Farewell 2015-You Have Been A Great Year

I guess I'll begin at the beginning sharing a great year.

The end of January marked a very special occasion, the 57/57 Racine, Wisconsin Washington Park High Schhol Reunion in Florida. A few class mates had to leave before this picture was taken. Everyone had such a great time and we were so thankful to Lee and Terry for facilitating the organization of it.  

February kept me busy knitting various projects, finishing quilts and enjoying various activities with friends.

March was a happy busy month with company.

My son Greg and his family visited and got to spend time with my Florida family as well as enjoy the warmth and activities in Florida.

It was so much fun to have my friend Debbie from New Mexico as a house guest for a few days.

March also was a time I did a lot of fabric dyeing.

Lisa and Jim from Sarasota came up to visit.

Geri and Bob from Wisconsin visited.

A lot of dyeing and quilting was done in April and it took over the great room.

Ice dyeing was a major focus in May.

The highlight of June for our whole family was Heidi and Nate's wedding!

July 4th is celebrated at my brother and sister in law's home on the lake. It is the one time of the year that the entire extended family tries to get together.

August is a time to enjoy the outdoors, finish more quilts, and do some more organizing. It's always all about color.

September featured a lot of knitting.

It was also a busy time finishing quilts and tapestries.

October meant more fabric dyeing, and finishing quilts and tapestries.

It was also a time for reminiscing with long time friends.

Getting ready to head south also took some time.

I got,to,present my BFF Sally with this afghan I knit for her when I arrived in Florida.

I decided to do the 12 days of Thanksgiving on my blog, rather than just the one day we usually celebrate. It was really an eye opener as to what a wonder life, family and friends I have.

December was full of ice dyeing with perfect weather for it.

I was able to visit my friends Sharon and Fred in Ft Myers.

I enjoyed time with friends and my Florida family before heading north for the holidays.

The best thing about heading north is getting to spend time with family. 

I hope you and yours have had a great year and are looking forward to an even better one in 2016!

Family Christmas Quilt Gifting

This year the quilts each family member got to choose from were larger than last years.

I came up with  new system so everyone could see all the quilts and then pick one as their turn came up.

Nicholas helped me set up the system. We put a number on each quilt.

My two assistants, Nicholas and Blake took turns showing the quilts so people could see them all before it was time to make a choice.

You can see how intently everyone is watching the quilts. I suggested they either keep track of their favorites on their smart phones or with paper and pencil.

Thanks to Nate I have a full record of ALL the quilts available to choose from.

After all,the quilt were shown Cooper picked one person at a time to choose a quilt. This year we identified people by their year of birth rather than their name. The reason for this will be made clear in a later blog post. 

Everyone walked away happy and there are still several great quilts for another day.

Family Christmas

Today was a day for anticipating the family Christmas.

The Minnesota kids are relaxing before the evening family get together.

Santa Jared made sure everyone got the correct gift bag with their birth year on it. No more names, everyone had a birth year to identify them as we did 4 different rounds of gifts of family memorabilia.

Cooper is the youngest grandchild and the one who looks forward to this tradition more than anyone else each year.

I will have more to share and more pictures soon.

Sparkle For The New Year

These 3 sparkling things were tree toppers I bought on clearance after Christmas last year. I could see that they had possibilities to be used a different way.

I took the part that clamps onto the tree off and now I can just put them anywhere I want.

Gorgeous Flowers

This is the beautiful arrangement I got for Christmas from Greg, Julie, Blake, Stephanie, Jessica, Nicholas and Jared.

It has enough sparkle to ring in the New Year!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from me and my family.

He Looks Like He May Be The Real Santa

Even though he is not wearing red he sure looks like he might be the real Santa!

Do you think he is?

The Imposters?

As Christmas draws near there seem to be more imposters that think they are Santa.

This guy is all dressed in red but there is something that makes me think he is not the real Santa Claus. 

The house is over run with guys trying to make me believe they are the real Santa.

This guy has done a better job making himself look like Santa but I can tell he's not the real one.

I'm not giving up though as I know the real one is somewhere hiding out in this house.

Last Ice Dye For A While

This is another surprise as the mixed colors of dye broke into colors I never expected.

It is the first almost neutral.poece I have created.

The more I look at it the more I like it.

Amulets Are Back

I had several,guests Friday who had never visited before so they each got 2 amulets. The others got 1.

I thought I was running low on the amulets but when I arranged them in Color Flow order there is still a great variety to choose from.

It's been a while since I played with my clay. I expect I will be making more and also possibly some other things with the clay in the next few months. I do love making them.

Mitchell asked me how long it took to make the one of the ones he picked? I never thought of how long each one takes before as I get lost in the process and just enjoy making them for several days.

Florida Family Dinner

I made sure my camera was out and ready to take pictures last night when my FL extended family was coming for dinner.

I blew it....didn't take one picture. Sometimes we get so involved in photographing an occasion we miss out on the occasion itself.

Brenda gifted me with this towel which says it all.

Everyone seemed to be in a nice relaxed pre-holiday mood.

The only one of the family missing was Ben as he lives a couple of hours away.

Patriarch Andy was really experiencing and enjoying his family.

I was so happy Sarah graced us with her presence and happy smiles. 

I was told Drew was bringing his girlfriend....but said "girlfriend" looked more like his football playing friend Trevon of many years,

Mitchell wanted to know if I had baked cookies as he remembered those I had baked for Thanksgiving. I ran out of time and didn't get any baked. I offered to bake some then and there if he would help. He declined so he'll have to wait until next time.

Allison and I spent time looking at some pictures on my iPad trying to find pictures of my granddaughter Kierstin. Allison reminds me so much of Kierstin at that age, 

And last but not least. Brenda! What can I say about her?

While I was relaxing with the family after dinner Brenda and ? Got the kitchen all cleaned up and even hand washed all the large items,

Sink was spotless and she was the first one to use the newly dyed clothes!

No we did not drink the wine. Another gift from Brenda...what a perfect way to dress up a bottle of Andy' favorite!

I made a BIG batch of spaghetti sauce, enough so there was a lot left for them to take home even after  everyone had plenty to eat. I did not use Andy's secret recipe since I didn't want to pay him his required 25 cents royalty for each serving! I have though in the past sent him the required 25 cents with PayPal.

Of course Drew served dessert...two kinds of ice cream and chocolate sauce.

I really enjoyed having them here and most of all enjoyed seeing how they all were enjoying each other.