New Etsy items

No, the birds aren't on my Etsy, but I just had to share my favorite bird photo out of the hundreds I shot at my sister's house over Christmas. The bird eating is a tufted titmouse and one of the male cardinals is coming in for lunch:

I finally got my small rag journals listed in my Etsy shop thanks to a book I won a couple of weeks ago over on Ricë's blog: "Crafty Superstar" by Grace Dobush. In the book she shows how to make a light box for taking photos inside and since we have a dearth of sunshine nowadays, I have been slacking off on taking pics of my creations. But now I have that little issue licked! Thanks Ricë and Grace.

Here are the Small Rag Journals I am selling:

Present Presentation

I spent most of the past week baking cookies and working on little art quilts. Our friends are coming over this evening for early Christmas celebration. I bought a couple of large clear glass plates, lined them with a fabric napkin I made, piled them with cookies, then wrapped them in red organza. Tied to the ribbon is one of the ornaments I made (see previous post). The Chex Mix and white chocolate popcorn in the glass jars have homemade labels I created from canvas, leftover napkin fabric, and an embossed image. The labels are tied to the jars with ribbon. The cards are also hand made from leftover ornament fabric. Hope they like them!

Thursday we will be heading up to central NY to spend Christmas with my mother, my sister and her family. I will try to post the basket I made for one of the cookie presentations if I remember before I leave. The basket was a pain in the patoot to make, but actually came out pretty good! Off to heat up the lasagna.......

Recent Projects

As usual I have been busy creating, creating, creating. Some of my items will remain a secret until they are given to the recipients at Christmas, but here are some I can show you. I posted on Facebook that I was going cross-eyed from blanket stitching ornaments. Well, the first set of 4 are almost finished, just needing to be stuffed and quilted a bit for more dimension. I started a second set after seeing how well the first ones are turning out. I knew they would be time intensive so I didn't want to get in too deep with more than one set at a time. I would hate to have wasted time and more materials if they just weren't working out! These ornaments will be part of other presents I will be giving away so I am choosing to show the incomplete set so it's still partially a surprise. So far these are fused and basted and need to be blanket stitched and embroidered:

I made another small rag journal. The more of these I make the more I like them. I put some really cool beads and charms on the spine to add some glitz:

I have joined my mother's quilt guild in central NY and needless to say I won't be attending many monthly meetings, but I do want to learn to quilt better so I can contribute when needed. I'm not much into the traditional patchwork quilts, but figured I should at least know how to piece them for background knowledge. My main quilting goal is to create original art quilts, but for now I need to learn the basics. I've pieced 4 basic blocks with not rhyme or reason to the color schemes, just used whatever was handy and had enough of for each block. They are all basted to the batting and backing and I finished hand quilting the Whirling Geese block. The plan is to finish blocks, bind them individually as blocks and then make a block sampler book out of them. The blocks are different sizes which will definitely be cool when I make them into the book. Too much uniformity puts me to sleep! This is the Whirling Geese made from black, red, and white; hand quilted with white thread:

The pattern I downloaded from McCall's calls this block Hole in the Barn Door, but I have seen it called other names. For this block I used some of my Moda stash (yes, Cin, from the yard sale!):

I love this one ~ Card trick. All but the blue/purple fabric are again from the yard sale Moda stash:

Stay tuned for some really good news in my little art world here at Faerie Acres!

OMG! This is freaking hilarious!

Since I'm blog deficient and don't feel like figuring out how to actually put the video in my post, go here to watch the Patty Cake playing cats (thanks Ricë!). Both Dave and I had tears running down our faces and he made me play it again.

Real Snow!

Now for some "real" snow! I've been watching the progressive snowfall today and loving it. Of course, I don't have to go out in it if I don't want to.......... It's a nice day to stay inside and finish some projects. I've been working up some quilt square samples, have to create the last of the swaps for my yahoo group, and write some for a new article I'll talk about later. For now, the snow:

Carla Sonheim Journal and Snow in the Mountains

Since my mother doesn't read my blog I feel safe in showing progress on her Christmas present. I have signed up for Carla Sonheim's journal and purse class which I have envied since I saw it presented at Joggles. She has offered the class on her blog so I jumped at the chance to take this online class from her. Carla offered her drawings to use as a focal point for the cover of the journal, but instead I enlarged the Matroiska pattern I had used for my mother's needle case (see earlier post) and appliqued it for the cover. So far we have created the outside and inside cover with fabric and lace and I am anxiously awaiting the next steps:
The front:

the inside cover with a small pocket on the back:

This morning it snowed! Wahoo! Before you Easterners excoriate me for rejoicing in the first snowfall remember that we moved precisely for the colder and changing weather! In Phoenix there was (and still is) not discernable change in weather, it just goes from very hot in the summer to not so hot in the winter. Sure, you may be enjoying the "cooler" weather now, but call me in August! We just couldn't deal with the same-old, same-old day in a day out. Yesterday it rained 6" and today it snowed. LOVE IT! The snow is beginning to melt already as the sun is coming out, but it is still windy and fabulous outside! We are toasty in here with the new wood stove burning away in the basement.