Happy New Year!

Time to end 2007 and say hello to 2008. 2007 was a great year for Lasting Treasure-we saw our first pattern in Keepsake Quilting Catalog, watched our Yo Yo Clown be presented by Alex Anderson on her new internet quilt show-The Quilt Show-and enjoyed a good time at Houston Market. I think Jeanne and I worked a lot smarter and more efficiently. We added my brother-in-law, Terry, to our staff to help assemble patterns and had our web site re-designed and hosted by In A Pickle Design. We also began our blog.

Now on to 2008! We hope you continue to keep an eye on our blog. We are happy to have you spend some of your time with us. Don't forget to let us know what you would like us to design for you. What you'd like to stitch is what we'd like to be designing.

We hope you and your family have a wonderful 2008!

Four days off

It is wonderful to have 4 days off at the end of the year. We had some great snow on Friday so everything looks nicely white. Once we got home from work it felt good to know we didn't have to really go anywhere for 4 days! I spent some time with Jeanne looking to the New Year. We are working on a quarterly calendar and trying to make our creative designing fit into a marketing schedule that will allow us to hit the bit Quilting Market dates. But, at the same time, try to figure out how to keep the creative juices flowing AND have fun with our stitching. Not an easy task I think!

As we don't really know what we SHOULD be working on yet, I decided to go through my unfinished projects and work on one of them. I chose a wallhanging called "Sprikng Flowers: from the book All Things Spring by Anne Cosgrove. The fabric is hand-dyed batiks by Starr Fabrics. I decided to quilt a simple grid on it using tan quilting thread. I hand appliqued the flowers on and button-hole stitched them with a variegated tan/brown thread. It will hang in my husband's studio when done. The colors are strong but the primitive flowers add a touch of whimsy. If the football playoff games are not too exciting, I should get it quilted in a week or so!

Christmas Came and Went!

Christmas was wonderful. The presents were opened with abandon and the food was devoured. Everyone was healthy and safe-that's what really matters most. Jeanne and I were able to share Tuesday when our combined families got together to exchange presents. It was fun to see everyone and listen to the grandkids talk about what Santa brought them.

I am back at work on yo yo's and postage stamp blocks. The Christmas table runner is finished and sitting on the table under the gingerbread house-I think the pattern will be very nice with two hot pads to stitch to complete the set. With 4 days off from the 29th-January 1st, I think Jeanne and I will put our heads together and start back on track with new patterns. Keep watching for more posts!

Almost Christmas!

We are having a blizzard outside and the 2 oldest grandkids slept over last night. What can be better than that? Oh wait, I forgot that we decorated the gingerbread house AND frosted cookies with the help of my youngest grandchild. Winston, 3 yrs old, also shared a wonderful rendition of "Jingle Bell Rock" at full volume last night. What fun!

I have been thinking about how to hand quilt the Christmas table runner I quickly stitched last year. It was put away amidst all the end of the year hustle and bustle when I didn't get it finished. I love the simple embroidery designs and the Roman Stripe is great to use up all those left overs from your Christmas quilt. Be sure to take a peak at the photos of the embroidery. This will be a new pattern for Christmas 2008!

Tomorrow Santa comes to Grandma's house! Maybe there will be a fat quarter or two under the tree-or at least some scraps to make more Yo YO's!

Happy Holidays to you all!

Found the missing Yo Yo's

How could I forget to say that I found the missing Yo Yo's??? They were sitting in hiding near my stitching chair. Of course, I have 2 stitching chairs so that was the problem!! Why would I possibly look in the obvious spots? I did clear three drawers out while looking for them so that was a good thing. The missing yo yo's were needed for the Easter egg design but we still aren't totally satisfied with the way they look. Back to the drawing board!!!

Tuesday in CT

I am in CT for a business meeting and have my stitching here with me as well as my notebook to jot down ideas. Jeanne is back in WI working on getting patterns ready to send out to one of our distributors. She always gets more of the actual business work and I get the glamour of traveling! Oh well-I AM older. That has to count for something!

We tried to lay out the yo yo Easter Egg design on Sunday but neither of us is really happy with it. I did small yo yo's in as many bright colors as I could find in my stash-even some batiks. Using the Clover extra small yo yo maker it was fun to make them. But, unfortunately, we aren't really satisfied with the lay out yet.

Jeanne, her son Adam, and her daughter-in-law Tania are going shopping today at one of our favorite quilt shops in the area: Primitive Gatherings. The shop is owned by Lisa Bongean and she creates the most wonderful wool pieces and quilts. We have added her site to our favorites for you to check out. The site is www.primitivegatherings.us.com. Jeanne is trying to get deep reds and blues to work on a flag pattern. More to come on that!

MISSING YO YO'S IN THE HOUSE!

I spent an hour last night away from my yo yo making trying to stamp some Christmas cards. What a bad experience! I had a friend work with me (coach, actually) on some ideas for a card and wanted to stamp a white snowman on a dark blue paper and layer that on another blue snowflake paper. Well, the new white stamp pad I got at Hobby Lobby STAMPS THEN DRIES TO CLEAR! After getting all the things I needed laid out for the first 6 cards, I couldn't get the darn white ink to stay white. It doesn't say anything about drying clear-this morning I emailed my stamping coach, Jane, and asked for advice. Hopefully I can try again tonight.

And-beyond that-somewhere in my house is a baggie with bright small yo yo's all finished that I need for my new Easter Egg design. Can I find that darn baggie??? Of course not! My living room is a total disaster of Christmas chaos because we can't find a string of lights for our Christmas village. Bruce picked up the living room before he started laying out the village and my YO YO'S are missing. Rats, mumble, mumble, rats. Where is that baggie?

I wanted to lay out the Easter Egg this morning at Jeanne's house when I stopped for coffee but NO!

Jeanne has company from Spain for 2 weeks. Her son, Adam, and dil, Tania, are visiting from Valencia Spain. We are so happy to see them! Besides the warm feeling their visit brings us all-they are very talented graphic artists so Jeanne and I plan to pick their brains til they have nothing but mush left and then ship them back to Spain!! No-I didn't really mean that, did I???? Adam is going to review our web site and Tania is a talented artist and has worked with Jeanne before on our red and white postage stamp quilt with adorable animals she drew. I posted a photo of the quilt called "Chicken Scratch" so you can see the great animals she created.

Wish me luck as I search for the missing yo yo's!

Christmas ARRIVES!

Finally have gotten all the Christmas decorations out of hiding and that includes the Redwork pillows and wall-hangings. I have added some of my favorite patterns for quick redwork stitching to this blog. Between Jeanne's and my house, we have been able to squeeze room to decorate with some of these favorites. I have a few more photos but not til tomorrow. My embroidery hoop is calling me!!

Be sure to check out our web site for these great Christmas patterns.
www.lastingtreasure.com

We'd like to thank Joan Hawley, the original Lazy Girl!, for her mention of our Pie Mat pattern on her weekly blog featuring yo yo designs. Joan has been our mentor and great girl-friend for about 4 years now-if Joan is your friend, you are super lucky!

There is nothing better than a cup of hot chocolate (or a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks), a good Christmas movie, snow falling quietly outside, and stitching in my lap. Throw in a good girl friend (ok, maybe my husband!) on the couch beside me, and life doesn't get much better.

I hope your Tuesday is full of quiet madness as you get ready for Christmas and your Holiday Season. Remember-you're supposed to be having some fun along the way!

Getting back on track!

Back to the blog after some technical training and I should be able to keep things updated better now. Later today I hope to update some photos of what we are working on now. Currently we are making yo yo's for 3 new projects and have gotten caught up in Needle punching. What a treat it was to have Jeanne try to teach me how to do it. Finally, it just came seemed to work itself out. Of course, it's not quite exactly the way I want, but it's coming along.

This afternoon we will start to decorate the house for Christmas. Getting the Dept. 56 village out will get the excitement building.