2012 Christmas Quilts

It's time to choose Christmas Quilts again.  It's a miracle I Have 8 to give this year! But then "Miracle" is the Porter Family's middle name this year.

 This is a big one, you can see that it covers the top of my King size bed.  It is a little dark, good look for a cabin.  It is called "Just Squares"  Hannah

 This is smaller as you can see on the bed.  It's red orange/salmon, green, yellow and black, much brighter than this picture.  This is "QQ sampler".Joe

This one is pretty small. Probably just a throw at the bottom of the bed. "Posey's"Sarah

This almost fits across the king size bed.  "Carribbean dreams" Ben

 This is probably twin size.  Made with Christmas Fabrics. "Christmas Ribbons"
Julian

 This is made of flannel and is pretty small.  It is bigger than a crib quilt.  I think it is about 2 yards square.
"Flannel Star" Abby

This is also a small throw, very masculine, the fabric has ducks on it.  The colors are much richer in real life
"Pinwheel ducks" Caleb
This is the Order
1. Hannah
2. Joe
3. Caleb
4. Betsy (Sorry,Betsy allready chose hers since she is here.  She chose the reject from last year)
5. Sarah
6. Ben
7. Abby
8. Julian

If you hurry and pick, I will be able to send Ben's with Betsy, at least I will if they choose one that is finished.  Several of them haven't been quilted yet.
Love you all.
Mom

Doodle Hoot Quilts and Embellishments

I DID IT!  I started a little pattern company called Doodle Hoot and just published my first 3 patterns!  A few of my friends just bought them and wrote their names on them!  A few even had me Autograph them!  I have really neat friends.

This is called "Holy Family".  It is the first of a set of three.  The other two will be shepherds and wisemen.  They will all be the same size and hang together like a triptych.

This is my "Love Multiplies/the Storyteller" quilt.  It has a story that you can read about on my website...YES!  MY OWN WEBSITE! Doodlehoot.com.

And this is my Watermelon Purse.  I just got the idea and made it up.  I carry one around.  It makes me feel like summer.

Can you believe I actually did it.  I took pains to make sure my patterns looked really professional.  They look so good in the bags, I just love it. Whew....

Good bye sweet boy

Caleb Moody. I have been loving this little boy since he was born 7 years ago. I have had the honor of caring for him in his home and partaking of his spirit for most of those years. I have dearly loved every second I spent near him and his sweet family.
He returned to Heavenly Father Friday afternoon in his mothers arms and surrounded by family.
Once, when his physical therapist was working with him, I saw him stand upright on his cute chubby, never been used feet. Of course he was completely supported by the therapist, but that sight made me cry. It was so neat to imagine him walking and talking. He is now walking and talking and I hope I will get to hug and kiss him again someday. I love you little boy blue.

Food Chopper

I found this at a yard sale last summer and couldn't resist buying it because of the memories it evoked. Let me tell you about it.

When I was a very little girl, I'm guessing about 3 or 4, we went to visit my grampa Ziegler.  This was Lester D Ziegler, everyone called "Dutch".  He lived on a ranch outside of Salmon, ID.  We had to drive down this long lane, get out and open a gate, drive through, then close the gate and drive some more, to get to the house. There were big fields on all sides of the house.  I went exploring, as a little girl is apt to do, and someone was put in charge of me, I think it was grampa's daughter by his second wife Helen.  I can't remember her name. Anyway, I went running out to see the geese. Everyone was screaming at me to stop but  I just didn't register any danger so I kept going. I was in the field with the geese when I realized first that these geese were bigger than I was, and second they were running towards me, necks stretched out in a very aggressive manner.  I turned around and ran back to the fence and barely made it through to the other side by the time the geese reached me.  All the adults were horrified at my close call. I did'nt know birds could be mean!  (Remind me to tell you my turkey story someday). Anyway, those geese patrolled the perimeter of that fence the rest of the day, honking and yelling at everyone who came close, ruining all the exploring I wanted to do. I was forced to go into the house with all the grownups.  There I saw my grampa with a cool jar thing, pushing the knob on top up and down. Coooool!! I went over to see what was going on. He would put a few spoonfulls of food, or a piece of meat in and then push the red knob up and down real fast.It had a spring in it that made it pop up everytime you pushed it down. There was a little blade at the other end of the knob that chopped the food up, against a little wooden circle at the bottom of the jar. He then spooned the chopped food onto his plate and ate it.  He didn't have any teeth for some reason and this little contraption chewed up his food for him. I guess it was the first blender.
         Isn't it funny that seeing that little food chopper made me think about mean geese?

Girls quilt collage project

Christmas was great. All my children and grandchildren were here except Betsy and her family. We had all kinds of fun dancing to "Just Dance" on the wii, (yup, even us old uncoordinated folks), playing games, eating and doing projects.  Here are some pictures of one of our projects.
I started out with my 4 oldest Granddaughters.  I had them draw a big picture on a sheet of paper.  Then we traced it onto a piece of muslin and I gave them bags of color coordinated fabric scraps and told them to cut little pieces and glue them onto the muslin. When they were finished with that, they cut them out and glued them onto a background. We made a quilt sandwich and quilted them by machine, sewing as many raw edges down as possible and then bound them. Here they are:  Oh yeah....I forgot to mention that the mothers came down one by one and joined in the fun.

Here is Sarah's little "Hooter". Of course she had Ben draw it for her so Her daughter Brynn says she cannot really claim it.  I know for a fact that Ben didn't put one piece of fabric on that drawing, so I think Sarah can claim it.

Here is a "Handy" little quilt by Val, the school teacher.  Could you have guessed?

This little tree with falling leaves belongs to Hannah.

This little red posie was made by Livy, Age 10.

Brynn, age 8, made this Christmas tree with decorations and a star on top.

 Abby made this wonky little sun to brighten up her day.

                                            CJ age 12 made this eclectic rose bud.

Kaitlyn, age 10, made this swimmingly fun fish!

Didn't they do an amazing Job?