While walking through the fabric aisle at Walmart today and this bandana fabric caught my eye. I had to have it. I still don’t completely trust my sewing skills so I want to test a pattern that I’m working on for someone else. I thought this would be the perfect fabric. Black polka dots immediately popped in my head for the contrasting fabric and it was conveniently about 5 feet away. I grabbed both bolts and was on my way.

I’m hoping to have my little project wrapped up sometime Wednesday afternoon so I can post pics. I can’t wait til it’s done! I’m so excited! If BF didn’t have to sleep I’d be sewing away right now.

This is the first major project I did on my own. I started it back in January but kept putting it off because the sewing machine scared me. Knowing I couldn’t put it off anymore, the weekend before Christmas I finished cutting the coins and started piecing the quilt together. The further I got on the project, the more excited I became. I really wanted to take a stab at machine quilting the layers together but the concept spooked me at the last minute so I hand-tied it. I finished around 3:30a on Christmas Day and had it folded & wrapped by 4a (talk about finishing right under the wire).

Overall I love, love, love the way it all came together. There are some imperfections in the binding but, hey, I’m a beginner. After a bit of swearing (and BF’s encouragement) I decided to cut myself some slack.

Leah’s reaction when she opened it just a mere 7 hours after it was completed was priceless. She was so touched that she was in tears. It was the greatest compliment I could have ever received.

New neighbors moved in few months ago. They’re pretty awesome… non-nosey, non-confrontational, non-murderers. They have 4 little ones that are completely adorable. Because I don’t have kids myself and perhaps that’s why I can’t wrap my head around this but they seriously have at least twenty bags of garbage outside every single week. They’re not even home all day so I couldn’t imagine how many more bags they’d have if they were!

P.S. These are non-nosey facts… I’ve had conversations with them and they mentioned they work and go to school. I see the piles of garbage bags when I leave for work so they obnoxiousness is right there. Okay, maybe the counting was nosey but after seeing it for the last 3 months and thinking ‘OMG’, curiosity get the best of me and I had to.

Am I the only one that finds that number shocking?

Yesterday afternoon I went to a craft show I would go to when I lived in Green Bay. I didn’t really have any particular purchase in mind… I was just looking forward to spending the afternoon engulfed in wonderful craftiness. Immediately when I got there, I bought adorable holiday collar sleeves for each of the dogs. I thought the sleeves were a great idea because I don’t want to have 57 collars laying around the house but love that the dogs could “dress” for the season. I could easily make these myself for way less than the price I paid so I don’t really know what came over me with that purchase but that’s beside the point. Once upon a time I use to visit craft shows and buy beautiful craft items to for the upcoming season (usually Autumn or Christmas decorating). Somehow that shifted to me shopping mostly cute craft items for my doggies. After being there about an hour I noticed that I was on a mission to find the cutest collars, leashes, and doggie ornaments rather than the cutest snowman items.

How in the heck did that happen?

To save face as I walked out, I bought a Snowman that’s wearing a mauve scarf & holding a “Winter Greetings” sign.

In my feeble attempt at concentrating on Thanksgiving before Christmas, I’ve been looking at different pie recipes that I can bring along with me to Thanksgiving Dinner. My original plans were to bake my yummy apple and pumpkin pies but I’m looking for a few new ideas. Tonight I came across this cute little Mini Cranberry Meringue Pie recipe. I’m not really sure what it is but there’s something about these tiny, oh-so-personal, single serving size treats. They’re so adorable. I really want to attempt the recipe but I’m a bit nervous on whether or not I can pull off the meringue. I remembered helping Mom with her Lemon Meringue Pie when I was young but I’ve never attempted it without her. Honestly, I don’t recall even helping since I was in my early teens. If I decide to attempt them, since Dave doesn’t like cranberries I’ll have to bring them to work or ship them off to an unsuspecting victim PnkSweetHrt to taste test them for me.