and seahorses and one needlebook. I really love how they turned out....now to make a mini for myself. These three quilties were made for a swap with the girls from Art4Mail , a Yahoo Group I belong to. If you are looking for a lot of different and fun swaps - head on over and join us! Part of the rules to the swap were to decorate the backs a bit in case the girls wanted to use them for an art journal. I hope the girls like them as much as I enjoyed making them.The needlebook was commissioned for a friend in WA. Jackie...it's on the way.

Crazy Quilt Needle Books & New Year Resolutions

WOW! It's already 5 days into the New Year and I'm just getting back to my blog. Seems like the days are just flying by...along with the years. Not sure how many of you have made New Years resolutions (again and again)... I have. I decided that this year I was not going to write down the same old promises that I was going to try and keep... you know.... loose weight, do that "E" word (exercise) and maybe finish up some of my millions of projects. I have decided that this year I was finally going to get off my lazy rear end and do somethings that I've been wanting to do but just never got around to doing . My list is pretty simple this year:

1. Listen to my inner soul when it speaks to me

2.Get back to reading - used to read a book a week and I've missed it

3. Stop being so nervous and open up a store on Etsy

Sounds pretty simple uh... well let's see if I can keep to my promises.

I recently got back into making more needle books. After the Christmas Art Festival I received a lot of requests for the ones that didn't sell and can now proudly say they are all gone and am working on a few more that were ordered. Once these are done I will get started on making some in a couple different styles for my Etsy store. When I finally have at least 12 items, I plan on opening the door to this new adventure.

This needle book was made for my friend Linda. She commissioned me to make her one and also her friend Nancy. Unfortunately, either Santa decided to keep it for himself or it got lost in the never never land of the Post Office as Nancy never received hers. Today I completed a replacement for Nancy and will mail it to her tomorrow - confirmation and insured this time!

I have a few more than I need to finish up and get int he mail and then I can can begin playing with some new styles and even new colors. I have got to start stretching myself and play with more colors than just blue.... just can't help it - love it! This is one that I have been working on little by little - not sure how much more I will CQ on it before I actually sew it into a sewing case. Aren't you proud - I actually threw in some purple!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I wish for all of you a Merry Christmas and lots of peace, love and happiness throughout the Holiday season.

A few weeks ago I posted a CQ Christmas Give-Away. I promised that I would announce the winner tonight... Christmas Eve. The contest was in honor of my son Erik's birthday and everyone was asked to take a guess at the time he was born. For the record, Erik was born on 12/13/70 at......... 10:13 a.m. Our winner was only 9 minutes off with a guess of 10:04 a.m.!

CONGRATULATIONS ......... JESSICASEWS !!!!!

Enjoy and be sure to post some pictures of some pretties you make. Many thanks to all of you who checked in to play and be sure to stay tuned for some new Give-Aways in the New Year.

Just thinking......about a miracle

With winter comes the beauty of a fresh fallen snow and the feeling like a blanket of white soft cotton has covered the earth. Yesterday we had a visitor, a beautiful red cardinal who, with its gorgeous color, just made the snow pop. For some reason, this beautiful red bird reminded me of love... the love of a miracle........

Over the past months I have kept pretty much to posting about my creative side and not much on the personal side. Not that I didn't want to share but I thought I would keep my blog just geared to things I love to make, colors I love and various projects I'm involved with.

Tonight I'd like to share with you a wonderful miracle. As some of you know, my son Jason and his wife Evy are expecting twins next June. I wish more than anything I could be living near them to experience this exciting time they are going through but me being in Massachusetts and they in California makes it a little hard. It's been a long struggle for them but soon they will be blessed with a beautiful little girl and boy. I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am for them and for both sets of grandparents as it is the first time for all of us.

Jason and Evy just sent me the most wonderful gift - a CD of their ultra sound. Modern techonology is just incredible! I got to see my grandbabies for the first time and just sat and cried. I am going to be a Nana! It now is so real. My wish for them is to enjoy the next 6 months and to take in every aspect of this wonderful experience. I know they will both be wonderful parents and look forward to the day when these two beautiful babies call my baby, "daddy". Evy & Jason... dreams do come true.

Just call me "Nana Nicki"

CQ CHRISTMAS GIVE-AWAY

Can you believe it?! Only 11 more days until Christmas! I thought it would be so much fun to play Santa Clause for a day. So.... In honor of Christmas and the spirit of giving, I have come up with my very first Give-Away Contest. I have put together a little bag of Crazy Quilt goodies ... a little bit of this and a little bit of that. From glass beads, charms, gold & copper threads, buttons, polymer clay floral beads, trims, white laces, some extra bling bling and some of my hand dyed laces and silk ribbon to one of my cat food can pincushions. Now I know you are going to ask..."what do I have to do?"

Here's the fun part. My oldest son Erik just turned 38 yesterday (Dec 13th) and since he lives in Maui and I couldn't celebrate with him I thought it would be fun to do something around his birthday. All you have to do is leave a comment on my blog, you need to link my blog to yours and guess what time he was born. Mentioning the Give-Away on your blog would be great too! The winner will be announced on Christmas eve - the person who comes the closest to the time Erik was born, without going over, will be the winner of the goodie bag. Please be sure to check answers left so you do not duplicate another answer as there will only be one winner. If the same answer appears twice, the person who guessed the exact time first will be the winner. Good luck and may the best Crazy lady win.

Needlebooks & Pincushions for Christmas Art Festival

For the past two weeks I have been nonstop 24/7 sewing up a storm for the 32nd Annual Christmas Art Festival. This show has always been great and I really enjoy meeting lots of new vendors and seeing all the wonderful talent that is being created. Yesterday was day 1. Attendance was down quite a bit - guess the economy is keeping everyone home holding on to their wallets. All in all I had a pretty good day but it was very surprising what was selling. Who would have thought I would spend so much time sewing items for the show when my biggest seller were 3 pieces of my mosaics. I was so excited when one of the vendors came over and bought a large mosaic mirror even before the doors opened to the show. I sold a few of them but have a feeling they would have been better off at a Quilt Show.... funny... most people had no idea what a needlebook was.

Now, for my part in "going green" I decided to start saving all the empty cat food cans I was dumping in the trash on a daily basis and make something out of them......... ta da - my cat food can pin cushions. These were a lot of fun to make. Grab some felt, some beads, threads and silk ribbon and a variety of pretty velvets and just let the mind and fingers wander.
I don't know about you but whenever I'm out shopping around and I see something at a great price I always wonder... hmmmm what can I make out of that? Well a couple weeks ago I found some little address books at a great price and decided to see if I could dress them up. I had a couple extra string blocks hanging around so decided to see if I could make a couple of covers for the address books. Topped each one off with some dyed lace and a few beads to dress these babies up. And.... not to let anything go to waste I used the left overs from the string blocks to make little kleenex holders.......... now, can my fingers take a rest for a little bit LOL!

Since I think I might finally have some free time, I will be putting together a little surprise. Stay tuned as within the next week I will be announcing a "Christmas Give Away" of some goodies..... a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

CQ Lace Dinner

For the past couple of days I have been deep in dyes and lace. I think I have just about had my fingers in every color of dye possible. I have been trying to dye up about 600 pieces of lace for a Lace Buy In for the girls on the HGTV Board as well as laces for an upcoming Christmas Art Festival and a few other orders . Most of the HGTV girls are involved in our latest CQ RR so I 'd like to get these in the mail by this weekend. Think if I stop playing around with them so much I might reach that goal. If you are interested in any please contact me at my email address (located in my Profile).

Not only did I dye up lace motifs, I decided to dye up quite a bit of lace trim that I have been collecting over the past years. Good thing my husband Rob is away on a business trip - there certainly isn't any real cooking being done in my kitchen this week. The layout of the lace trims reminded me of some pretty placemats, now that they are all laid out, I think I'll set up the table.

While ironing all the laces I realized I hadn't had a thing to eat in about 14 hours ... my belly was grumbling and I wanted something sweet. As I was ironing I kept thinking how pretty the laces were and then they started to look like yummy desserts. So I got to thinking, why not serve them up for dinner? Anyone up for a full course dinner of nothing but desserts?

Now that I've had my main course which has consisted of a lot of colorful things to munch on, I think I might wash all those sweets down with a nice glass of dyed ribbon.......... now where's the chocolate? LOL!

Crazy Quilt RR - Block #1

I'm getting so excited as the next round in the HGTV Crazy Quilt RR is about to take place. All the blocks are due to be mailed by the 15th of each month and I am ready to receive my next block. We started this RR with about 40 ladies from all across the the US on October 15th when our first block was due to be sent out. My Group is called "The Crazy 1's" and there are 7 blocks being swapped about. My first block to work on was Owen Jules Mommy's. Her block is for her little girl and is to be all dressed up girlie like. Since most girls love pink I thought I would start it off by dyeing up an old doilie and embellishing it with silk ribbons, pretty threads, beads, buttons, charms and a pretty cloisonne butterfly.

CraZy Quilt Lace Dyeing Marathon

WEW! After about 3 days of dyeing laces I'm finally finished. Can you say "I love color?"! I had so much fun dyeing up this big batch of lace - I put on a pot of coffee, set up my table and cranked up the music (good thing hubby was away on a 3 day business trip LOL!) Turned on a little bit of Yanni, some Higher Octave, Deep Forest and then a complete switch to Garth Brooks and Phil Collins- what a mix!

I am currently hosting a CQ Lace Buy In on the HGTV Quilt Board. In a matter of 24 hours I had 30 ladies sign up and was on my way to dividing up laces and picking out what color of dyes I was going use. Group #1 is done and once they are in the mail I will start the process all over again with Group #2. I am addicted... so much so that yesterday while I was at a Quilt Show in New Hampshire I bought another 7 bottles of new dyes.... new colors - just couldn't resist.

The Quilt Show, "A Quilter's Gathering" (20th Anniversary) was held at the Radisson Hotel in Nashua, NH. I have to say it was one of the nicest shows I have ever been too. I could not believe the beautiful quilts on display - there was no way you could pick out a favorite as all of them were gorgeous... I could only dream to make a quilt like any one of them. I do have to admit though, I was completely mesmerized by a Quilt made by Sharon Schamber. Due to the fact that I forgot my camera I don't have pictures to share yet - I had to borrow my friend Elaine's camera and as soon I copy them to disk I will share a few of the beauties my eyes were treated to.