Christmas Twinklings

A Psalm Of Life

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,

Life is but an empty dream!

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not the goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

Is our destined end or way

But to act, that each tomorrow

Find us farther than today.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting

And our hearts, though stout and brave,

Still, like muffled drums, are beating

Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,

In the bivouac of Life,

Be not like dumb driven cattle!

Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no future, howe'er pleasant!

Let the dead past bury its dead!

Act, -act in the living Present!

Heart within and God o'erhead!

Lives of great souls all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,

Sailing o'er life's solemn main,

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,

With a heart for any fate;

Still achieving, still pursuing,

Learn to labor and to wait.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Special Blessings to those who can enjoy their Power.

To those less fortunate, please stand by.

Keeping Christmas In Our Hearts

Anonymous Parody Poem

Twas the night Christmas, I'm glued to the tree,

I'm wondering what Santa brought just for me.

Could it be fat quarters or a pattern or lace?

Or a quilt kit, I said with a smile on my face.

And that's when I heard him, "Hi, Santa," I said.

"You know...good little girls should be in their beds!"

"I know I should, Santa, and now I've got caught.

But I was just so excited to see what you brought."

"Well, let's take a look in this room where you work."

He shook his head quickly and left with a jerk.

I heard him exclaim, as he put it in gear,

"You've got enough crap, I'll see you next year!"

LINK! 

Merry Christmas to all...and to all...a good Knight!

Party Hardy!

This past week was the Community Dining Holiday Dinner at the Alton, New Hampshire Senior Center.

Husband Wonderful and I really enjoyed it!

The weather was perfectly clear and sunny on Thursday as we drove over to the Center.

But as we sang carols and enjoyed a silly game for the Yankee Gift Swap, a sudden snow squall sprang up and filled the sight out the windows with blowing snow!!

By the time we'd finished our dessert of ice cream, the sun was back out and shining brightly for our gratefully safe trip home.

Then on Friday, I was determined to make it in to The Golden Gese Quilt Shop for their 30th Anniversary Sale!

The sale ended yesterday, on Saturday the 17th of December.

While the sale was going on, shop owner, Nancy Gesen, from whom the shop's name is taken, was a perfect hostess. Just look at all the goody's and prizes all spread out for us!! Thank you, Nancy!!

Here's Claire, of the shop's staff, presiding over all the festivities.

The Upstairs Gang and the Downstairs Gang all crowded together downstairs for one day. We exchanged small token gifts and beautiful Christmas cards. Yes, there was chocolate!

Lil' Claire, seen below, had a gorgeous top completed for our Show & Tell time. Good work, Lil' Claire!

Maureen, seen below, was working on a very special gift for her granddaughter, who is about 6 going on 7, if I recall correctly.

This is a hang up organizer for her costume jewelry and it's so cute! It has transparent pouches just like those shoe organizers.

Barbara, had two wool applique projects and here is the first one that is so Christmasy!

I wanted you to be able to see the second one also, but I do apologize for not giving Barbara proper warning that I was about to snap the picture. Please just look at that cute candy cane!!!

Beverly was working on lunch, ordered from the nearby Yellow Submarine Sandwich shop in Concord, New Hampshire. Look at that Bacon/Lettuce/Tomato on a pita, yummy! Link.

Today's prize for Show & Tell goes to Penny the quilter for her lavender diamonds quilt.

Didn't she do a beautiful job??

Good quilting, Penny!! She has her own longarm and quilts professionally.

Penny is on Facebook, which I will not use because of all the creepy people who stalk you and all their cookies for guerilla marketing tactics, but here is the link to Penny's Quilting. Link.

I'm so very glad that I went to the sale and Christmas party on Friday. This is what I bought.

 Saturday there was snow which was fluffy and great fun!

We got about 8 inches of snow as measured on top of the cars,

but my yardstick only recorded 5" due to the the blacktop of the driveway melting it as it landed.

Blessedly, it stopped snowing an hour before sunset, giving us the chance to plow and shovel.

As much as I love the fluffy snow, I really do hate winter rain. Today it rained all day, ugh!!

Rain on top of snow makes ice of all the snow. Moan and groan!!

Hope you are able to stay home and sew during bad weather. Put on the Christmas carols and make it an indoor party.

Happy Sewing!

Log Cabin Lunacy!

Whoohoo, it's the Full Moon tonight! I'm celebrating a well cleared off driveway and making the second 16 block run of Log Cabin blocks for Log Cabin Lunacy!

My blocks get dropped upside down on top of an awaiting strip.

Technically, these are random widths from my scrapbag.

But I found myself deliberately choosing strips that seemed to be about a cool 2" wide strip.

No matter how hard I try to be scrappy and free, I do find myself editing the choices for whatever I think will work best in the final outcome of the quilt.

Here they are all stacked, pressed and starched, yippee!

Oops, no, no,  those stacked and pictured above are from last month's batch of blocks. Here are this month's bevy of beauties.

I love that Paula Barnes cheddar strip on the top block!

Today we had fun at the Alton New Hampshire Senior Center with The Sunshine Club, and Mary, seen below, had brought in her sewing machine.

Sue had brought in her stippling/darning foot and sold it to Mary to use for Free Motion Quilting. We got it attached correctly but the lower thread was all loopy when we tried it. Mary will consult her manual for her machine to try to adjust the tension at home.

Sue was hand quilting and it really doesn't show because she has chosen black thread onto the black fabric. I think that when the quilt gets washed it will show up and be lovely with crinkles.

Mary was also trying out some possible layouts with her scrappy double 4-patches.

She has more to make but it's fun to see them and to play with them.

Thank you, Mary, for taking my picture so that I can appear on my own blog! Here I am, cutting away on separating those Lover's Knot blocks.

I had a great day and I hope your winter is wonderful, too!

Linking up to Log Cabin Lunacy sew along over at JulieKQuilts. Link.



Happy sewing!

Monday Fun!

It seems as though last Friday was 100 years ago what with all the hustle and bustle of the season and several dog calls, too. For those of you who may not know it, Husband Wonderful and I job share a part time job for our town as Animal Control Officers.
But here is Beverly, over at The Golden Gese Quilt Shop, with her beautiful tumbling blocks just back from the quilter.

 This was done using the Missouri Star Quilt Company's rhombus tool with the easy way tutorial.

If you're interested, here is the link to that. Link.
The backing is really cute, too!

The quilting is pretty tough to capture with the camera but here is a close up for you to see it.

Maureen, seen below, was very festive in her holiday red argyle sweater. She worked on some more microwaveable bowl potholders. Nice work!

Maureen also had been busting some of her deep stash to make sets of colorful coordinating placemats. Very cool!

The three of us all worked together to cover up the knee-knocking adjustable knob on the back of my favorite sewing swivel chair there at the Golden Gese Quilt Shop.
This damn knob has hurt all of us with bad placement the way it sticks out and whacks you, right at knee height, as you walk by!
We covered it with a piece of packing foam and secured that with heavy polyester twine. Take that you blasted knob!!!! No more bruises!

I had thought about this solution for the chair knob problem as I was lying in bed going to sleep. I was wondering where the devil that I would be able to get a piece of that dense packing foam.

As luck would have it, my very dear friend, Ila, sent us a dozen perfectly shipped pears with the exact packing foam that I needed!!!LOL

Thank you, Ila! Just like a kid that plays with the box instead of the toy, right?? Well, we love the pears, too, thanks!

While I was at the Golden Gese Quilt Shop, I sewed my heart out working on those Lover's Knot neutral blocks.

I think that all the doubled seams are now sewn! Whoohoo!! I still need to cut them apart and trim off any leftover dog-ears on their corners.

Of course, the biggest news of today is not quilty. Gilmanton, New Hampshire, was listed as having gotten 7" of fresh new snow last night! You go get'em, Plow boy!!!

Miss Emma Lynne got so excited that she forgot that her cat friend, Mr. Tipper, really does not like to play tag and romp in the snow.

Later, when Tipper calmed down, they met up as friends again.

Aww, so sorry, my buddy!

Please don't forget that today, Monday the 12th, is the first day of the all week long celebration of The Golden Gese Quilt Shop's 30th year in business.

Nancy is offering a special 30% off on everything, except the consignment items and the sale corner.

The shop is located at 22 Liberty Street in Concord, New Hampshire and the hours are 10am to 5pm.

Hurry and get dug out! Sale ends at 5pm on Saturday, December 17th, 2016.

In the meantime, stay calm and quilt on!

Linking up to Em's Scrapbag. Link.
Linking up to Love Laugh Quilt. Link.

Happy sewing!