Let it snow!

It's definitely winter in Minnesota now.  The snow is really pretty...but only for about the next 12 days.  On the 13th day, it'll be annoying and I'll wish it away for spring and some warm weather. But alas, this is only the beginning of snowy days and below freezing temperatures.  The only good thing about the winter is a break for quilting and sewing.  I saved up enough vacation to have a week and a half off for the holidays, and I'm going to be putting it to good use!

This past week I have been busy in Santa's workshop making No-Sew Christmas Ornaments!  They are so beautiful and are going to be given away as presents this year for Christmas.  My In-Laws have given ornaments every year to my husband growing up, and this year we inherited them all from year's past.  It's time to fill their tree back up!  (Or is this the "easy" way out on figuring out what to give them for Christmas?!)

There were a few tips I'd like to share about making these cute little things!  First, make sure you have a thimble or a thumb pad like you would use for English Paper Piecing.  Do not do any assembly of the ornament if you do not have something to protect your thumbs; your thumbs will hate you about half way through if you don’t have a thimble or any other way to protect your fingers.  You have been warned!  Second, on the first set of 4 triangles you make, I couldn't get the corners to line up at all!  The YouTube video tutorial looked perfect, but it just wasn't working for me.  Here's the tip, don't worry about that.  Just make sure that the points are perpendicular to each other and if the corners don't align, they get covered up by the next layer!  Last piece of advice and most crafters know this, glitter is not your friend.  I very stupidly got glitter ribbon to match the metallic fabric, forgetting that glitter gets everywhere!  I have glitter in most of the common living spaces in my house, and it's nearly impossible to clean up.  So the glitter ribbon looks lovely, but it's up to you to decide if the self-induced glitter bomb is worth it.

I've made 6 of the gold colored ones and 2 of the silver ones so far.  I have more pins coming to my from Amazon and still at least 4 more Styrofoam balls at home.  I need to decide if I want to make another set of 6.  I used Jingle Pop fabric from Hoffman Fabrics for my ornaments.  The metallic in the prints are so beautiful, and it makes them sparkle so much!

The Cozy Christmas quilt that I got back from Rhonda was AMAZING! I wish I could get all my quilts custom quilted!  I was able to finish it Sunday night right before leaving on my LAST business trip this year! (woohoo!)  Isn't it just amazing?!  I've update the completed quilts page too!

I keep getting distracted lately on what I want to work on.  It seems that I change my mind so often, but I think I'm still making progress on the goal.  One of the bigger announcements is that the next pattern I'm making is a free pattern!  The quilt is beginner friendly and will be jelly roll friendly as well.  I can't wait to show it off and write the pattern!  Because of this, I think I can get the pattern launch faster than the original timeline, but I don't want to commit just yet!

I hope everyone is getting all their Christmas shopping completed, only 12 more days left!!!

12/13-12/20 Weekly Goal:

Available time for quilting:
Thursday and Friday Night, Saturday and Sunday afternoon

Projects I want to work on:
Christmas Ornaments
Treehouse Quilt
Goals for the Projects:
Christmas Ornaments:  Finish the last 4… maybe go buy more Styrofoam
Treehouse Quilt: Quilt and Bind (I'm going to do it! I said so on the internet!)