Moose blanket

This blanket was a gift for my dad...one of my special style that wrap around with neck flaps and a foot pocket. Great for cold nights and keeping cozy. Hope you like it dad. One of my favorite print combinations.

New duvet cover

For my birthday this year my sis-in-law gave me a great present...fabric to make a cover for our Down comfortor. Well, we got to go and look together for the perferct fabric. It was lots of fun. We picked some good fabric and I took it home. Because of Christmas and all the busyness of the holidays, I never got to finish the cover. Further complicating things was the fact that one of the fabrics we found did not actually fit in the room when I got it home. The great thing is that no fabric ever goes to waste...I already have plans for a quilt that will have that fabric for backing. But it left me in a quandery about what to do for my cover. Well thanks to a gift certificate Christmas gift from my mom, I was able to get the fabric to finish this cover. So MaryAnn and mom, I guess you never thought that you would be giving a joint birthday/Christmas gift, but here is the result. Thanks so much, because we really love the new cover and it looks great in the room.

Detail of stripe Ties off at the bottom with two ties to keep the comfortor in.
The back side has two different prints in cream with the same paisly theme. They were a great find to finish off the back. I also have lots of fabric left to make cushion covers out. I plan to use covers to put over my Christmas cushions so I can keep them out year round.

More art

THis is more art we bought at our art show. Just wanted others to get to see it...The pictures do not do them justice.

The large one is a beautiful scene of a waterfall. The light causes the highlights to really stand out.

THe two other ones are done by an artist who lives in Sevierville TN. THey look great in our bathroom.

kitchen table

Just some pictures of our new table cloth. I really like the way it turned out in the kitchen. Plus it goes with our new art. I got the napkin rings to make the kitchen more festive...thanks to the encouragement of my sister-in-law. :)

The finished quilt top!

OK, so here are some shots of the finished top to the quilt. BAsically, stage one is complete.
I had some difficulty with the edge pieces, as I had accidently cut them wrong. You have to always be thinking when it comes to quilts!!

I am now trying to decide what to use as a backing. I have a large cream colored sheet that matches the stripe in the blue fabric. But I am not loving the combination. It matches yes, but does not speak to me, if you know what I mean. A nice light green that matches some of the other details would be ideal, but this will be an added expense. If I find a good deal at JoAnn's next week when I go, I will consider it. Otherwise, it is the old sheet. I hate to pair something that is only "SO-So" with something that took so much time and effort. So maybe I will wait and save up for a nice matching back.

The other debate is whether to get a backing and an internal batting to make it warm, or to use a fleece back which saves a step. I have made some nice quilts with the fleece backing--they are warm and soft. But I think I may go with the regular backing.

Also, I know a lady who does machine quilting and binding of the edges. I have never tried this method of finishing a quilt, but would like to. Maybe this is my chance. It would cost, but I'd like to see it finished this way.

Anyway, hope you like the top of this one. It took some time, but was worth the effort. Now for the hard part of finishing it! :)

Art spot

Honest opinions? what do you think of the fox. I am not done with the details. It is my impressioninstic attempt to capture the feeling we got when we kept seeing this one little fox near our house. He was so cute, and we would see him after our workout session most nights. That is until one day when Ashok saw that he had been hit by a car. It was very sad.

The lighthouse is not my work. It is a picture we bought from our friend who does the art show. It is currently on display in my art room, but will soon be a Christmas gift for my boss...the symbol for our company is a lighthouse, so it really fits.

Finally, my messy art space. Mom, I thought that maybe when you are in Altoona you could show it to Grandmom so she could see my painting zone. Note her art box on the side.

I did not have any pictures of the kitchen before our remodeling began, but I thought you may be interested in seeing what we did. The after photos are below. We love how it turned out. The only thing we still need to work on is sealing the sink into place.
We re-did the counters, backspash, and knobs and handles.