Last night I went to the last Holiday Party of 2013.  Yeah, it's 2014, but December is just too busy, so my very smart friend has her party in January.  It's such a blast to hang out with all the girls, eat, drink, chat..... We have a White Elephant gift exchange.  Well, last year, there were a couple of blankets and the hostess made a comment about them.  Of course, I can't remember what the comment was, but it was something about how nice blankets are, people like them...whatever.  So, a couple of the girls decided we should ALL bring BLANKETS and not tell the hostess!  Texts went around and we spread the word.  Most of us remembered, a couple of girls forgot, but there were about 8 - 10 blankets.  Finally, toward the end of the exchange, the hostess said "wow, you all must have been in sync with your thinking, all these blankets".  We started laughing and told her we had planned it.  It was very funny. :)  So, I decided that I didn't want to bring a regular old blanket (even tho there are some awesomely soft blankets out there), I wanted to take a quilt, but we only had a $20 limit.  PERFECT time for me to use scraps and get rid of some of the bulk in my room.  I found a picture of a quilt like this on a blog somewhere and decided to make it.

If you have a quilt or project from me, look closely, you might see some fabric for your quilt~ :)  It was a big hit and now we are planning a weekend of sewing....me teaching 10 chicks to make a quilt.  I have to decide what pattern we'll do.  Something easy, but nice.  I have a few ideas, now to plan! :)  BTW, the girl who ended up with the quilt said that it was very special to her because it's something her Grandma did when she was young and so she remembers having all those quilts in her life.  I'm sure it will be loved a lot.

The other quilt I've made recently was for my baby niece, Lilliana.  She is my brother and sister-in-law's baby girl.  Of course, she's gorgeous, but tiny so she needs a quilt to keep her warm and something to love and drag around as she gets older. :)  Her mommy said they would probably decorate her room with Lilys if the baby was a girl (they didn't find out gender until she was born).  I LOOKED for cute lily fabric but couldn't find anything I loved that would be cute, so I found these fabrics by Me and My Sister Designs. 

I'm so happy with it.  I love the colors and the pattern is called a Disappearing 9-Patch.  Super fun and looks like you did so much more work that you really did. :)

Now I'm anxious to start a new project.  I was out with my friend the other day and she showed me this line of fabrics by Michael Miller (who I LOVE) called Waterfront Park.  The particular fabric I was really interested in is called Bridgetown.  It's all the Portland Bridges.  Well, as I was looking through the remnants at Fabric Depot, I found a yard remnant of the fabric!  Total Score!

One of Portland's fun facts is that we have 12 bridges in the city.  10 over the Willamette River and 2 over the Columbia (so we can go from WA to OR and back again). :)  There are 8 that are quite beautiful along with being useful.  Here are 7 of them and then there's the St. John's Bridge.  I bought Travis a Portland Bridge poster a while back with all the bridges on them, and it's now in the living room.  I think I'm going to do a Portland quilt to go up on the wall also.  Now, to collect ideas and fabrics!

Well, as you can see, I'm actually making things AND adding posts to my blog.  I'm pretty impressed with myself. hahahahha not. :)  But, I hope to keep it up...both sewing and blogging.  Have yourself a warm, snuggly day!  qxoqxo :) <3>