A Wonderful Time!

We had our Thimbleberries Club end-of-the-year party tonight, and I just had a blast! It was so much fun spending the evening with all of my quilty peeps, eating and talking and winning prizes and exchanging gifts--what could be better? Well, doing it in a quilt shop, of course, where there are millions of things to tempt us and inspire us toward more creativity!

Our group meets at Quilters Corner in Sacramento, and Pam and Nicole, two of the owners, do a wonderful job organizing our meetings and making sure we enjoy ourselves, get the latest information from Thimbleberries, and keep busy and inspired with new projects.

One of our activities this evening was a secret gift exchange. I received a wonderful handmade door ornament--a cone made from decorative paper and glitter and filled with greenery and berries and hung from a pretty ribbon. Also in my package was a charm pack and a tin of direction-marked pins from Fons & Porter. I tried to get photos, but they really didn't turn out very well. I haven't been able to show you before because some of our members read my blog, but here's the wallhanging I made over the weekend as my contribution to the exchange:

This was another fairly quick project, although not quite as fast as the Santa wallhanging. Still, it was made using a few of the same techniques and combined regular cotton quilt fabric, wool, and embroidery.

Speaking of Santa, remember this guy?

Yep, I'm sure you do from all the comments you left! Well, at the quilt shop, I came across these delightfully cute, cute, cute peppermint buttons:

I just love the crisp and graphic red and white of peppermint candies! I bought eight buttons, but two of them made their escape before I took the photo. Want to see where they ran off to?

One of my friends at work, Missy, suggested adding buttons and tabs to hold a stick for hanging Santa, and when I saw the Christmas bulb quilt hanger and the buttons, I knew exactly what I was going to do. Santa went to Thimbleberries with me for show and tell, and then he came home for a visit, but he's going right back to work again tomorrow where he'll be re-hung at my desk. I really need to get a photo or two of Christmasland at Kim's Desk. All I really need to add is a fireplace (with the crackle of burning logs) and some Christmas music, and I could probably just live there. Well, maybe not--I'd sure miss the Sweat Shop!

The Sweat Shop, by the way, looks like a bomb went off in it. I could barely stand to be in there tonight during the time it took to add tabs and buttons to Santa. All these quick projects I've been working on mean I've pulled a lot of different materials from here and there, and I haven't really stopped to put any of it away. Tomorrow night after work, that's the first thing on my agenda--cleaning it all up so I can work happily again. And as soon as that happens, it's back to quilting the Valentine heart quilt--I really need to get that finished up for the class I'll be teaching. And you know what? I had such a fun time tonight, the adrenaline is still pumping and I'm wide awake! I bet I could easily stay up half the night quilting. But I'd better not--tomorrow's going to be a busy day at work.

Thank you for taking your time to stop in to visit me!