The reason for my long absence

I appologize to my one fan, who has been bugging me about my 2 month lack of blogging. Here are a few pictures of what I've been doing and why I didn't touch the computer during the holidays. I finished my couch, although I do need to make some throw pillows to go on it. I'm having a hard time figuring out what I want to do with this room. I think it's because I got rid of everything that I didn't like that used to be in there and I don't have the money to go buy new stuff that I like. Oh well, if that's my biggest worry then life is really good. Oh-I also read the whole Twilight series in November. I admit it. I loved them. It was a wonderful escape from reality for the week that it took me to read all four books. Josh was glad when I was all done with them though since that's all I could do once I started.

I started these quilts when we lived in our apartment in Payson while Josh was framing the house. I finished the tops of both of them while I was pregnant with Porter and then they just sat in my closet. I finally got so tired of looking at them sitting pathetically in a bag on the floor and so I took them to get machine quilted, got them back from the quilter on Dec 22, bound the edge and gave them to Nicole and Eliza for Christmas. Eliza's is the one with the yellow border and Nicole's has the dark pink edge. I think they turned out nice, but I will probably never try to make a quilt again. It's just too much work. I don't know how my mother-in-law makes queen size quilts and quilts them all by hand. You are amazing Mary!

So this picture is a close up of a bag I made for my sister Stephanie. I am admitting my inepttitude at computer stuff because I can't get the picture to move down next to the other picture of the whole bag. So, the whole bag can be seen two pictures down.

I made this purse for my sister Kimberly because whenever we go anywhere together, she puts her wallet in my purse. Now she can carry her own purse like a grown up.

This one was for my mom. I have to say that she cried when she opened it. I'm not sure why. It's not that cute, but I think she cried because she opened hers after my sisters had opened theirs and she realized how much sewing I'd done for Christmas. It was pretty funny though.

Alright, here's the full picture of Steph's. It's big enough to fit her piano books at school into. (She's a piano major at Utah State.) I had a lot of fun making all of these. I didn't have a pattern for any of them, so it was fun drawing them up and figuring out how to make them.

Josh and I made this for Nicole and Eliza for Christmas. It's a tree house for them to play with their polly pockets and littlest pet shops with. Josh built the frame out of wood (it's about 4' tall) and then I "upholstered" it with leftover fabric from the couch. We still have a few ladders to build to go between all the levels and I want to make a couple of swings to hang from the branches. We got the idea from a catalogue in the mail. The one that was like this cost $200, which is way more than we want to spend on Christmas for the kids. It was fun to work on a project together. We might make it a tradition every year.