Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Yesterday was my blog's 6th birthday. I've been slacking on the posts over the past year and probably won't be much better this year, but who knows? Let's reminisce about December, shall we?

My sister's masterpiece work on my Christmas tree

I had lots of ideas for decorating this year, but didn't get as much done as I would have liked. But, I had so much fun MAKING after several months of no studio work. It felt great to be back in the studio again and since school starts on January 9, I am wasting no time.

Speaking of school, the grades are out! I made As in both courses and have a 4.0 GPA. Don't know if I'll be able to maintain it, but here's hoping! I'm anxiously awaiting the syllabi for the next two courses. Both classes are in the accounting department and I'll have the same instructor for them.

AND, to make sure we had a little bit of fun during the holidays while still making, the Hubs and I took a macaron class at Art is in Cakes and had a blast. This was the photo that convinced me we had do this:

Gorgeous, right? How hard could it be? And after we registered, we were told that the person with the cutest apron would win something. Challenge accepted:

I made us a couple of aprons...the pans below us
are our macarons waiting to go in the oven.

Mashing the egg whites with the food coloring and almond flour.

Natalie's gorgeous macaron on the left;
we should have waited until we got home to decorate!

We never found out who won the cutest apron prize, but we'll do it again. You can hire the place for private parties and I told the Hubs this would be a great birthday party.

I finished a couple of pillows in addition to the ones I showed in the Pinetree Village quilt post:

A couple of other designs that will be pillows for next year:

A set of 3 kitchen towels for each of the kids; this is one of the designs:

Shirts for my sister and Holly (and aprons, too):

Two shirts for Hubs the Santa man, and one for me. Photos of those later.

Speaking of Santa, have you watched The Christmas Chronicles on Netflix? It's worth it to see Kurt Russell play Santa. It's good. So is he.

I was supposed to be on vacation from the 24th through the 1st, but the government shutdown forced me to work. I'll have to find some time to take a mini vacay before the start of the new semester, but only if we're operational. I can't take any time off while we're shut down.

SO...what's the making plan for 2019? Two things. Our granddaughter, Cheyanne, graduates from high school in May. Hubs and I wanted to buy her a new laptop for college. Nope, she told her mother she wants "a quilt with my name embroidered in big letters so no one will take it." I told her mother that wouldn't stop anyone from taking it, but she'll get her wish. I recently purchased the Dear Daughter pattern from Rebecca Mae Designs and started pulling fabrics on Sunday. A couple of summers ago she had gone through my stash and pulled some fabrics she loved. They'll go in the quilt, too. I've already designed the back of the quilt and we'll see if it actually gets done.

The second thing is to finish the ideas that I wanted for Christmas 2018. I'll keep the same color scheme and there are a lot of things to do. More in future posts.

I hope you and yours have had a wonderful holiday season filled with love and good cheer. In the meantime, go sew/quilt/make!