Over the river and through the woods, to Grandmother's house we go!

** I dedicate this post to Mary , Quilt Hollow , with whom I share an inside joke about stitching! Big waves to you Mary! "**

Greetings all! ~ I hope you all are having a wonderful week so far. I know most of you must be getting ready for all of the hustle and bustle the season brings. I am amazed at how many people I have heard that has already gotten their Christmas shopping done! Now , there's some busy beavers for you! I have yet to start mine!

Though I haven't gotten any Christmas shopping done, doesn't mean the smell of evergreen, fresh baked cookies and a sloo of things to add to the Yuletide fare, have not entered my brain. Those thoughts have been really heavy on my brain. Those that were readers of my blog last year may recall that I had simple gift ideas posted on Fridays. Though I would love to do that again this year, I just simply don't have the time. I am not good at labeling my posts, but if you go to my posts in the archives from this time last year, you'll find them. I also have another blog that I will be adding to the top of my sidebar for ideas for the season.

Ok, so now on to what's been keeping me on my toes. First up I absolutely fell in love with a new design by Brenda Gervais of With Thy Needle and Thread titled "Sweeping Snowflakes". That little snowman is just the cutest! It is the second design in her broom series. Though I wanted to stitch it so bad as a band for a wisk broom ( I even picked one up) I simply can not see to stitch over one very well anymore. I opted to stitch over two which made it much bigger, too big for the broom. I must now come up with another idea to finish it off. I have one or two , so I 'll do some thinkin' and see what I come up with.

Here he is in all his cuteness!!!

Next, I have really been wanting some new Christmas decorating accessories . In my last post I showed some fabric I'd been squirreling away and I fianlly found the projects I wanted to do with some of it. I pieced a table runner . It is from the book I showed the other day, "Cardinal Season" from Gathering Friends. It's called 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. This worked up so quickly. Cutting and sewing I think was about two hours. Probably less, but I had to take time out to make coffee, and put wash in and take it out of the dryer. You know those pesky things called household chores? LOL . I still have to layer, baste, and quilt it but I will be doing it on the machine and it should go fairly quick.

Here is a companion piece. It is called Sweet Inspiration , from the same book. It can either be a table topper or a tree skirt. I will transform it into a tree skirt. After I have it all quilted and before adding the binding, I will cut into one side , then a hole in the center and bind. YIKES! The cutting is making me nervous! It will match our new tree nicely!

I also pulled out the Pinion Pines blocks from last year to work on this weekend. Did I ever get around to piecing on it? Nope! As you can see above, I had too many other irons in the fire!

I did manage to pull off Mexican Casserole for dinner Sunday night. It was a nice treat after being so busy on the weekend!

Well, this will be the only post this week as we will be heading down tomorrow to my mother-in-law's house for a few days. I hope YOU ALL have a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving that will be remembered for years to come!

'til next time,

don't be a stranger,

Sharlotte