Yearly Archives: 2020

Holiday Tales & Traditions Blog Hop

Post Update: Two things I wanted to update here. First of all, the winner of the giveaway on this post is Darci. Congrats Darci and I hope you enjoy the fabric. Second update: I talked about the Christmas Through the Decades later in this post and mistakenly said it was on Netflix. However it is really available on Amazon Prime’s streaming service. Sorry for the misinformation.

Hello everyone. If you are new to my blog, coming here from the Holiday Tales and Traditions Blog Hop, welcome. I have been blogging since 2014 (which seems crazy but it has been over six years now)! I would love to connect with you and invite you to take a look around to see what Needle & Foot is all about.

This week I am hosting a blog hop to share some traditions celebrated over the holidays. I asked a number of bloggers to write a post telling a tale they remember from their holidays or a tradition they celebrate during the holidays. Last year I wrote about family traditions from this time of year and I really enjoyed reading comments about the traditions all of you remember. I thought I would carry this forward to this season as well. We certainly need to come together and lift each other’s spirits during this time of year, especially in 2020 when so much feels heavy and abnormal. I hope you will enjoy the hop. Be sure to click through to the other blogs and enjoy some holiday stories.

I have a few tales to share with you. One from my childhood Christmas memories and the others from Christmases spent with my children. Because I think blog posts are more fun with photos, I am randomly including holiday pictures here and there.

When my three boys were young, Christmas was naturally an exciting time. As it is for most kids, right? After we put up the tree, I would wrap the gifts from Mom and Dad and put them under the tree. This happened about ten days or so before Christmas. My boys would spend a lot of time checking out the presents, shaking them, trying to guess what they were. It drove me crazy if they guessed correctly – I wanted it to be a surprise on Christmas morning and I don’t have the best poker face! So, one year I decided to try to outsmart them. I bought three rolls of wrapping paper. Using one roll for each boy, I wrapped their gifts. Then I didn’t put any tags on the gift. They were just blank. Under the tree they went. The boys were totally befuddled. “Mom, how do we know whose is whose?” they would ask. I would casually reply, ‘oh, I’ll figure it out.’ or ‘don’t worry about it, we can figure it out on Christmas.’ They went nuts and I thought it was hilarious. On Christmas morning, I played Santa (usually it was one of the boys) and passed gifts out to them. When each boy had gifts wrapped all in one type of paper, they figured out what I had done.

The following year, I knew I couldn’t pull the same stunt. It would not be as fun because they would know what I was doing. Instead, I switched name tags between two of the boys. When wrapping Ian’s gifts, I put a tag on them saying “For Andrew”. On Andrew’s gifts, I did the same, putting a tag on them saying “For Ian”. Kyle’s gifts had his name on them (I couldn’t figure out a way to mix it up any further without making some sort of mistake.) Christmas morning I played Santa again and placed all of the ‘Andrew’ gifts in front of Ian and the ‘Ian’ gifts in front of Andrew. Fooled them again!

My favorite holiday quilt-I hang it each season.

Let’s go back in time now to Christmas in the 1960’s when I was a child. I have a fond memory of one year when my father was scheduled to work at church on Christmas morning. I am sure it was the only year this ever happened but there we were, waking up and Dad was going to be gone for the majority of the morning. Mom insisted we would all just wait until he got back and then we would open gifts. Not so easy for a child, let along six of them! To distract us, Mom thought she would light a fire in the fireplace. Well the damper wasn’t opened and she totally smoked out the living room. She sent us all outside while the smoke cleared. I remember being on the front lawn with my five sisters in our pj’s on Christmas morning. I wonder what the neighbors thought of that. 🙂

Since I grew up in the 1960’s, I had a lot of fun watching a show on Amazon Prime recently, called Christmas Through the Decades. The episode on the 1960’s was especially fun. I enjoyed hearing what the top selling toys were for that decade. The list is slightly different depending on what you are reading but this was the list from the documentary.

1960 – Chatty Cathy
1961 – Ken Doll
1962 – Slinky
1963 – Mouse Trap Board Game
1964 – GI Joe (“Pull his ‘dog tag’ and he will issue commands”)
1965 – Rock’em Sock’em Robots
1966 – Spirograph
1967 – Battleship
1968 – Hot Wheels Cars
1969 – Big Wheel

I think it is interesting that, other than GI Joe and Chatty Cathy, all of these classic toys remain popular today. I read that GI Joe is going to be re-introduced but I am not sure if that is already happening.

1/2 yard bundle of Wintertide and 1 yard of an old fashioned Santa print

Thanks for taking this little trip down memory lane with me! Since this post mostly centered on childhood gifts, I would love to hear your memories of toys that were popular when you were a child. Did you receive something you really wanted or give your child a toy he or she was drooling over? Leave a comment – it is so much fun for me to read your experiences and I know other readers will enjoy going through the comments as well. I would love to give one of you a gift this year as well! I will draw a random name from the comments and send along a fun holiday package of fabric (see above) to the winner. Winner will be selected on Friday evening, giveaway is open to US residents due to the cost of postage.

The Holiday Tales and Traditions Blog Hop is being celebrated on the following blogs:

Sew Preeti Qui lts
Quilting Jetgirl
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Academic Quilter
From My Carolina Home
Pieceful Thoughts
Devoted Quilter
The Colorful Fabriholic
Me & My Quilts
Kathleen McMusing
Sarah Goer Quilts
MMM Quilts
Needle and Foot – That’s Me!

Thank you to all the bloggers who participated in this fun event. Wishing all of you the happiest of holiday seasons!

Guess Who, Then and Now

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Post Update: Well, as continued evidence that the quilting community is nothing but totally generous I received a few emails this morning and want to share them with you. First I got one from Sarah, the third place winner. She actually tied with Preeti from Sew Preeti Quilts. Sarah asked me to split the prize between them and send the charm pack to one and the quilt pattern to the other. Of course, I thought this was great and told her so. Then I received an email from Emily of The Darling Dogwood. Emily was one of the bloggers who participated in the whole thing, see photos below. She said since she is a participant, she didn’t think it fair to win a prize. (This wasn’t a ‘rule’ but it is how she feels). So – now the winners shift a bit! First prize still goes to Kathleen McMusing, second is now going to Sarah Zimmerman (@cedarforksarah) and third prize is off to Preeti! Thanks everyone – kindness overload and I appreciate every bit of it!! OK – read on and enjoy the fun photos!

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Thanks to all who gave their best guess for the Guess Who game!! It was not an easy task. There was a huge variation in most of the entries. I hope you enjoyed looking at these fun photos, whether you tried to guess at it or not.

Let’s take a look at who is who now. Each childhood photo is now side by side with the blogger today. I love seeing those little eyes on the face of an adult.

Now let’s announce the winners!
First place: Kathleen M. She guessed twelve out of the fourteen! Well done Kathleen.
Second place: Emily L. had a score of twelve as well, but one of them was her own picture. So, I counted her as actually guessing 11! Good job Emily.
Third place: This was a tie between Sarah Z and Preeti. So I had Julia pull a name and Sarah’s name was picked.

That’s it for now. Please come back on Wednesday for the Holiday Tales and Traditions blogshop! There will be fun tales from twelve bloggers to read. See you then!

Just in case you missed the announcement on Facebook and/or Instagram, I am celebrating the 2021 Pantone Colors with a sale in the shop. 25% off of yardage that is gray or yellow ( not just solids – even the prints that have gray and/or yellow in them!). Come check it out. Sale ends tonight!

Guess Who!

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Today you are all invited to play a little game. In recent months the news has been filled with problems, politics and pandemics. Enough with such seriousness. We need to lighten things up a bit. So I thought I would host a game called Guess Who!

I invited a number of quilt bloggers to send me a picture of themself as a child. There is quite the mix of bloggers participating. You are likely to be familiar with many of them, but some might be new to you. Here are the rules to this very challenging game. (Haha – really, this is quite simple.) In this post is a list of all of the bloggers who are playing along. Each of them has a childhood photo showing below. Each photo is labeled with a number – Blogger Number 1, Blogger Number 2, and so on.

Your job is to leave a comment including a list of the bloggers’ names and then next to each name, put the number of the picture you believe is theirs.

The order of the pictures and the blogger’s names are totally random. If you already know what the blogger looks like, great – then try to match the person up with the photo. If you are unfamiliar with the blogger, click their name and you will be taken to their website. Take a look around, get to know the person and see what she looks like. Come back and leave your best guesses in the comments.

To sweeten the deal, there will be prizes! First prize goes to the person who gets them all correct. If this doesn’t happen, it will be awarded to the person who guesses the most correctly. Should there be a tie, I will pick a name between the winners.

OK – first let’s look at the names of all the bloggers who are included in today’s Guess Who game. Again, no particular order was used in this listing.

Quilting Jetgirl, Yvonne Fuchs
Me & My Quilts, Julie Sefton
MMM! Quilts, Sandra Walker
Devoted Quilter, Leanne Parsons
The Darling Dogwood, Emily Leachman
The Colorful Fabriholic, Jan Ochterbeck
Needle & Foot, ME!
Pieceful Thoughts, Wendy Tuma
From My Carolina Home, Carole Carter
Bonjour Quilts, Kirsty Cleverly
Quilting is More Fun than Housework, Cynthia Brunz
Storied Quilts, Vasudha Govindan
From Bolt to Beauty, Michelle Cain
Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Sarah Craig

Now let’s take a look at the most adorable pictures ever!

Blogger Number 4 – just the little girl, not her brother!

Now that you are all on cuteness overload, it is time to match them up. You might want to copy the blogger list into your comment and then add the number of the picture you believe is theirs. I hope you all have a lot of fun looking through these and trying to guess who is who.

Remember the prizes? Here they are:

First Prize – a five piece, 1/2 yard bundle from Mystical Lands, by Maureen Cracknell

2nd Prize – charm pack & one yard piece from Rosewood, by Meags & Me.

3rd Prize – a charm pack of Jen Kingwell’s low volume line, Wovens

In addition to the prizes shown above each of the three winners will also receive their choice of one PDF pattern generously donated by Cynthia Brunz of Quilting is More Fun than Housework.

OK – time for you to match up the fourteen bloggers with the correct picture! The winners of the game will be drawn on Saturday, December, 12th. Good luck everyone. I will also put up a post with the correct bloggers matched to their pictures on Saturday as well! I hope you all enjoy this.

Thank You from Mercy Hospital

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Below is a letter I received from the Palliative Care team at Mercy Hospital in Sacramento, California. They are so grateful for all of the quilts you have made and donated to their program.

Dear Stitchers,

We are writing to thank you…words cannot explain how important these lovely Comfort Quilts are to the family of our dying patients. When we deliver them, a look of relief and gratitude immediately takes the place of sadness and loss. For our families to be able to take home something that their loved one has worn is amazing and unforgettable.

Thank you for all of your skill, hard work, and obvious love that is sewn into each and every quilt; our gratitude for this kindness will never end. Please know that you are making a difference in someone’s life. Thank you, again.

Sincerely and warmly,

The Palliative Care Team at Mercy General

Lisa Seo, Palliative Care MD
Sameera Sandhu, Palliative Care MD
Lori Marsh, RN
Emma Cook, LCSW
Elizabeth K. Mohrherr, MSW
Lucy Zang, SSC

Maternal Bragging

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Just popping in to show you what Julia made. About a month ago we were shopping in our little town. It is a gold rush town with a fun, touristy downtown area we like walking around in. At one shop Julia spied a pretty Santa hat, knit in red with a wide white border. She was holding it and looked at me saying, “I think I can make this”. Now you need to understand she hasn’t knit anything before this. Last year I did teach her to cast on and she knit about four rows (literally) and set it down. That was the extent of her knitting experience.

I told her to go for it. After she took a picture of the hat for a reference, we drove over to my favorite place in Grass Valley, Ben Franklin’s. She found yarn she liked in red and white and we went home.

Relying on YouTube, she started in. She figured out how to cast on, knit, and purl. She practiced a bit and then started on the white section. (I kind of know how to knit but my skills are very limited. I have been of no help to her.)

Soon she was ready to add the red so she figured out how to do that and then looked around for a stitch she thought would look good. The red section took quite a while. She had to decide how often to reduce the number of stitches (well, she also had to learn how to do that!) to get the hat to taper. Soon enough she decided it was the right amount of long and pointy. (Note my technical knitting terminology.)

Heading back over to YouTube, she figured out how to make the pom-pom for the end. I love how big and fluffy it is.

Of course when she looks at it, like all makers do, she can see things she needs to work on or would do differently if she made it again. But I am really proud of her. She thought she could figure it out and she sure did. One thing being stuck at home has done is provide plenty of time for this sort of project. She is now looking on line for ideas of what to knit next!

Ok – that’s enough bragging for today! Remember, Wednesday is Guess Who day. Come back and try your luck at figuring out which blogger is which by looking at their childhood photos. You don’t want to miss it. The pictures are so darn cute!! See you in a couple of days!

A Bit of Holiday Cheer

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It is the fourth of December and I am starting to feel some Christmas Spirit! I love this time of year and in 2020 we need every reason to celebrate and impart joy. I have two small projects to share with you today.

For my younger grand daughter, I had the fun task of making a Christmas stocking. Three years ago I made a set for my son, his wife and my oldest grand daughter. When I did this, I set aside fabric to make more stockings if/when his family grew.

This stocking is number four for their family. I used the easy peasy quilt-as-you-go method for the strips. As with the other stockings, I put a ‘toe’ on the foot of the stocking and embroidered a red line of stitching across it. Fortunately I saved some of the twill tape and wooden buttons (made by my husband!) so the stocking is a perfect match for the first three. I think it is super cute – the line of fabric was so much fun when I had it in the shop. It is long gone now.

Next project? Well, remember how I have been ‘cleaning’ my sewing space? I sorted through some of my Christmas fabric. I have a large bag of vintage (1970’s-1980’s) holiday fabric and cut much of it into 3″ and 5″ squares with the AccuQuilt. Once I had that stack of squares sitting there, I couldn’t just put them away, right??

I decided to make a quick patchwork runner for the top of this drop leaf table. (My mom loaned this to me a long time ago for our Downieville house. We have since sold the house and I am hoping she doesn’t ask for it back…. I love the table!) I plan to put a set of photos here of my kids with Santa. I look forward to looking at those pictures each year. But I haven’t brought that box up yet. Julia and I plan to do some decorating this weekend and will put up the tree early next week.

As I have said so many times before, simple patchwork is by far my favorite of any quilt. I am so nostalgic and love the look of this – what can I say? This would have been made even cuter with some hand quilting but I really wanted to use it now. So instead I used a variegated holiday thread I had from Mettler and did simple straight lines.

If you look at the fabrics, you will see the small print of white objects on red (next to the holly on white). This fabric is definitely from 1978. It is the same fabric my sister, Cathy, used to make wedding favors for her December, 1978 wedding. (Side note – if you want to read a fun post from several years ago, I wrote about all the weddings in our family and how most of us made our wedding gowns. Click here for the post)

OK – that is it for today. I do want to let you know I have a few fun things coming up on the blog! Next week I will be hosting a Guess Who game. I have childhood pictures from lots of quilter/bloggers. I want to see if you can match of the adorable faces to the right quilter. Look for that on Wednesday, December 9th. Then the following week, on Wednesday December 16th, I am hosting a Holiday Memories Bloghop. Lots of us will be posting about some of our favorite holiday traditions and memories or stories. I am so looking forward to reading these. Keeping spirits bright in 2020!!

Looking For a Great Black Friday Sale?

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The holiday shopping season kicks off today! I am happy to offer all of you a great sale this weekend. Enjoy 15% off all regular priced fabric, quilt patterns, kits and precuts. Take 25% off sale yardage as well as remnants. Tis the season for sewing gifts for those special people on your holiday list! Orders over $35 ship free within the USA. Happy Shopping!

Our Thanksgiving was lovely – the three of us, plus my parents. We will all be eating leftovers for days! But yum, that is fine with me. We also got to talk to lots of family via FaceTime which, while not as fun as in person, was still very special.

Julia has really turned into a great cook over these past months. For our meal, she made the best yeast rolls. She made the dough on Wednesday and popped it in the fridge. Then took the rolls out for the last rise and baked them just before dinner. So convenient to make them ahead. The vegetable casserole, a cheesy broccoli and cauliflower bake, was her assignment as well and it was excellent. We all had a good time cooking together. Who knew this Thanksgiving would end up this way. But you know what, it was fun and cozy and just fine with us!

OK – today my big plans are to take a long walk and hopefully cancel out some of the million calories we ate yesterday. After that, I have a Christmas stocking to finish for my grand daughter. Sounds like a fine day to me. I hope you will have some time to spend at your sewing machine too!

Happy Thanksgiving Friends!

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Just popping in to tell you how much I enjoy my blogging and quilting community. I am really thankful to know you all and to enjoy this fun on-line relationship with you. Hoping you are able to celebrate Thanksgiving in some fashion if you live in the US. Ray, Julia and I will have my parents over for dinner. The five of us are pretty much in the same bubble and are all very careful to stay healthy. Thus we feel it is safe to have our Thanksgiving meal together.

I know many people are feeling very lonely without their kids or parents or other family/friends that they normally would spend the holiday with. My hope is that we are nearing the light at the end of the tunnel. The vaccines hold promise and look like they will soon be released. Slowly, slowly, we will get back on track. Try to stay positive and continue to be careful, safe and healthy. Take care and thank you for your friendship!

One More Little Finish

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Look another little quilt headed to Jack’s Basket! As a result of my cleaning efforts in the sewing room, I put some scrappy nine patch blocks together that had been sitting in a pile for quite some time. It felt so nice to use up the blocks and make this sweet little quilt.

It is so bright and cheerful. I quilted straight lines on the diagonal. At first I was stitching across the wonky stars but it looked funny so I took that out. I think the stars look best without any quilting. The lines were just freehand with the corners of each square guiding me. Because the quilting is very light, the quilt has a cozy drape to it.

Purple flannel on the back makes for a soft, cuddly quilt. For the binding, I used a bit of a yellow print from an older line by Jeni Baker, back when she was designing for Art Gallery Fabric. I even had the right size scrap of batting for this. Isn’t it great to use up some fabric that has been sitting for a while?

I had not yet mailed the You Are My Sunshine whole cloth quilt yet so both of these will go out together next week. I am not positive, but I think this is either the seventh or eighth quilt I have finished this year. Most of these were were made with flimsies that have been sitting which is super satisfying! Still another month to go this year. Will I have time to finish another quilt? Time will tell!

A Special Quilt For a Special Person

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I have a pretty finish to share today. I was waiting for it to be received by its new owner before I shared it with you. I made a scrappy jelly roll quilt, using the pattern by From Bolt to Beauty. Michelle calls it the Ridiculously Easy Jelly Roll Quilt and the name is accurate!

For some time now, I have wanted to make a quilt for my (first) mother in law. I have posted in the past about my first husband. He passed away in 1994. Since his death, I have stayed close to his mom. When she retired, JoAnne moved up to the foothills and lives only 60 miles or so from me. We used to have girl’s day out together fairly often, going to lunch and shopping. She has developed some health issues that make this a bit of a challenge. Between her health and the chronic migraines I deal with, we rarely actually see each other now. But we do talk on the phone, text and generally keep in touch. I am grateful for our friendship.

JoAnne developed some problems with her back which necessitated surgery. She waited and waited because of the pandemic but finally her doctor said she needed to have it taken care of. After surgery, she went home to her son and DIL’s house to recover. Unfortunately, she took a tumble, breaking her leg just one day after getting home. Back to the hospital she went, this time for surgery on her leg. It has been a really rough time for her. I decided I needed to get her quilt finished up so she could cozy up with it while she recuperates.

Making this scrappy quilt was a lot of fun. I had a portion of an older Moda jelly roll hanging around and I cut 2 1/2″ strips from various fabrics that worked with it. For the background I used an off-white polka dot fabric I used to stock in the shop. The soft colors, shades of pink, green, brown and off-white, were selected because I knew they would be loved by my mother in law.

I backed it with a cute text print that is all about family and home. Two things very important to both me and JoAnne. This Kimberbell print is called Make Yourself at Home. (There is still a small amount left in the shop.)

When I was quilting it (on my friend’s Tiarra sit down quilter) I used lots of loops and a variety of flowers. I also tucked in my late husband’s first name. See it above?

Just below his name, I also put his birthday. I thought she would love these bits about Mark to be in the quilt.

In the photo above, my sister in law and her daughter are looking for Mark’s name and birthday. I had tucked a note in with the quilt telling JoAnne I had stitched them in for her.

Today we had a fun gab session on FaceTime and I think she loves the quilt. It makes me happy to have finally made a quilt for her. I don’t know why I didn’t do this years ago. But now was the time – after two surgeries, lots of pain and discomfort, she is going to need to take it slow and heal. The whole experience has been so stressful with the extra layer of nonsense the pandemic adds. When she was in the hospital she couldn’t have anyone with her. This is just the worst. Being in pain and on lots of different medications makes it so hard to think clearly and make decisions. The doctors were, for the most part, pretty good about working with my brother-in-law as he was advocating for his mom. But not having anyone in the room with you is so miserable and lonely. I am really grateful she is home with her son and finally getting better.

The virus is really getting crazy in California. The governor has mandated a 10pm curfew until December 21, 2020. I wish everyone would take it seriously, stay home and keep the darn mask on when they have to be out and about. It is hard – I get that. People are lonely. But until there is a vaccine, it is the only way to keep things under control. What a mess. I hope you are staying safe and healthy. Be careful and try to be patient. This won’t last forever.

I was so inspired by this news of Dolly Parton’s donation to help fund the Covid vaccine. Her generosity is inspiring. We need all the positive news we can find. There is far too much going wrong in the world and it is nice to read about people trying to do good.

Linking up with Brag About Your Beauties, Whoop Whoop, and Finished or Not Friday. Hop on over and take a look. Lots of quilty inspiration to be had on those link ups!