I promised a few pictures of the completed smocked dress I made for Megan.  This one came as a kit, with the fabric pre-pleated and partially sewn together, along with the pattern for the smocking, the lace for the sleeves, and even the bias binding for the neck!  So, I did the smocking on the front and sleeves, and finished putting it together.  Sorry, my pictures got in the shadows a little, but you get the idea!

                                       

                                       

                                       

I also finished Megan's quilt! 

                                       

That one was when it was folded over a chair.  I had just washed it, and I didn't want to lay it on the floor and didn't have a good place that was available.  Here is what it looked like spread out more, before I sewed the binding on it -

                                       

I am still working on a cross stitch Christmas stocking for Megan, but it doesn't look like that will be finished by this Christmas.  With a new baby due in their house this coming February, I will be 2 babies behind in making Christmas stockings! 

Christmas is rapidly approaching whether I am ready or not!  And shortly after Christmas this year, Betsy's fiance, Andrew ( I really will get a picture of them together soon!) will be flying in, and we are going to drive out to Colorado where Andrew is going to school and where Betsy will be moving.  I am really not ready for that trip quite yet!  But I guess I will be - and so my days now are filled with Christmas shopping, wrapping, partying, decorating, and hopefully writing Christmas cards, and also all the pre-moving and pre-wedding plans that we can accomplish now.  I am quite overwhelmed!

You know those holiday oreo cookies that are in the stores now with the red in the middle? 

                                         

                                         

                                         

Cookie Monster, want to come give Megan a kiss?

Busy week at our house last week, and I thought I would update even though I have no pictures!  I tried to get a few pictures during one of the Scrooge dress rehearsals, but I was really too busy trying to get ready for my interpreting roles to get anything good.  Otherwise, I only had people just standing around waiting.  So, this will be info without pictures!

Last week was "Scrooge" - put on these past 12 years by a local church, at the Roanoke Civic Center.  It is a wonderful musical, and is free of charge, with an opportunity at the end to give a donation to the Blue Ridge Women's Center.  My family has been involved with "Scrooge" since the beginning, when Amanda was in high school.  She was in the chorus and helped them learn the music those first years.  She even made her own costumes!  Then she graduated and left, and then Betsy was in the show, also in the chorus, and Jim was in it with her.  Then I made her costumes!  There were a few years while she was away for college that she wasn't in it, but last year, after she graduated, they asked her to be director!  So, Betsy has been the director for 2 years.  Jim sings in the chorus, plays his psaltery, and dances on Scrooge's casket.  And last year we started providing interpreting for the deaf and hard of hearing.  So, I have been helping with that!

We have had "Scrooge" rehearsals every Thursday night and some Saturdays since August!  And of course the week before the show, we felt like we were living at the Civic Center, once they set up there.  It all went great!  4 shows this past weekend!

Meanwhile, the young man that Betsy has been dating, who goes to school in Colorado, flew in for "Scrooge" and surprised Betsy.  And he asked her to marry him!  And gave her a beautiful ring!

Right after Christmas, Betsy is moving to Colorado - and will be looking for a job.  She already has an apartment with 2 other girls all lined up.  No definite wedding plans quite yet, but it looks like it will be early summer.

It suddenly hit me, once "Scrooge" was over, that there are less than 3 weeks until Christmas!  I better get busy. . .

Thanksgiving Day was another day of cooking and games - we had decided to eat our Thanksgiving dinner at 5:00 so that the little ones could have their naps at home.  So, Amanda and her family didn't come until after naps.  Joan and Kip and Joshua came earlier, though, and Jim's parents were here, of course.  Jim intended to get up and go hunting, but at 4:00 AM, his car wouldn't start!  He ended up buying a new battery as soon as Advance Auto opened, but he didn't try to go out.  Joshua was really interested in helping us all cook, so he and Suzanne made bread before they started on their games.  I didn't even get a picture of it!  I did, however, get this picture of Josh carrying our 20-pound turkey in from the frig in the garage -

                                          

And he helped me clean it and get it all ready for the oven -

                                          

There were games going on, off and on, all day long!

                                          

                                          

                                          

And of course there were football games on TV - but nobody looks like they were watching!  They were, though, I am sure of it! 

                                           

Even Minuette looks interested!

                                           

                                           

Finally it was getting close to dinner time!

                                           

I didn't get many pictures - how could I take pictures and get the rest of the cooking done and all those last minute things to get it on the tables?  But here are a few after everyone was finished -

                                            

                                            

                                            

More TV watching and just hanging around -

                                            

                                            

Looks like a boring day!  But it was very nice and relaxing, with everyone bringing food and helping in the kitchen, and having a nice time together.

Friday morning was Black Friday, and for as many years as my girls had one of them able to drive, they left early in the morning for the mall!  But not this year!  They all decided they didn't want to.  Amanda came over early (but not too early!) because the girls were all working on cleaning out their old "stuff" from some of the rooms downstairs.  Josh wanted to help, so he and Kip came over and helped sort, toss, and carry trash bags up to the garage.  By right after lunch, one of the rooms that had been filled with everyone's things was empty!  Sam arrived, and he vacuumed the room out, and he and Kip put up a double bed we have to go in there.  Now I have one more guest room again!  Thanks, guys!  After lunch, Amanda and Sam took the kids home for naps, and Joan arrived, and she and I worked on a project that required sewing, for a gift she is giving to Megan for Christmas.  Shhhh - don't tell Megan, it's a surprise!  By dinner time, we all went out for dinner - that is something that Jim's parents like for us to do every year, and they pay for it all!

On Saturday, the Fosters left for their home in PA, and Suz left for her home in Leesburg, and I ran errands and cleaned up and changed beds, etc, etc.  What a nice weekend!

Now we are in "Scrooge" week - every year our family has been involved in a local production of Scrooge, put on at our Civic Center by a local church to raise money for the Blue Ridge Women's Center.  Betsy has been the director these past two years.  And Jim continues to sing and dance in it.  I help do some of the ASL interpretation for a couple of the shows.  The shows run Thursday night  - Saturday.  It's a very special way to start off the Christmas season!

                                          

We had such a nice Thanksgiving weekend!  It seemed to be 6 days long!   It was, actually!  But I am way too tired to blog about it all tonight, so I'll get started and see if I can finish tomorrow!

Last week, Monday, was the day Suzanne intended to come home since the school where she teaches was off all week.  But she called me in the early afternoon and said she was at the car service place - that there was something wrong with her car, and they were trying to figure out what.  Finally they decided that she needed new brakes (and we were very thankful that she hadn't gotten out of town and THEN found out she needed new brakes).  By the time they finished, it was late, and she decided to wait until Tuesday to come home.

I had already invited Amanda and Sam and kids to come for dinner on Monday night so that we could start out the holiday week with one meal with our immediate family, and they all came, minus Suzanne, and we had a nice time and chatted with Suzanne on the phone.  She got home on Tuesday, and Jim's parents arrived that night.  So, we had a fun houseful!

On Wednesday, Jim's brother and family came over for most of the day, and the weekend of partying began!  We had such a nice few days!  Here are some pictures from that day -

Megan had to show Aunt Suzanne how to take everything out of the cabinet that she is allowed to play in!

                                      

                                        

And Charlie came to play too!

                                         

                                        

                                        

All that playing made Megan tired, so her paci and blanki were handy -

                                        

                                        

I didn't get any more pictures of Wednesday, but we all played games, did some cooking for Thanksgiving, and ordered pizza!

More tomorrow - of Thanksgiving Day.

                                      

Last week, we spent Thursday night, and then all day and evening Friday, and Saturday, and then until about 3:00 on Sunday sewing!  Oh, and we did eat.  And on Sunday morning, we had the opportunity to go to a short worship service outdoors near the pond.  Sorry, I didn't get pictures of that!  Here are some more quilt pictures - quilts or at least quilt tops that were completed over the weekend.

                                         

                                         

                                         

                                         

Sheila was working on this strip-pieced project in all flannels -

                                         

                                         

                                         

                                         

Camelia was designing something -

                                         

And here it is!

                                         

Others hard at work -

                                         

                                         

                                         

I had never done any real machine quilting - I have never even put the walking foot onto my machine to make some simple machine quilting possible.  So, Sheila told me she would show me how.  She showed me and then gave me a table runner she had just finished up - as a gift that I was to quilt myself!!!  I loved it!  And I had soooo much fun quilting it!

                                         

I was so intent on what I was doing that my neck and shoulders hurt all of the next day!

                                         

I'll have to take some pictures of my own finished projects here at home and post them later - I kept running down the batteries on my camera until I didn't have any new ones left!

But here are a few more finished quilts!  This was my favorite - Eileen is a talented and creative quilter!

                                         

Here is one that Suzette made, of jars of various kinds of yummy things -

                                         

And here are some more -

                                          

                                          

It was a wonderful weekend!  I am very inspired to keep sewing now!

                                         

This past weekend, I went to quilt camp!  This is the camp I have attended for many years now, sometimes twice a year.

We arrive at Camp Bethel, in Fincastle, VA, on Thursday afternoon.  Some of us met first at Cracker Barrel for lunch and then went on to camp.  It was a beautiful fall weekend, with chilly evenings and mornings, warmer afternoons, leaves falling, and deer walking outside! 

We set up our beds - we sleep in bunk beds, but everyone gets a bottom bunk.  I think that there were 27 of us.   We have a large room where we set up our machines for the weekend.  I'll show pictures of the room after I show some of the beautiful quilts these ladies brought for "Show and Tell" that first night.  Someone commented later in the weekend that even though we all love to go to quilt shows, we have some of the most talented and creative ladies with beautiful quilts to show right here!

                                        

                                    

                                    

                                       

                                      

                                      

                                      

                                      

                                      

                                      

                                      

Debbie showed this quilt that her grandmother had made, hoping that Debbie would someday be a quilter.  Debbie treasures it, but told us that she didn't start quilting until shortly after her grandmother died.

                                      

Sheila made this double wedding ring quilt to give to her son who is getting married this summer -

                                      

                                      

Here is our sewing room -

                                      

                                      

                                      

And some people working diligently at their sewing machines -

                                      

This is the last time this particular camp will be held, as the owners of the shop that hold the camp are ready to retire and are selling the shop.  Last year, many of us wrote on a fabric square, that Cathie then took and made up a quilt with all of the squares.  She presented it to Carolyn on Thursday night, and anyone who did not sign it last year had an opportunity to sign it in the border this weekend.

                                      

Sometimes we have had special speaker and teachers at camp, and we have taken classes.  But this time we all brought whatever projects we wanted to work on. 

More next time!

                                            

                                    

Here is Megan's quilt, that I machine pieced and then sent to my friend, Cathie, to be quilted.  I got it back yesterday afternoon, and I still have to sew the binding on, but I am going to take it as is to QUILT CAMP this weekend, to have for show and tell!

                               

Betsy had a 2-day birthday celebration!  Suzanne came home, and we had cookie cake!  First we had lunch, and Betsy opened a couple of gifts, and then on to the cookie cake -

                                     

That cookie cake is from Sam's Club - they do 2 layer ones, and they are cheaper than the cookie place in the mall that only does 1 layer ones.  We love Sam's Club cakes too!

Anyway, back to the important stuff - she blew out her candles -

                                     

                                     

I forget what they were clapping about there - maybe Charlie was helping??

Here are  Charlie and Aunt Suzanne involved in quite a discussion -

                                     

                                     

Meanwhile Megan was only interested in one thing -

                                     

                                     

                                     

Then there was a little playtime -

                                     

Bets got this adorable sweater -

                                    

And an artistic mobile -

                                    

And there is still cookie cake left! 

Happy 24th Birthday to Betsy!

                                      

She has always wanted to go through a corn maze, and we planned it for this evening.  There is a farm near here that has their pumpkin patch, corn maze, and other games and things open until next weekend.  They open at 5:00 on Friday nights, and it was a perfect day to go, before the time changes back to Standard Time.  Betsy brought a friend with her, and Amanda and Sam and the kids came, and we went into the corn maze -

                                      

                                         

Even Luna came!!!   Oh, by the way, Luna passed her Public Access Test, and so she is a service dog!  She is still working on some of the hearing things that Betsy needs.  But she had been going to more and more places with Betsy.

                                          

So, we started out with our maps and looked for numbered signs where you could follow clues for which way to go -

                                         

                                         

Here's the group -

                                         

                                         

Here is was Grandpa's turn to carry Megan -

                                         

While Sam carried Charlie for awhile -

                                         

Sometimes they walked -

                                         

And Charlie enjoyed holding his own map and finding the numbers -

                                         

Here's Betsy and her friend Linz -

                                         

We had a great time!  We had a little trouble there for awhile between a couple of those numbers!  But our wonderful guides (Bets, Jim, Sam, and Charlie!) got us out of the maze before it got too dark and any colder!   Then we all went out for dinner!  The three kids who were ages 3 and under - Charlie, Megan, and Luna - were all very good!

Tomorrow, Suzanne comes home and we have another day of birthday partying!