Christmas, my favourite time of year!

So I must start off by apologizing for the delay in my posts. After all these years I decided to get another degree, so last year I started taking some online courses towards my Bachelors of Health Sciences degree. As of next week I will be completely done all the three courses I am taking this semester and will only have 1 course left to take in January. Thank goodness!! Unfortunately... or I would prefer to say fortunately, Christmas is coming quickly and so all the wonderful tasks that accompany this festive time of year call my name!

This week I baked 16 dozen whipped shortbread cookies, 6 dozen sugar cookies which I let my kids decorate, 12 dozen double chocolate mint chip cookies, and biscotti all in one day. My kitchen was like a baking factory and I loved it. Of course my husband and kids had to "taste test" every batch that came out of the oven so that they could give me their "stamp of approval" and check, check, check I passed! I also baked some mystery appetizers, they were super good, in fact so good that I had to do a second set cause we ended up eating the first round. 

Shortbread!

I enjoyed watching my two little ones decorate the sugar cookies. Kayleigh, my 6 year old slowly iced each cookie and stratgically placed the decoration on the cookies so that they would look elegant. She is my artsy farts girl. Sydney on the other hand is my three year old that would try and put every single sparkle she had in the bowl all on one cookie till I finally took the cookie away and gave her a new one. They are so fun to bake with. 

 Now that the baking had been started I moved onto decorating my house. I didn't decorate to the extreme this year like I do every other year because of my school work load, had I not had that on my mind our house would have been done from top to bottom. My husband says I am like a Christmas Elf, everything has to be perfectly decorated with lights everywhere. I was lucky to come home one day this week with our yard completely decorated. It is beautiful. One of these years I am going to switch all my lights over to being all one colour on the tree however my husband insists that it be multi coloured. I think it was what he was raised with. He is very much a traditional kind of man. Here is a picture of my tree, its not the best picture, but it gives you an idea.

In our family its a tradition to hand make our stockings, so as our family grew I would make a stocking for our house and one for my mom's. Last year I only had the chance to do up one Sydney so I left it at moms knowing that I was going to make up another for our house. Needless to say the year has flown by and I had yet to do it so, last night I started. Here is a sneak preview. I will show you the completed stocking once completed.

 Now that I have pulled out my Christmas quilts we can snuggle up to the fire with a warm cup of coco and watch some of those Christmas classics we so enjoy. I have to say that the National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is still one of my favourites. My kids love the movie Elf, and my husband all time classic is the old black and white version of scrooge we watch it every Christmas without fail after the kids are asleep.

Here is one last picture I will leave you with. This was my little one sleeping last night, it was so adorable that I couldn't help but snap a photo.

So as I finish this long winded blog I wish you all happy shopping, baking and wrapping! Have a great week!

~Coleen~

Cloth, Paper, Scissors, Fun, Fun, Fun!

I spent the eventing last night fiddling around with some paper crafts. My goal this year is to give a home made gift to everyone that we need to do a gift exchange with. So.... I decided to make christmas ornaments to add to the top of each of my gifts. 

These ornaments are easy to make, and you can use any paper of your choice. All you need is one 3" styrofoam ball, a 12x12 sheet of paper, and a box of pins. 

I have discovered using wingtip needles and a circular sewer. What fun!! I am currently in the process of making a throw for my mom. The front will consist of a variety of large circles that will contain a mishmash of decorative stitches. This is a great way to use those decorative stitches that your machine comes with that most often go unused. The back of the throw will have long lines of decorative stitches that will either go vertical or horizontal. The sky is the limit. Its so fun to be creative. I will post a pic when I am all done. I currently have lots of blocks to make. Here is a sneak peek at what I currently have done so far.

This next year I will be venturing out and challenging myself to discover new quilting items and different ways of bringing quilted fiber art to our lives. 

I challenge you to join me!

Cheers, 

Coleen 

Okanagan Mountains

As winter quickly approaches in the Okanagan so do the clouds. The other day I was coming back from town and the sun was shining so brilliantly in one spot on the lake I couldn't help but stop and take a picture. I loved the texture of the clouds, the misty illusion over the mountain, while up close you see the intense colour of the leaves. I think that this will be my next fiber art piece. 

A fall morning in Peachland, BC all copyrights reserved

Currently I am working on completing my Bachelors of Health Sciences Degree so my sewing time has been cut drastically. I often say to my husband while I am working on my studies... "Do you hear it... my sewing machine is calling my name..." he always gets a kick out of it. I do try however to quilt or do my fiber art for at least 1-2 hours a day. I find its best after the kids are gone to bed. Its always challenging to balance a persons work and hobby life. Last week I sold a large portion of my postcards, cards and fiber art so I am down to a minimal supply, which is why there is not much on my site at this point. I will however have lots of time over Christmas so you will see lots of fabulous things come January.  Currently I am working on a few pieces for some classes I will be teaching come January. I think that the group will be excited, I know I am.

Here's a post card I did up last night. My goal this year was to send out christmas postcards rather than letters to all my friends and family, this way they had a small piece of me coming through the mail. I know that my relatives will keep what I send them for years.

All of my mom's siblings are incredible at art and music. Some of them carve wood, lime stone etc..., while others paint. Several years ago they did a show called 7 sisters and 2 brothers where each of the siblings displayed their art. The show was a huge success. Since my mom has sold paintings which are all around the world. I often ask her if she would ever like to quilt with me and her response is No way... She spent hours sewing barbie clothes for us and to sell when we were small and since then she has not sat at a sewing machine since. Though I cannot fully understand why anyone would not love to quilt, however she is passionate about painting and I am happy for her.

Now I must get back to the books so that I can spend time with my sewing machine tonight!

Take care,
Coleen

Kids

My three year old has fell in love with quilting. The other night I was working on a landscape piece for a commission I had and my daughter wanted to help so I figured I would let her step on the foot peddle for a quick moment. Well....to my suprise she fell in live with it and now I can even get near my machine before she's standing there waiting for me to turn it on. It's so fun to share these special moments with out kids but now I thing I have created a quilting monster. I will have to get her a small kids machine for Christmas. My eldest started to sew when she was 5 so I really shouldn't be suprised.

You know there is something about kids that makes them so precious if only we could keep them little for a while. For example the other day we were driving into town the sky was a brillent blue and the moon was up in broad day light. Of course she pointed out the large moon in the sky. Later that night she said "look mom the real moon is out now." When I asked her what she thought the moon was earlier in he day she said it was only a cloud moon. I had a good laugh.

If you keep watching my posts I will be adding a my favorite things post later this week. Mostly will be my favorite quilting must have items but there are a few other things you might like too!

Sorry there are no pics today by my computer won't upload properly.

Hope you all have a great week!

Christmas Projects

As Christmas quickly approaches I am always exploring new ideas for things to make. Yesterday I happened to stumble across these fabulous ornaments for the tree. I had so much fun making them!  My 6 year old asked me if we could make some for all her teachers as gifts, and if I could let her pick the fabric. Absolutely!! How many teachers will have these kinds of ornaments. Better yet, I think that it would be something that they would enjoy getting, not another #1 teach mug as so many get at this time of year. The best part about these ornaments is that she can help me to make them as its not very complex at all! They whip up quickly and can be made as unique as you would like.

Do any of you have any great ideas you would like to share? I welcome you to post comments or send me an email with your ideas.

Have a wonderful day!
Coleen

Monday November 19th

This week is going to be a crazy week, I have to finish 3 university assignments and complete a few more fiber art pieces for viewing. As Christmas quickly approaches it seems that my list of "I want to do" gets longer and longer, and the time I have to complete that list gets shorter. Did you ever wonder where the time goes?? Why do we wait for the last minute to get things done? My goal this year was for everyone to receive an original piece by me.... I have a few more pieces to go. 

I will share some of my work later today. For some funny reason I cannot get my camera to quit producing a funny shadow at the bottom of my images. I think I need to read the DSLR for idiots, maybe then I would have a bit more success. 

Here is a piece I did earlier this year. Later today I will upload a few of my recent pieces. 

Have a great day!

Happy sewing. 
Coleen