Salt Lake Christmas

Well, we have returned from our 12 day holiday in Salt Lake City. It was wonderful to be with our daughters and their families and with my sister and her family.

We had so many family activities and SO MUCH SNOW, that I didn't have much of a chance to do any blogging. Plus, since I was willing, I did A LOT of gift wrapping. Apparently no one enjoys doing it as much as I do!  We stayed at my daughter, Heidi's home for the first 10 days. She is a professional Tree Decorator and I wish my camera could have accurately captured how stunning her trees were and how beautifully her home was decorated. Here are some samples:

This was a Christmas quilt I made a couple years ago and gave as a gift.

This was the family room tree and...

this was the living room tree.

We had a wonderfully relaxing visit. We all got to work on outfitting and decorating daughter, Holly's new apartment which was really fun.  I didn't do my usual Utah Quilt Shop Hop but was least able to run into "Material Girls" for a few minutes while Gary waited patiently.  I will post a couple of my favorite spots I was able to visit soon. I certainly hope your Christmas was all you hoped for.  Love, Derrith

Before I Go Over The River And Through The Woods...

I am trying to finish up some Christmas projects because we are spending the holidays in Utah this year (I'm SO excited!) They are all over the map since focusing on just one thing seems to be beyond my reach.

I made this pillow for our quilt group gift exchange. It was my first time working with felted wool and combining it with appliqued cotton fabric. it was really fun.

I saw some paper fruit like this in a magazine and had to try it myself. I got the paper fruit at Michaels and mod podged strips of sheet music on it...fun and easy!

I also wanted to play with some clothespins. I didn't get very far with this - I glittered some and painted and papered some. I had plans for more but may not get to it...so may other shiny objects catch my eye!  My other projects must remain a secret till after Christmas. I will be blogging from the Rocky Mountains so I hope you'll visit again soon. -Derrith

Christmas Quilted Post Cards

We had riotous fun at our December "Sisters'n'Stitches" meeting at Pat's beautiful home. Unfortunately, I don't have much to show for it, blog-wise. My camera didn't respond well to the indoor lighting, so I can't share all the great gift exchange home made beauties or any of the show and tell quilts. Hopefully, next month I can make up for it.

I did get some pictures of our post card exchange, which was very fun this month with the Christmas theme.

Obviously, this is where things started going south with my camera. My apologies to my friends who labored to make these adorable cards. I hope you can still appreciate how cute they were.

I have yet to actually send one of my card collection through the mail because I don't want to give any of them up! Merry Christmas to all my quilting sisters and to all of you. Thanks so much for visiting and please come again...Derrith

Alice in Wonderland Mad Hatter Quilt

I am finally able to share this quilt with you. It was a birthday gift for my grand daughter so I had to keep it under wraps till now.

Things didn't quite go as planned with this quilt. I started with this cute mad hatter pattern and added the dimensional flowers on the hats.

Then my plan was to add Alice's head and shoulders at the top and her legs and feet at the bottom. The head and shoulders turned out fine, but when I went to add the feet, I realized it was way out of proportion. Her body behind the quilt would be twice and long as it should be so I scrapped that plan. At this point, I needed to make it larger, so I added the tea cups to surround the hats. I think the results were good. Gabrielle loved it, anyway. Soooo, Alice became a pillow...

She was quite a challenge for me. I've never been good at drawing faces, so this was a painful process, but eventually I got there.

Now I must move on to my other Christmas Projects as time is ticking by!..Thanks for stopping by. I truly appreciate it and hope you'll come again.   -Derrith

Glittery Christmas House

Do you know how fun it is to take a few hours and pretend you don't have anything more important to do, and just play with paint and glitter?! Well, to me it was very fun. I started with a plain brown paper mache house I ordered from Hobby Lobby. The roof lifts off, so I spray painted the inside to co-ordinate with the outside color. Then I painted the outside with acrylic paint. I found the coolest stuff to help with the detail work. It's rolls of really small and skinny blue masking tape (pictured below) for tiny projects like this. It's made by Martha Stewart and I found it at Michaels.  It makes it really easy to mask off the window frames and the cross timbers.

Then I used "Paper Clay" (also pictured below) to apply snow to the roof and to the ground on the sides and front of the house. I added the door since the house didn't come with one, just by cutting and painting a little piece of cardboard and added a clay doorknob.

Once I was happy with the paint job, I sprayed a matte finish on the house to protect the paint from running when I applied the glue for the glitter. I had a hard time picking out which glitter I wanted to use, but ended up with a a fairly large scale one that didn't reflect too many other colors. Then I added in the little trees that I had sprayed to match the house, the wreath and the little snowman ornament, all of which I had applied a finer glitter to separately. Now I can just sit back and watch it sparkle!

These are my supplies. You could use any acrylic paint. I like the paper clay. It stays moist and it will store for a long time in an air tight bag. I really loved the narrow gauge masking tape!  I hope your Christmas season is off to a good start. I love to have you visit again. Thank you! -Derrith

Gnomes on Skiis!

Happy Thanksgiving and Black Friday to everyone! We had a lovely family dinner yesterday and today I broke my vow to never venture into a mall on Black Friday. This vow comes from a bad experience several years ago when I spent 1 1/2 hours just trying to exit the parking lot on the day after Thanksgiving. Anyway, today, Gary and I went to the new theater in the mall to see Breaking Dawn part two. We were both satisfied with the ending to the series. Yes, he's been a brave and sweet husband to sit through all of them with me! What does all this have to do with Gnomes? Absolutely nothing. The gnomes on skiis are just one of my little Christmas crafts I have been playing with the last couple weeks.

I saw the picture in a catalog of stationary and thought it would be easy to turn into a appliqued motif.  I make that mistake a lot, actually. It is always more difficult and time consuming than I think it will be, but nevertheless, I am happy with the results.  I will share more projects in the coming days. Love to you all...Derrith

Quilted Post Cards - Expressions of Affection

Our quilt group has a long tradition of exchanging quilted post cards. I think they are so charming.

We all admire each other's cards and are excited to see which one we will go home with.

These are the cards we exchanged this month. The theme choice was open so some are seasonal and some are not.

Most have a sweet message on the back. I like that they are compact and easy to store.

Then, whenever you want to, you can pull them out and enjoy them or share them with grandchildren or put them in a scrapbook.

It's a sweet old fashioned tradition and who doesn't need more of those!

It's also a fun creative exercise for us each month.

Any technique you wish to use is OK. It really opens up the possibilities.

These were from last year. Since they are small, theoretically, they don't take too long to create a mini masterpiece!  Thanks so much for visiting and happy quilting....Derrith

Sisters'n'Stitches-November Get Together

Margie's ornament was so dang cute!!

This month's meeting at Barb's with Lorali as our hostess was SO much fun, as usual. Here, Candy shows us her eye popping Table Topper.. She is so creative and always brings us the unexpected.  We loved it!

We had a guest drop by to show us her masterpiece. Shawna Perry started a sampler and didn't stop until she had created this wonder.

Every part of this quilt was beautifully done. Bravo!

Now we know why Barb seems to get so much done! I'm sure that extra set of hands helped her finish these darling ornaments for her grandchildren. This was just a sampling. There were many more.

Margie finished these darling vintage children's embroidery patterns.  They are Soooo cute!

Another of Margy's fun projects for Christmas.

Darlene brought these "Subway Words" Seasonal needleworks that were so precisely done and so cool!

Don't you love this darling felted wool birdie that Candy made? She is quite amazing.

We all loved Anita's wool and felt table topper. The design was really enhanced by the white background...beautiful work!

Lorali is hiding behind her fabulous quilt in progress. The colors and fabrics are great and she altered the pattern so that the rows don't line up in the traditional way.You can see the results - much more graphically interesting.  We missed you, Pat. We're looking forward to our December Party. See you again soon...Derrith

Creative Interiors and Design Christmas Open House 2012

I attended a fun event last week: Creative Interiors and Design's (in Vancouver WA.) Christmas Open House. In addition to the beautiful furniture and accessories they always have, at Christmas they have large decorated trees and all the trimmings to go with them for sale.

I loved the unconventional color combination on this tree. It was really gorgeous.  When I entered the store I was handed a gift bag with a beautiful ornament and candy inside!

 

The grand staircase in their showroom had this beautiful garland going up the railing.

At the base of the railing were these fantastic snowy owls.

Here is another of their amazing trees. They are all opulently deck out!     

This was a fun one with a rustic outdoorsy theme. There's those cute owls again!

My favorite tree was shades of white with lots a sparkle and these elegant white peacocks all over the tree...really stunning!

This gold and brown tree looked even better in person. The store had delicious appetizers,  sweets, and drinks for us shoppers. It was really a lovely event and gave me some inspiration for the coming season.  Thank you so much for visiting my blog and I hope you will stop by again soon.                   -Derrith