Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year 

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas morning. Ours was filled with chaos, screaming and lots of flying wrapping paper!

Hubby and I decided that we would go minimal this year and just get the girls presents. But of course men follow directions so well so...

This was in my stocking..

I noticed yesterday that this jewelry box was missing, but the earrings inside weren't..

Honestly, I was relieved it wasn't jewelry.. my wedding ring is currently being repaired because I broke it!

My hubby has been paying attention to all my going-on's about Gertrude! The one extra foot I wanted, that doesn't come with her, is the 37D foot! He sure knows the way to my heart! 

I hope your Christmas was filled with laughter, fun and a few of your favorite sewing items! Leave a note letting me know what great sewing notions or other items you got for Christmas!

Merry Christmas,

Enjoli (and family) 

In laughter & smiles,
The Straits

P.S: Maybe next year, Gertrude can go with the girls for the Santa picture! 

"Made with Love" and a module

In an effort to pass the time while waiting for Gertrude I've been shopping for embroidery designs, because its not like I already have about..a billion!

But with the holidays literally just around the corner, I've been in search of some cute and modern quilt labels. I never used to worry about labels, but since I now have three little monsters who have sucked out  my ability to remember things, I now feel like I need them.

One of my all time favorite embroidery websites is www.urbanthreads.com; they have some of the best designs I've seen. They have a nice variety and all sorts of styles. They offer the designs in a bunch of machine formats as well as hand embroidery.

Anywhoo… about my quilt labels.. this is what I decided on:

Seriously, how cute is that?! I like that they are not super dense and look kind of hand written! I can't wait to stitch some out for labels. Once Gertrude shows up I'll make sure to share some finished labels with you! 

The other great thing about Urban Threads is that they give out FREE designs.. what's better than FREE? So, here is the design I scored this week: 

How cool is this design, very festive and appropriate for our weather the last few days! 'Tis the Season.

Well my time in blog land has been spent today.. the monsters are getting ansi so we are off to get supplies for holiday brownies! 

Hope you all have a Merry Christmas! See you in the New Year!

P.S: Be sure to head over to Urban Threads, they have Freebies on a regular basis. And leave a comment to let me know what new designs you picked up! :) 

Shh.. therapy in session!

Some days after I've been home with my three little screamers, I feel like I need real therapy. Today was one of those days! However, since I don't think that there are any Motherhood Anonymous groups in my area, I choose to use sewing as my therapy!

When I found out right after my first daughters 2nd birthday that I was pregnant with twins, hubby and I decided that we should probably move out of our two bedroom, one bathroom house into something with a bit more space to house two more children. So, we moved into a three bedroom, two and a half bath, which was AWESOME while I was pregnant because I could spread out and use the twins' new room as my sewing room since I was still housing them.

However, I got tired of carrying them around and they wanted to be born, so my nice big sewing room got pushed out so that two cribs, a changing table and ridiculous amounts of other baby crap could move in.

Being the optimistic person that I am though, I decided "Hey, I don't really need ALL of my walk-in-closet for clothes!" I really don't care as much about clothes as I do about my fabric stash and sewing machines! So I did it, I crammed all of my clothes into one corner of the closet and set out to turn it into the best makeshift sewing room I could.

I totally make it work!

As you can see I may need to do some creative arranging when Gertrude shows up… maybe take over the other closet in the bedroom (hubby doesn't really need it anyway, right?!)

Don't look too close, it is a bit of a mess, you know with the holidays coming (next week! Eek!) I spend much more time sewing instead of cleaning!

I even got in some bonding time in today with Betsy! She is helping me work on a paper pieced table topper for Christmas!

Whenever Betsy and I sew, it reminds me why I love her type (Bernina that is!). She is so quiet, which lends very nicely to the whole "no screaming" part of sewing therapy. She does exactly what I tell her (unlike so many other little girls in my life) and she doesn't talk back. I do so enjoy her presence. And now I'm missing her.. gotta get back!

Sew until next time,

Enjoli (and Betsy)

P.S: Feel free to use my "sewing therapy" excuse to get rid of people who try to interrupt your sewing time! My family knows I'm a much happier person when I come out of sewing therapy!

Dearest Gertrude, my new B780

I'm getting a new sewing machine, and not just ANY machine, a Bernina 780! I do have two other Bernina machines, but she is going to be SPECTACULAR! 

This is not Gert in the flesh, just a look-alike! 

Do you have ANY idea how EXCITED I am? So excited that I made it official already with an adoption certificate!

Not to worry, for those of you who don't understand the AMAZINGNESS of this event, I'll tell you…  

This machine is not for wussies! She is HUGE and has ATTITUDE! Thus the name I will give her: Gertrude.

So, what can Gertie do that makes her so special?

Well, she can..

- sew 1000 stitches per minute

- cut thread automatically (can't tell you how excited I am about that!)

- has the amazing new B9 Hook (more on this later, I promise, just trust me that it's awesome)

- comes equipped with Dual Feed (a.k.a built in walking foot!)

- HUGE embroidery capabilities (No words to describe this awesomeness!) 

- hover function (OMG!!!)

- 360 degree sewing (Heck Yes!) 

- endless embroidery (yep, doing that!) 

Needless to say, Gert and I will be fast friends! I've been spending a lot of time over at Bernina.com to pass the time while I wait for Gert to arrive. I have so many things planned for her. Oh the adventures we will have. 

I hope you'll come back and follow along with Gert and I as we embark on our creative adventure!