I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. The presents are wrapped and ready to go to my son's home tomorrow where we will be celebrating. My DIL and DD have been taking turns celebrating Christmas Day over the last few years. We all help by bringing part of the dinner. This year I am taking garlic mashed potatoes and a large dish of scalloped potatoes (my favorite). Better for the kids and easier on me. I am posting a pic of a wall hanging I made probably 12-15 years ago. It hangs on the wall in my family room except this year I did not put it up so just took a pic to share with you. This was a fun project.

Hope Santa is winging his way to you with lots of goodies for under your tree.

See you in a couple of days.

Hugs

FredaB

The jewelery factory is still going on over here. Have to do something when we are snowed in. I have decided that I have far too many clothes so am trying to not even look in the stores. Try and wear what I have but use the new jewelery I have made to give my things a new look. I am pleased with what I have made.

Yesterday morning when I went downstairs I looked at the thermometer out the kitchen window and it was 9 degrees below zero. I believe it went up to a high of 6 above all day. This morning it was 3 below but is to start a warm up later this week. Tomorrow is another snow storm with snow then sleet coming in throughout the day. The pantry is stocked so will just sit it out. Florida is looking mighty good about now. They are also having a cold spell with temps in the 60's. I will take that. I have added a few pics of the new pieces I made. This is the end of my jewelery making.

My daughter came over today and brought all her jewelery stuff and we played for the afternoon. Last week at her house I had made myself the necklace with the little birds on a branch and we put a pearl in the nest. I liked the way it turned out so today I made one for a friend, another type for her daughter and a little bracelet for the little grandaughter. We had to guess at her size so put a chain that can be adjusted and hope it will work. They will wend their way to Kansas on Monday. Probably won't make Christmas but they are not really Christmas gifts. Just a good friend who lost her Mother 2 weeks ago, her daughter lost her husband over a year ago . Just a little friendly hug to let her know I care..

Thought I would spend a little more time on punchneedle after reading the comments. First the Dancing Needle is available thru Pamela Gurney's site in Australia: http://www.punchneedleembroidery.com. As far as I know she is the only one who makes this large needle. Now at the same time she does say it can also be used in making rugs so if there are some rug makers out there maybe they have a needle that would also do the ribbon. I would think the fineness of the tip would be the important part as a large tip would punch too much space and the ribbon wouldn't hold.

She has published at least 4 books because I have 3 and not the one with the pansies on the cover. I believe that is her latest book. The one before that is Dancing Needles and that is where she talks about the large needle and gives directions on how to make flowers. I am going to order a needle to be shipped when I get back to Florida and I will keep you posted on how I get along.

Mary the loops on the basket on the left are loopier (?) and that gives the impression you liked. Is loopiness a word? You adjust the length of the stitch on the needle to get the length of loop that you want and the thread used also makes a difference.

I was looking thru my fabric storage area to-day for my punchneedle stuff. I thought I would take it back to Florida and do some butterflies for the new quilt. I came across a few that I had made to use in future projects. I have added a few pics. I am going to order the large dancing needle one from Pamela Gurney in Australia that uses 7 and 13mm silk ribbon for flowers. Think that will come in handy. I have made silk ribbon flowers on some baskets with the larger of the 3 needles that comes with mine but will only take 2 and maybe 4mm ribbon. It is a lot of fun if anyone is interested.

I am waving to my friend Barb here who was my sewing buddy in Florida until she up and left me for South Carolina. Now we have a long distance relationship - no all day shopping trips but sure can talk on the phone - eh Barb?

Hello from snowy Chicago. Harv and I had our 6 month dental appts. this afternoon and they were calling for a snow storm coming in later this afternoon so I thought we would be finished and home before it hit. Well think again. In the morning we had a call from their office informing us that our dentist had had a fall on the ice and was injured. Did we still want to come for the cleaning? We said yes and off we went. I went first then looked out the window and the van was covered. It was snowing heavy. JoAnnes fabrics is in the parking lot next door so I ran over there while Harv was being done. In a half an hour I could hardly drive back for the visibility was so bad. Couldn't leave the man so made it back but was sure glad he was driving home. Went about 10-15 miles per hour and it was hair raising. This snow was just covering the ice storm of the other day so was treacherous. Traffic reports coming in at rush hour are 3-4 hour commutes from downtown to the outer suburbs. Horrible. When we got home Harv snapped a picture of our neighbour's house across the street. Actually looks very pretty with the snow from inside our warm house with a hot cup of tea in my hand.

I intend to stay home the next couple of days and work on my butterfly quilt squares. Drawing them up on the muslin. Cheers.

We had a good trip home to Chicago on Sunday except for the weather. It started sleeting rain Sun pm and the temps. dropped to 6 above zero this morning. Our driveway is a sheet of frozen snow. Welcome to winter in the north.

I spent the day with my daughter putting together some jewellery for Christmas presents. I had found some great findings at JoAnnes in Florida on clearance and shipped them up to her so today we played. I made a couple of necklaces and she made some bracelets for teacher gifts. I didn't have time to take pics as I left it all at her house until we finish. She had her husband's Christmas party to take the 3 boys to and had to leave around 4. I told her she was lucky they still have a party. They used to be very popular with companies for the children but most have given them up.

I do have a pic to add. Today in the stack of mail was one of Jo from New Zealand's post cards. It is beautiful. It has a very NZ Maori look to it. Whether Jo meant that or it is just my interpretation of it but it is very nice. Her stitching is so gorgeous. So even. Unfortunately you will see a little discoloration where I think it met up with Chicago's weather. Who knows if the postman dropped it or what - but still gorgeous. I have one hanging in my sewing room in Florida on my board and now have one for my board here. Lucky me - Santa came early.