Fat Quarters by the Dozen and A New QAL

Hello and Happy Monday, dear friends!

I hope everyone in the USA enjoyed the July 4th celebration of our country's 250th birthday.  We grilled hotdogs and hamburgers and I made potato salad. Hubby made some delicious baked beans. There was a side of fresh avocado with balsamic viniagrette and olive oil. We enjoyed hubby's homemade strawberry ice cream for dessert. Mom was here and we played board games before enjoying the fireworks display from Lake Junaluska.
                                                

Not a great photo from our upper deck but timing is everything!

The plan for the long weekend was to get some house cleaning done and sew the last two blocks for Fat Quarter Shop's quilt-along Fat Quarters by the Dozen (FQBTD).

Cleaning was accomplished, but I mostly enjoyed spending time with family. Sunday was spent in the sewing room.  FQBTD releases 11 & 12 were completed.

Release 11 constisted of two blocks.  One Left Majestic Block 

And one Right Majestic Block

Release 12 is the Sunbeam Block
                                            
                                            
Fat Quarter Shop will release finishing instructions on July 15th. This will be interesting because there are some elements in what can only be a sashing, but we haven't received indstructions on how to make those yet.

My next quilt along is Jolly Tree Farm sponsored by the Fat Quarter Shop. 

Each Monday during July they release instructions for a section of a small holiday quilt. I purchased the kit which includes everything except the pattern and batting to finish the quilt. You can download each release for the pattern from the FQS website for free. Today is release 2 but since I only received the kit last week, I am starting a bit behind. Apparently, the fabric was delayed from the supplier and the kits were held up a bit.

I'll be back on Friday, July 10th with a cross stitch update.

See you soon,

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from Me and My Crew to You, Friends!

Thank you to all who read my blog and leave the sweetest comments. And thank you to those who continue to blog and share your talents with us all.

 

In case you missed it, click here for the first post sharing this year's decor.

See you soon,

Christmas Decorations – 2025, A Smoky Mountain Christmas and a Quick Trip to Biltmore

This post was to go up yesterday but I am still decorating and changing things around.

What I have to share today is some of the main living area upstairs.

The pencil tree was in our bedroom last year. It has replaced our main tree, which resides in the downstairs family room this year. Our main tree is a live one and we do not want the mess on the new wood floors.

I didn’t put all the ribbon on it this time but did include the red and green hand painted ornaments that I skipped last year.

This tree also holds our White House and Biltmore House ornaments. 

I also added the snowflakes I recently made on the new embroidery machine.

The kitchen sideboard with prim snow people remained pretty much the same, except I added a little tree.

I bought the bells and little gingerbread people a few years ago at Walmart. They were for cross stitch finishing.

The dining room buffet stayed the same as last year.

I am using the tiered floor stand for Santas.

I added small wreaths to the pantry doors and think I’ll keep this up year-round.

The kitchen niche across from the pantry…

The piece next to the garage door never changes too much.

There are still a few areas on this floor that need tweaking. I'll show you those in a future post.

We had a nice time with Mom last Saturday. It was the Smoky Mountain Christmas event downtown.

We skipped riding the carriage as Mom has been having issues with her back and hip. It wouldn’t have been easy for her to climb the steps to get in.

The usual characters were out and about. Although, we somehow missed Santa and Mrs. Claus.

There were musicians performing all along the sidewalks.

An ice sculptor drew quite the crowd.

An ice sculpture to sit on for photos…we passed on that opportunity.

On Sunday hubby and I went to the Biltmore Estate for brunch and to get our 2025 ornament. 

The Stable Cafe' has the best cornbread with

sorghum butter and roasted pecans.

The 2025 dated ornament was already sold out so we got this one instead…

The 2026 ornament was already available, so I had to…

These guys must feel safe now that Thanksgiving is over. Wildlife is abundant at the Biltmore.

The temperature dropped Sunday afternoon and continued to do so throughout the night.  It was 9º F when I awoke Monday morning. Then it warmed up to 44º F in the afternoon.

With all the weekend’s activities, I only put in a few cross stitches and did absolutely NO sewing. On my list for this week is to finish the decorating and prepare for the kid’s visit; they arrive this weekend. I’ll pop in a couple times to show you more Christmas décor.

Enjoy your day and week ahead. 

See you soon,