GrandmaBarb, Just loved the pretty little birdhouse and the fantastic garden pointer. How clever you are!! Barb sent me a sign that she had made from an old piece of weathered board on which she had painted the prettiest yellow flowers on the left of the board. On the right of the board she had glued little tiny pointed pinecones in the shape of an arrow with blue jewels along the sides showing the way to the garden. On both the birdhouse and garden sign she had painted Ellens Joy. I am so happy that you were my Secret Santa as you nailed my personality to a tee. Thanks for the time you spent on my gift during this busy time of year. I love it. Ellen

Thank you everyone for your kind comments :) These, especially the tablecloth, are some of the larger quilts I've completed so I'm fairly proud! Also I usually birth the smaller projects because I'm hesitant about binding, but the tablecloth is bound and my first major try at that too. I did used to sew everything by hand (I can't believe you remember!!), more out of necessity than choice. I didn't have a sewing machine at the time so even piecing blocks was done by hand. I still enjoy hand quilting, but I thought that for these two projects, both of which will probably get a lot of use and a lot of washing, that machine piecing and quilting was probably a lot more durable and practical. Thank you :)

No pictures here but, Linda Causee has a Christmas tree wall hanging featured for December in her book '365 Foundation Quilt Blocks'. It's a simple pieced tree using squares and half square triangles and then using the paper pieced 4" blocks in the book as ornaments that you 'hang' on the tree. I'm sure hanging ornaments on the log cabin tree would turn out very nice also. Though, I wish she mentioned how she hung the ornaments... Cathy Here is a link that might be useful: 365 Foundation Quilt Blocks @Amazon

I would love to quilt! --- if I could only FIND my sewing room! lol I've been decorating off & on for 4 days - & w/little ones here some of the time, the Christmas totes go into the sewing room to keep them out of the way! Thurs should be my last day this week for kids, so my plan is to sew-sew-sew all weekend! Except for the break to bake, of course. And some shopping w/DH either Fri or Sat eve. And a breakfast meeting Sat morning. And church & teach Sun school. And brunch w/my parents after church. And company on Sun afternoon. Hey! wait a minute! --- where in there did I think I could sew??!!? At least all my quilting gifts are finished - except for 2, which may or may not happen (obviously!! lol) I remember the days my shopping was finished in Sept - & my decorating took one day, plus maybe an evening. Baking over 2-3 days, usually w/help from the kids and my DMIL. Where did those days go???!! Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season. And if it gets done - great! If it doesn't, oh well...life happens! :) ~Cindy