Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! 

I will share a few projects with you after Christmas is over. 

You all know how that goes, keeping secrets and all.

My wish for you is a Christmas season full of family, friends, and cheer. 

May God bless you in the coming year!

Feed the Birds

The view from our kitchen window.

We feed our birds three types of food: black oiled sunflower seeds, niger (thistle) seed, and suet. Left to right above: a suet feeder, two sunflower feeders (one wood, one red metal), and then a mesh sack and two cylinder feeders, the latter three holding thistle seed. 

This set-up brings a nice variety of pretty birds, while at the same time is not attractive to other birds. These "other" birds might be hungry and in need of food but they tend to scare away some of the more skittish birds. Our regulars include four types of woodpeckers, cardinals, purple house finches, goldfinches, juncos, chickadees, white-crowned sparrows, red-breasted nuthatches, mourning doves. . . and these are just our winter birds.

Here's one of our frequent flyers. So fun to watch!

Learn from my fail

A couple ideas for dressing up some glass jars I have around the house.

Pieces of driftwood? Yes.

Rocks? No.

Merry Christmas!

Traditional Damask Red Christmas

Shop Shutterfly for elegant custom Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

Vintage Travel Case

This beauty was on the bottom shelf at Goodwill. A little dusty, but no scuffs or scratches. Either it wasn't used much or it was treated with lots of TLC.

In my imagination, the sophisticated lady who owned this piece of luggage traveled the countryside on exciting adventures. Weekends in the city for the nightlife, or meandering through the countryside for the tranquil scenery and fresh air.

She carefully applied her ruby red lipstick before rushing out the door for cocktails before dinner.

 I hope it is content to spend its golden years in my sewing room, holding some of my supplies!

I am linking this post to Vintage Thingie Thursday. Click on the icon below to see many beautiful vintage items!

Mother Goose Baby Quilt

One of my dear family members is expecting having twins. Can you imagine? So exciting! A girl and a boy. 

For her shower gift, I put together a Mother Goose themed quilt. The center is a panel and I added a red and a yellow border.

I use these nifty plastic clamps, purchased at one of our local home improvement stores. I clamp the edges of my quilt backing fabric, placed right side down, to my table. Then I layer the batting, then the quilt top, right side up.

I pin the layers together with those special curved pins, leaving all the pins open.

A regular spoon works just great to close all the pins. No need for a fancy gadget for this purpose.

One of my favorite parts of the process = trimming the quilt edges. 

That's when it starts looking like a nearly-finished project. 

The binding is actually the outer part of the panel that needed trimming up. 

And the backing is adorable -- sweet little prints of all the Mother Goose characters.

I hope the sweet new babies enjoy looking at the pictures on their quilt!

Click on the link below to visit Sew & Tell Fridays!