Machine Quilting and Christmas

I started quilting a HUGE and I mean HUGE quilt before Christmas for a friend of a friend's sister.  It was much bigger than I anticipated, like a king size batting needed a couple inches pieced on one end!  Yikes!  It was tough to push through my Pfaff Grand Quilter, but I did it without any puckers on the back thankfully!  I pin basted it well, stretched over banquet tables.  Here is a photo of the quilt being quilted.  Pay attention to the background, it will be mentioned in a bit!  I quilted a lot of stars in it, but did thread work in the center panel.  I finished it yesterday and my husband is going to deliver it to the friend today.

center panel

spread out on my daughter's queen size bed.  

I have a 460 square foot basement quilt room, it's not all showing in these pics., but this is PART of what I am dealing with.  It's driving me NUTS!!!!  If you look at the picture above and one to the right you can see my TV is now mounted on the wall.  I only waited two years, but DH got it done this week.  I have another week of vacation from school so I am going to dig in and purge, rearrange, etc.  I have WAY, WAY, WAY too many books and magazines.  I have purged magazines many times and I am only getting one subscription now.  Basically I have a HUGE mess.    I wish I had cupboards to hide everything in, but that is not in the budget or time table.  I have a lot invested in plastic!

I went to Costco yesterday and bought 2 sets of these project bins.  Such a deal on price, only $19.99 for 5.  I already have a couple sets and I'm hoping it will help me me able to grab a project to work on.  This year's colors are so much prettier than my previous ones!  Costco is an hour away in a different state, but Clarkston, WA is where I do a lot of shopping!  Oh, I bought food when I was there too....

I will do a year's end wrap up post later today.  I had a goal of finishing 50 projects, not sure if I made that!  I will have to look at my blog and pics!

Now pics from Christmas!  We traveled to Boise and stayed with my oldest daughter,but spent Christmas Eve at my younger daughter's house.  Christmas dinner with all of us was at my sister's, so it was quite the family trip!  The roads were pretty good until we were close to home on the return trip.  It's a twisty drive to get to the southern part of the state up and down out of river canyons.

We bought Nicole a set of twin baby dolls and a double jogging stroller.  She named the twins Finn and Remy after her twin cousins!  She is a girly girl for sure and loved this gift!

We bought Jared a remote control Kubota tractor.  He LOVED driving our Kubota this summer. 

Jared (6) and Nicole (3) with their cousins Remy and Finn!  Remy and Finn were 5 1/2 weeks old in the pic.

We didn't know Jared paid attention to clothes until a couple years ago when he insisted on having Grandpa shirts.  Plaid flannel!  Lisa found a plaid onesie for Finn so here is a pic of Doug and his grandsons in Grandpa shirts!

 Nicole dresses herself....

 Remy and Finn the day after Christmas.