Christmas Wrapping Paper Gone Missing!

My sister is going to drop off our Christmas packages to our family up north. She is leaving in an hour! No sweat... I have all the gift cards, money and candy ready. 

All I have to do is wrap it up...

So I walk to the bin that stores all our gift wrapping paper and notice that I am all out of Christmas wrapping! 

Oh no... I am just a tad panicking now... the clock is ticking!

But fabric stash to the rescue! I remembered that I had some Santa Claus fabric somewhere... that should work... nope, not enough for three gift bags... but I do find some mottled red fabric as well! So I cut out some Santas and appliquéd them on one of the side pieces of each bag... sewed up the side and made the string tunnel... found some green ribbon to made the draw string... and voila: 

Three easy gift wrapping bags!

All in all 30 minutes. Not too bad and they look nice. But I didn't finish the seams on the inside. It doesn't really matter anyway since my nephew and two nieces don't really care about the wrapping but what's inside :-)

Take care,

Me

P.S. I have to put a reminder on my to-do list to purchase some wrapping paper!

Sewing Machine Problems... Again!

Last night I was winding some thread on bobbins when I heard a click noise. I checked and found this:

Looks all innocent, right? Well, it's not! I checked and noticed that the bobbin thread guide came off the sewing machine. See, it belongs right in to that hole...

How did that happen? No idea...

We called a Pfaff sewing machine "Asbhy Sewing Machine Company" store in the States and the repair guide told us what to do. How awesome is that! Unfortunately we didn't have such tiny screw drivers. So we decided that I would take it to the local Pfaff dealer "Jocher Pfaff Naehzentrum" here in Garmisch. 

I called... they were so rude on the phone. They said I should take it back to where I bought it from! I told him that it really was a simple thing to fix and if he at least could take a look at it. The answer was no! He had 30 machines to fix between now and Christmas...! 

So Martin talked to a friend who had the right tools and fixed it himself. 

It took 5 minutes! Yep... 5 minutes! He took three screws out, put the guide back in, closed it back up and I am back in business!

I am such a lucky girl who has a husband who puts up with me and on top of it fixes my baby!

Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

I love you,

Karin

Yumm!

This is what I had for breakfast:

1 Blueberry Tea & 2 Christmas cookies 

Absolutely delicious!

Pasha made them... yup, she did!

We had some problems with the initial recipe (from a book that I had high hopes for... I will tell you later about it!) but Google came to the rescue... and voila!

Hope you have a tasty morning too!

Take care,

Me

Another Christmas Present on its way!

I just finished another Christmas present. This one is for my aunt and uncle. We have just visited them during the long Thanksgiving weekend. We had such a blast that time flew by faster than any of us wanted it to.

Here is my dad (on the left) with my uncle (on the right). 

They are both so similar! They have the same hobbies (photography and computers) and have the same sense of humour... :-)

My aunt admired some of my quilts. So I decided that a quilt would be the perfect present to them. I chose the Diamonds at Large pattern from Pam Lintott's Layer Cake, Jelly Roll & Charm Quilts book. 

The top went together in one afternoon. It took another to sandwich and quilt it, and of course another one in front of the TV to put on the binding. I had a couple of blocks left over because I made a cutting mistake. So I made a quick pillow out of it. 

It is an 18" square. Very fast, very easy and it used all of my fabric... love that!!!

So now it is in the mail. I hope they'll love it as much as I enjoyed making it! :-)

Take care,

Me

Decorating the Christmas Tree

As a kid my family would decorate the tree on Christmas eve. However now that I have a family of my own we decorate the tree already around the first of December. We really  enjoy looking at the sparkling tree each night :-)

 

One of the most treasured traditions we have are the "12 Days of Christmas" ornaments.

 

We sing the song as we put them up. Martin even jumps when it comes to the "lords are leaping" part! You would think that we know the song by heart by now. But around the 8th day of Christmas we have to look for the ornaments to help us out!

 

 

Another tradition is that Pasha gets to put the Angel on the tree.

 

We have lots of handmade ornaments on our tree! It makes us so happy to recount each and every memory! They remind us of people that we had the pleasure of knowing, people and pets who have passed on and are very much missed or places we've been...

 

Decorating the Christmas tree makes us go crazy! :-)

 

And yes, Pasha insists on the yearly photo with Jake in front of the tree. I swear I didn't force her to do it!!! LOL

 

Is your Christmas tree up yet?

 

Take care,

Me

Counting down til Christmas

One of the Christmas traditions that I absolutely love is the advent calendar. I loved getting my piece of chocolate each morning as a child. Now that I am a parent it's the selection of treats and activities that I put in the calendar. The anticipation of seeing Pasha opening her treat bag each daykills me! 

 

I make my own advent calendar. I used to hang them up on a string underneath Pasha's high bed. But a few years ago I bought a long board from our local home improvement store. I painted it white and used a golden marker to write "Advent Calendar". Cup hooks (which are evenly spaced across the board) allow me to hang my treats.

 

I use a variety of things to fill the calendar: chocolates, novelty pens, fun socks, lip balm, nail polish, money (€ and $), Itunes songs as well as activities like baking cookies, going to a special Christmas market, Christmas present shopping, going to the movies and more...

 

 

Up until last year I used white paper bags to hold the treats. This year I was determined to change that. I stopped by Ikea to pick up some fabric and sewed up 24 simple bags. Scrapbooking paper cut to size are used for the numbers. Simple yet really beautiful!

 

 

I also made an advent calendar for my sister! Yes, adults love an advent calendar as well!!! They don't have to be filled with chocolates.... I picked up 24 different sorts of tea bags and wrapped them up. Martin found the stick on one of his walk with Jake.

 

Do you count down the days?

 

Take care,

Me

Christmas Movies

Yup, I decided to pay $2.50 a month to keep going. I am just having way too much fun on here to quit :-)

My family loves movies. We have an entire binder full of Christmas movies. We pull it out the day after Thanksgiving and pop one in when ever we have some time together. Some of our favorites are Love Actually,  The Christmas Card, It's a wonderful Life, The Holiday and of course Charlie Brown's Christmas... 

We are always on the look-out for more, so do you have a favorite Christmas movie?

Take Care,

Me

Problems and Decisions

I haven't posted in a while. Not because I didn't want to or didn't have time... Nope, it was because Blogger told me that I ran out of storage space for  my photos. And now I have to make a choice:

 

1. Blog without Pictures

 

2. Pay $2.50 a month for an additional 10GB photo storage                       

 

or

 

3. Stop blogging

 

I have been wrestling with this decision for a couple of weeks now. I have so much to show you but can't because of this photo thing. How much does it mean to me? Enough to pay $30 a year for the storage? I spend more money on useless things every month! So why am I having such a hard time with this? I don't know!

 

Is there a way around it? I was trying to link up my flickr account. But either I am too stupid to do it right or it doesn't work like I thought it should!

 

I love looking back to see what I have created... but it bothers me that I am probably going to end up paying for something that I thought was free! Maybe that's the problem why I can't make up my mind.... Oh, I don't know!

 

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions...

 

Take care,

Me

 

P.S. I really hate blogging without pictures. Reminds me of really boring school textbooks! :-(

One Yard Wonders - Farmers' Tote

Ha, my ploy of trying to reward myself with making Christmas presents for quilting those two tops didn't work. I got started on quilting the first top but got sidetracked by what else than a Christmas present!

Last December I bought the second installment of the One-yard-Wonders. It was already too late to make anything out of it for Christmas presents but I put it aside for the next year. So when I got bored quilting I pulled it out and looked through it again for some ideas. 

One thing that makes the selection of potential gifts a bit difficult is our new family gift giving rule of "you can't spend more than $15". So I have to rely mostly on my stash and buy only if absolutely necessary!

The first present out of the 'One-yard-Wonders' is the Farmers' Tote on page 212 (Woven Pile Fabrics section). The tote in the book is made out of a striped black and white corduroy. I liked the body it gave the bag and remembered that I had some black corduroy in my stash. With that in mind I knew right away that this bag is for my oldest sister! She loves the combination of black and red. I also had some beautiful marbled red fabric that I could use for the seam binding to give it a bit of colour!

5 hours later I have this beauty on my  table:

The flower was made after a pattern which I found in Amy Butler's stitches. I love the way it gives the bag a special touch!

The straps are supposed to be made out of webbing. I didn't want to wait for it if I should order any and made them out of the red fabric and some batting instead. They are soft yet substantial enough to hold whatever my sister will put in this bag! This bag is roomy! Knowing my sister, she will stuff it like a Thanksgiving turkey on her shopping excursions...  ;-)

So what are the downsides? The construction is straight forward. However it is really tiresome to bind the seams. Especially if you do it in the order the pattern asks you to do it. I bound the seams right after I basted the pleats. It just made more sense to me! Also, if you look at the picture you can see that the front/back pockets have a seam right in the middle. This makes sense since the pockets would otherwise be too flopsy on top to hold anything in. But this step is nowhere to be found in the instructions! I also don't like how the pleats don't really hold their shape because they aren't tacked down. I don't know if I am going to do that or leave them as it is... If I would make another one I would put some elastic band to solve this little dilemma. 

Overall, I am really pleased with how this bag turned out and I know that my sister is going to enjoy it! 

On to the next present or back to quilting... 

Take care,

Me

Not Much!

I am trying to stay focused and not go on too many detours on my quest to make some Christmas presents. I put away the books and told myself: "Finish those two quilts and as a reward you'll get to make a Christmas present!" It seems to be working because I made a backing and pin basted it! Now I need to quilt it :-)

Besides that not much is happening here. Pasha has been home sick for the last two days. Martin took off a couple of hours today to give her some company.

 

Hopefully she'll feel better in a couple of days!

 

Take care,

Me

What to do with a honey bun?

I had this honeybun in my stash for quite a while! I couldn't find the right project because the strips are only 1.5" wide. But as I flipped through this book to look for some ideas for Christmas I found this quilt. Perfect for my honeybun!!!

I immediately threw my Christmas present plans out of the window (sort of!) and got started. 

Here is finished top:

Hmmm, I have to trim that one corner :-)  The size is 60"x64". A bit bigger than the one in the book!

This is what I have left over.

Now what should I make out of this?

Take care,

Me

How to say thank you?!

At the end of September when my sewing machine was still in repairs, I told a friend of mine that I was feeling "withdrawal" symptoms. The next day she brought her sewing machine over and told me: "It's not fancy at all but maybe it will bring you some joy!" 

I didn't know what to say. This was just so thoughtful and wonderful of her... 

Well, fast forward to now and I am ready to bring it back to her. But how to say thank you? I racked my brain and remembered that she admired the table mats that I made for a friend of mine last Christmas. So I looked at my scraps to find some that suit her and here is what I came up with:

But how am I going to wrap this up? I don't have a box long and thin enough to fit these four place mats!

I tied a white ribbon (salvaged from another present a long time ago!) around each of them...

... and wrapped it in red tissue paper with some blue scrap paper and tied another ribbon around it! Pretty enough :-)

I hope she will enjoy them as much as I did when I used her sewing machine! :-)

Take care,

Me

A Day to do "Nothing"

What a wonderful day we had! We stayed in bed until 09.00. Had a leisurly breakfast with a relaxing petting session for Jake.

 

 I love to see the love Pasha and Jake share. As soon as Pasha is sitting on the ground, he comes running over to lay at her feet to be petted. And she never sends him away without lots of love!

 

We went to lunch at our favorite Italian restaurant, window shopped a bit, tea with Steffi, a movie (Breaking Dawn Part 1)... and I even got to pin a quilt top.

 

The pattern is from this book! Quick and easy! But I can't decide on how to quilt it. Any suggestions?

 

A day like yesterday is so rare! It's treasured by us all! 'Thank You' to all the veterans who made it possible with their service and sacrifices!

 

I hope you had a wonderful day as well!

 

Take Care,

Me

Long Overdue!

Last Easter I promised my sister to make her a windowseat cushion for her cat Bully. Bully is such a loving cat which literally throws himself at your feet in order to be petted! Isn't he cute!?

This weekend I finally found the time to make this long overdue window seat cushion.

I cut two pieces of orange fabric (yup, I know... ugly!... but it's an insert!) and tufted it to ensure the stuffing was all even inside it. 

Then I made a basic pillow cover in brown corduroy. I made a teensy weensy little mistake though. I must have cut the corduroy wrong because it ended up 8" too large.

But a quick cut later, I had the right sized cover and here it is:

I prefer the look of the ugly orange insert because somehow it turned quite pretty with those tufts... The brown corduroy cover makes it functional though. Steffi can take it off to wash it whenever she needs to. And with that cat she'll need to often :-)

If I get a picture of it being used by the Bullmeister, I will post it on here right away! :-)

Take care,

Me

It has begun!

On Thursday we had our first parent-teacher conference scheduled. The night before we were all in the car on the way home from work/school. 

Me: "Pasha, tomorrow morning is the parent-teacher conference. Do..."

Pasha (interrupting): "Please, be nicely dressed! And you Papi, be on your best behaviour! I don't want to be embarrassed by you two!"

Me: "Hmmm, isn't that normally my speech?! And, what do you mean 'embarrassed by us'?"

Martin: ... nothing but laughter...

And so it has begun! 

Take Care,

Me

What a Blast!

Thursday was my mom's last day with us! We went to Bollywood for some awesome lunch!

After that we shopped until we dropped! We started with finding some awesome shoe deals (50% off), went on to skirts, shirts and coats, and back to some shoes again. 

You don't want to know how much we spent combined on all our stuff ;-)

And to top it off, after shopping, my mom was able to finish quilting her top!

But pictures of the quilt will have to wait because she still has to finish the binding!

What are you up to?

Take care,

Me

Sewing with my Mom

My mom is here for the week! So we dug out her blocks (which she sewed up a few visits ago!) and went to work.

One hour later we had this:

It's lap sized and gorgeous!

Tomorrow we'll piece the back and sandwich it. With a bit of luck we'll have a completed quilt by Friday! I am definitely looking forward to out special sewing time...!

Take care,

Me

Halloween Crafting

We had these grand plans of carving pumpkins, some beautiful banners, a couple of black window silhouettes and of course some popcorn balls. But that didn't happen! Why? I don't know! Maybe because of the last-minute costume sewing, work, or life in general!?

 

Yesterday morning (45 minutes before having to leave for work!) Martin realized that we didn't carve the pumpkins. So he drew a quick face and started to carve away! Pasha even told him: "Good Job! LOL!" It's not pretty but it does it's job!

 

 

I had the day off to bake cupcakes and help out at school. I wanted to clean the guest bedroom (my mom is going to visit for a week!) and work off my chores list. Did that happen? Nope! I didn't get home until 15.45! I realized that I still needed to roast the pumpkin seeds and put out the halloween candy for the neighborhood kids who come by while we are out trick-or-treating on post!

 

I quickly grabbed this book and found a wonderful craft:

 

Searched for my orange paper, cut out some circles and voila

 

 

Some cute wrapped up candy that doubles as outdoor decoration with our carved pumpkin

 

But it was all for nothing! We didn't have one visitor while we were gone nor at any time after we got back! Dang it, I could have relaxed and cleaned the guest bedroom instead! But you know, if I wouldn't have had that out there... Karma would have kicked my butt and sent a dozen kids by with toiletpaper, eggs and ketchup!

 

Now I need to do some relaxing sewing tonight and maybe clean the guest bedroom! :-)

 

Take care,

Me

Halloween Cupcakes

Today I had to make 24 cupcakes for the school's halloween monster math party. I just followed the basic chocolate and vanilla cupcake receipes which you can find in "Vegan Cupcakes take over the World". They are so delicious that I had to make extras for us at home!

I made a greenish tinted sugar glaze instead of regular frosting and put a little plastic spider on top of it! Simple yet cute!

I was supposed to help out at the halloween party. But since so many parent volunteers showed up, I decided to sneak out with Martin to enjoy lunch at our favourite Italian restaurant!

I didn't leave though before I took a couple of pictures of the funny headstones which were made in art class a few days ago!

Tonight it's "trick-or-treating" with a 4, 8,9 and 13 year old. I don't think I will get any candy at all!!!! LOL

Take care,

Me