Thursday, December 31, 2009

Happy New Year and new magazine article

Happy New Year to all our quilting and stitching friends. We survived the holidays and are now looking to 2010 for some exciting adventures for Lasting Treasures. We hope you follow along with us and share the fun.

First up is our beloved Valentine Girl appearing in the February/March edition (#108) of Quilts magazine. This delightful valentine from the 1930's is ready to be made into a great pillow for your sweetheart or your own favorite chair. Check her out and enjoy making her-plus there are some other great patterns in this magazine.

Second is our new BOM for our girl Sophie. Mid January we'll be starting out again with another delightful look at live for our best girlfriend. We hope you'll join us then.

Third is the much anticipated year of SPAIN! Jeanne and I are planning a visit to her son, daughter-in-law, and new grandbaby Roco in fall. And, just to round out the fun our Mom has decided she'd like to join us. What a trip that will be! We'll keep you posted on the planning. (Now if our little sister Jo could go too it would be a full house!!)

We wish you and your family and friends have a joyous New Year. Get ready for new stitching adventures!

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Christmas Picture

Christmas was wonderful. With visitors from Virginia we had a full house yesterday. See picture of the 3 girls and our Mom-we have had a good week of shopping, visiting, talking, just about did it all. I think everyone enjoyed yesterday. We had Christmas with our Grandkids on Thursday and Christmas Day was my side of the family. I think there were 17 in the house-with great things to eat and lots of laughter.

Tomorrow Jeanne and I meet to look over our plans for January and new designs. I'll post a New Year's Resolution LIst for Lasting Treasures next week....now, what should we start with first???

I hope your holiday was blessed with good health, great family and friends, and hopes for 2010!

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

The Night before the Night before Christmas!

Well, I'd like to say the presents are wrapped and the stockings are hung, but I have shopping ahead this afternoon. If the shopping gods are with me, it will be a pretty easy afternoon. I am sure that with a Diet Coke in the car with me, and my Santa socks on, it will be ok. There may even be a few minutes for some stitching tonight if all goes well.

The most important thing is that family and friends will be together enjoying the holiday. With all the economic pressures in 2009 on so many people, we are truly blessed.

We'll keep our creative thinking caps on for 2010 and wish you and your loved ones all the best this Holiday Season!

Jan and Jeanne-

Friday, December 18, 2009

Santa arrives!

Today I am going to the airport to pick up our parents for 10 days of holiday fun. They are escaping a once in a lifetime snowstorm that is about to hit the Eastern coast-and Virginia seems to be right in the midde of the mess. I think it's funny that they are coming to Wisconsin to get away from snow in Virginia. I have a Santa hat for each of them waiting in the car so we will get into the spirit of the season immediately.

At home I am decorating with hand stitched items where ever I can. Over the years we have stitched up a delightful collection of Santa Claus designs-everything from Kris Kringle to the Jolly Old Man himself on wall-hangings, pillows and quilts. This year seems to be the year of red at my house-my tree is predominantly red and I have 3 Christmas quilts that have red as a base color laying on the beds. Got to love RED!

I hope this weekend before the Holidays get here is a good one for each of you. Don't forget to slow down and try not to get too crazy with all the lists and "must-do's". Remember that enjoying the journey to Bethlehem is part of the delight of the season.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Blizzard!

This week was full of snow and more snow and more snow. We got a little over 14 inches in a day and a half-qualifying for the 6th heaviest snowstorm in Wisconsin's history of tracking snow since the 1880's! I'm not sure if that is something to be proud of but it's our reality.

Since neither Jeanne nor I was able to get out of our driveways we made a series of phone calls back and forth all day. It was kind of funny since we live a mile a part and couldn't get to each other but I spent the day looking out the window and stitching. She spent the day working on new Sophie block of the month designs for 2010.

Be sure to download the finishing instructions for the 2009 block of the month. And check out our great idea for the perfect gift for a quilting buddy (or yourself?). We've tried to make it as easy as possible. Click here to skip over to our web site.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Finishing Instructions Posted on Site

We posted the final download of block diagrams and the finishing instructions this morning on our web site for Sophie. Please take a couple of minutes to download them and you'll be all set to complete your 2009 Lasting Treasures Block of the Month project. Go to the Free BOM tab at the top of the home page and you'll find the last 3 parts of this fun project. Click here to go to our web site.

I've got my Christmas tree up and it looks great. But the Christmas Village looks like it's going through some redevelopment project! When I turned the lights out last night to go to bed, the Police Station was sitting on the road and it looked like the outskirts of town had been messed up by a tornado! Hopefully order will reign again tonight.

Jeanne has her outside decorations finished and is going to get her tree up this week. She uses the most beautiful collection of vintage ornaments that she has collected over the years. Her tree is usually breath-taking. I'm sure this year will be no different.

There aren't any stockings hanging on the mantle. I have to whip up a quick stocking to add to the family and don't want to hang any until it is done. We don't really celebrate St. Nick at our house so I'm ok for now. But come December 24th and that new stocking had better be done!

We hope all your holidays are joyous. We'll share more ideas for 2010 project in the next couple of weeks.

Now where did I leave that red and green yarn?????

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Sophie is finished

Take a quick peek at the photo to the right of this post to see the finished colored version of Sophie! Isn't she cute???? The pattern for assembly will be posted later today or tomorrow. I have one last proof-read to do and we will be ready to post the final chapter in our first official Block of the Month.

We have really enjoyed working on this for you. We're committed to continue Sophie's story into 2010 with a new Block of the Month as well as some other ideas for how to use her blocks. We hope you continue to find her as charming as we do!

Thanksgiving was full of family and friends. We even had a video shoot that will turn into a Christmas carol gift for family living too far to visit for Christmas. And there are STILL 3 1/2 weeks until Christmas so there is time to finish shopping and do some stitching.

Be sure to take a look at our Christmas patterns and our great gift idea for the stitchers in your life. You can browse around our web site by clicking here.