Good Morning ~ with Rainbows and Pink PomPom clouds!

Good morning on this dark winter day! The rain is slurping down, the wind is shoving my chairs around the deck for an early morning wake up call. Why are the deck chairs still out, you ask?.....Mo suns himself every sunny day, no matter how cold, so I haven't stacked and covered the chairs yet. No sun today though.

© Provided by Accuweather, Inc NE Rain Jan 24

''There can be gusts of 50 to 60 mph from Long Island to eastern New England with localized gusts to 70 mph. Such winds can down trees and wires, leading to power outages. Some roads may become impassible due to the storm debris.''

Mo is hiding on the heated blanket.

She can't see me if I am very quiet!"

''Puggies need their beauty sleeps,
rain is a very bad thing."

I had a hard time getting going on this post because we are just so over Christmas , even though the holidays are just a month past. Today I am sharing my finished little Christmas week project for 2018-19 season.

As you know each year I enjoy having a special small quilt project for the let-down week after Christmas. Something fun and pretty that can mostly be finished that week and entirely done by MLK holiday weekend, another ''home alone while the kids ski" long weekend.

This year I made Cheri Payne's Merry Christmas quilt. [If you belong to the Cheri Friendship Group on FB, the pattern is free in the files, "Joyous Christmas"]

I fell in love with this vintage pattern, found it on etsy last year but the seller took months to send it so I put it off til this year. I love the jigsaw puzzle of the funny letters, the holly sprigs, the bright reds and greens. I plan to hang it on an inner entrance door next Christmas.

Putting it together: all deep red prints, green shirt plaids,  tea-dyed backgrounds. I did copy Cheri's design setting/ choices as closely as I could because it wasn't calling me to experiment, but instead to recreate her little charmer.

You can see a few flubs, the awful green E that doesn't blend, or below how the wrong border choice [though i like it] makes the M disappear, in Merry, below.

Here are photos auditioning border choices.
 Grey green for an updated touch?

Plaid linen?

Red calico?

I went with the deep red calico--the print is tiny holly leaves and berries.

Unusual for me I used the same print as the binding; no more busy-ness, like a contrast binding, was required.
Everything was raw edge machine stitched applique, with black thread. The berries were added after the final machine wash and dry. They're freehand cut wool tiny circles held on with an iridescent bead.

The backing is fun! A faux flour sack,  it is a Santa's sack from the North Pole!

Found on sale after Christmas, it was a kitschy gift bag that I cut up.

I also used a holly print that  my sister in law used to wrap one of my gifts, and added onto with a sweet C robins and holly print.

These are the discareded tryout fabrics.

When I stacked them up to put away I noticed how charmingly they all go together! Maybe for a small quilt project someday?


Wonder what I will make next year!? Maybe the Belschnickle Santa from this pattern, in wool?

....................................................................................................................

Then the other day a piece of blue checked quilt remnant caught my eye. It's been on my ironing board since October, was supposed to be a little bowl filler/ sachet, with a pumpkin and black kitty, but no. I grabbed  some wools and made a little Valentine. Ha! I am not good at rushing or do-it-quick, the result was pretty awful, so I threw it out.

But you know...there it was, calling to me from the trash can. Plllleeeeze? I wanna be pretty,, I wanna be loved....Pllleeeze?"
OMG, shut UP, I mumbled.
I rescued the little sachet, fixed the sewing a bit; stuffed it with lemon verbena and rosemary that my friend and I grew last summer. I added this interesting button and one of my rusty keys I collect.

Now she is cute and can enjoy herself on Valentines Day with the other wool bowlies and  and the tin heart cooky cutters. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

love

lizzy 

gone to the beach...

So--after a day of flood and rain, at sunset the sun peeked out. I could tell by the odd light...yes! A rainbow! A January rainbow, how rare is that. Not sure I have ever seen a January rainbow. And the aquamarine sky was filled with pink powder puff pompoms. Mother Nature reminding us June is on its [her?] way.

the pile driver