Play Tea Bags

 

On a trip to Houston,

I attended

a little tea party.

 

 

 

 

The lovely hostess

was a princess.

 

 

 

 

I brought a special

blend of tea,

 

 

 

 

inspired by

this post.

 

Here's a little closer look.

 

 

 

 

Crafty Daughter stamped the muslin tags

with an initial on one side

and a flower on the other.

They were very cute,

and there's no expiration date!

 

 

Cheers!

(Do they clink tea cups?)

 

 

 

Mommy gets a big thank you for

such a fun tea party!

 

 

 

 

Lovely bonnet!

More my style than a tiara!

 



 



For the Birds

 

It's been a tough winter for the birds.

Found a few fun things to craft
 with our feathered friends in mind.

 

First up are these cute tea cup and saucer feeders.

 



 

I found them at

Holiday Crafts and Creations.

 

 

Or, if you prefer a hanging feeder,

check THIS out!
 

 

Busted Button has a great tutorial.

 

Stephanie, at The Ladybug's Garden

takes them a step further with a

tutorial featuring  several different tea cup ideas.

 

 

 

 

Next up is a very unique peanut feeder

from Vesey's.

Not a tutorial, but if you're clever enough.....

 

 

 

might be something you could entice the man of the house to figure out!

 

 

I thought this was pretty clever

 

 

from HomeMadeSimple.

 

Perhaps you'd like to engage the kids

in a project, too!

Pink Pistachio has a great tute

for making hanging seed treats
in all shapes and sizes!

 

 

 

 

I just want to add that birds need water

during the winter, too.  I know it's freezing

in some parts of the country, but you could set

a dish out daily and bring it in each night.

 

 

101 Uses for a Quilting Hoop

 



 

1. To hand quilt.

 

 

2.  To take a well deserved nap. 

 

 

 

January 01, 2013

 

I didn't think I had much to post about,

until I imported the pictures from my camera.

Should do it more often!

 

 

I'll begin with the most recent.

Anxious to see my first bird of the New Year,

I headed out the door this morning

to a birdless yard.

 

Thinking maybe the birds had celebrated too late
into the wee hours of the morning,

or were kept awake by all the fireworks,

I studied the trees,

and then I spotted the reason....

 

 

 

Never very confident in my hawk identification,

I've narrowed this handsome devil down to

either a Cooper's Hawk, who is here in S. Texas year round,

 or a Sharp-shinned Hawk, here during the winter.

He seemed to be pretty big.

 

 

 

Here he is, flying away.

 

One of the first little birdies to venture out after the hawk scare

was this sweet Carolina Wren.

 

 

 

 

Not a bad start to the New Birding Year,

OR to my Texas Yard Bird List!

 

I'm just now getting my sewing area set up.

I've been pretty busy since arriving in TX on 12/15.

Crafty Daughter had a birthday cookie order for us to work on.

 

Cows, of all things.

 

 

 

 

I just snapped a few quick, unstaged photos. 

(You can see that one is on a stick.

We attempted our first cookie bouquet.)

 

 

 

 

Then we moved on to Christmas cookies,

 

 

 

 

and had lots of fun experimenting with

the different cookie cutters we'd collected.

 

 

 

 

I always describe this areas as being within the northern fringe

of South Texas, and was surprised when a neighbor

invited us over to pick grapefruit.

 

 

 

She was away when we passed out Christmas cookie plates

to all the neighbors,

so she's getting a special plate

of New Years cookies.

 

 

 

 

Oh, my, this is becoming too long.

Well, down to business.  The purpose of posting today

is to link up with Carrie from A Passion for Applique.

 

 

Just choose three (3) UFO's a month

post about them,

and link up with Carrie.

 

1.  A Christmas Table Topper that never got finished

before I started my migration.

(At least I brought it with me!)

 

2.  A baby quilt that I've been handquilting since I left

Cape Breton.  The baby has just been born and is only in Houston!

 

 

 

 

  

3.  Crafty Daughter wants a small bag to wear for work.

She picked out the focal fabric.
This hasn't been started, but it's a UFO
because she asked for it last summer!

 

 

 

Stop by A Passion for Applique to say hello,

and to check out some of the links!!

 

Okay, I'm finished!

 

Whew!

 

 



Happy New Year

 

Happy New Year
from Texas!!

 

 

(Looking down onto

The Riverwalk,

San Antonio)

 

 



Signature Quilt - A Group Hug

(deleted post recovery #1,
dated 12/06/12)

 

 

Signature Quilts


Whenever  someone in our little community quilting group
faces an illness or an adversity,
I always try to make them a signature quilt
to help comfort them.

It's like a great big, 
perpetual, group hug!

 

 

For Helen.

 

 

 

For Lois.

 

 

For Marion.
,

But last fall, I decided we shouldn't have to be sick
in order to each have our own 'group hug',

I worked all summer on a signature quilt,

 

 

 

 

hand-quilting myself to the moon and back.

 

 

 

 

When we had our Christmas luncheon,

(the ladies always make sure it coincides to my departure),

we drew names for the quilt.

 

 

 

 

Here's the lucky, and very pleased,

winner!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

OOPS!

 

I accidently deleted a whole page of blog posts.

It's times like this that I wonder why I even bother.

 

Does anyone know if I can retrieve/restore them?

Blogger is no help.

No one answers questions in the forum.

And there is no place else to ask.

Thanks,

karen