"OH LALA!",OR WHATEVER THEY SAY IN ZURICH

The beautiful tree above as in a store in Zurich when I was there. They know how to doll up everything including the beautiful women and men there. They are equally as beautiful and I cannot say that about France. I thought the women were fabulous and beautiful and not that many men to equal the women. Maybe I was in the wrong cities. The men in Germany were the most polite, helpful and pleasant! The women were very nice there too and laughed and smiled which I loved.

The cake below was in Switzerland in a window. I have never ever seen such a magnificent cake before! The detail and whimsy were wonderful and I stood and watched the little children come up with their Mothers and talk German (Swiss style which I am lost at) but I could tell what they were saying because the excitment and the wonder was there...just like with me.
This window was really quite something!
My poor kitchen remains sad....and today the water from my sink that was removed dripped constantly and I had to keep emptying the biggest bucket you have ever seen.
I am finding bits of insulation everywhere.
I want to show you how bad the whole thing looks but it is so bad I don't know if you'd want to see it this time of year. :-)
I braved Costco today and it was packed though people seemed quite nice. I bought alot of frozen food so that Mark and I can eat in the TV room where our microwave is.
Hey! That is a funny story. My husband is NO Mr. Fix it and he hates working on things.
Our microwave went out the other day and he said "that figures." Yesterday he was taking the holder out of the wall that holds is and I said "be careful" and he gave me the look so I went down stairs to work and then I heard a crash! That is how he does things so I didn't say anything. This morning, he said brightly "good news, I dropped the microwave yesterday and it works like a charm. " Haha, yep, that's how we do it around here.
Happy Day everyone. Don't get caught up in the crabiness of the Season and if you are a Christian remember that this is all about the birth of Christ. It should be a happy time when we value our blessings and our friends and family. If you aren't in the hospital today or alone in a nursing home with no one to visit and there are lots of people who are, you are blessed!
Please comment on my blog, I love it when you do.
As my dear old Dad always said "Enjoy the Day"

By the way, we will be doing a swap after the first of the year in my chatroom with pot holders and mugs. Who doesn't need new clean fresh potholders? If you join my newsletter through this blog, you can learn more about this.

Take this Christmas song test and see how you do.

http://tinyurl.com/yxrp87

MY HAPPY CHRISTMAS QUILT

Thought I would post this quilt photo. This will be featured in my new book that covers story quilts and "creativity". If you are feeling like you are "in the box" just wait and my new book will tell you how to "get out of the box and create a story quilt about YOU and who you love."

note- the Hoochy Mama borders give this color and personality. I love borders with these.

The entire background is beaded by hand...it took me months and many many hours to get each bead sewn on and knotted in the middle layer. But it is a colorful and happy quilt about the joy of Christmas day.

HAVE A PIECE OF SWISS CANDY AND ENJOY THE PHOTOS BELOW PLEASE

Below is the best chocolate in the WORLD and I am not kidding

Today I wanted to share some more photos of my Bernina trip and show some of the teachers you might know and also some of the fun we were treated to. My goodness they know how to celebrate Christmas in a wonderful way in Europe!

A Nativity scene I wanted but couldn't afford. Good grief, what is that in the background (?) and where was this photo taken? I do not remember seeing a donkey other than with Schmootley...perhaps he was there and I did not remember. If you don't know who Schmootly is, read on please.

The above is "Swiss Santa" Samichlaus and he is a happy fellow- he is delivering Berninas to good girls.

Below is Schmootly (spelled wrong but you can pronounce it from how I spelled it)

He is the Dec. 6th guy who takes naughty children back into the woods with him. He asks children if they have been good or naughty. What would you say? A nice Swiss man there told me when he was a little boy that Schmootly took one arm and his Grandmother took the other and they played like they were fighting over him. He said it scared him to death. Then he said Schmootly is really a nice icon of Christmas too. Hmmmm, I guess I like just having Santa and of coarse the real Christmas story. The neat thing is that you see Schmootly's walking with donkies all over Switzerland before and around Dec. 6th. What fun! For good children who leave their shoes out side their door that night they find candy and a little prize of some kind.

When I was at Brenda's in San Antonio, her daughter (age16) left her shoe out and found a beautiful necklace sent to her by her Father who is in Islamabad serving for the military. His family is German so they celebrate this fun little date every year.

Pretty fun to see.
Below is Schmootly without his donkey and switch that he carries-he looks like he is having trouble seeing........haha

Suzanne Staud is one of my favorite designers and here is hee Christmas card this year.

Below are the Grand Poobahs of quilting who were in Europe together a year ago this time. I had a thing about taking colorful photos so I asked them to stand here for a photo....kind of like "the little people ME (not size), with the Important people. So here is the green group-who do you recognize? Please comment.

Above is the red group. The thing we have in common is we all love and us Bernina sewing machines.

And Eleanor Peace Bailey posing for a nice photo with Bobbie Aug. Eleanor had just lost her husband and at dinner she got up and recited the most beautiful poem I have ever heard about growing her own garden of color and people not understanding but God gave her the gift....I am probably ruining it here. I needed kleenex by the time she was done.

It was fun walking behind her in Europe and watching people look at her. :-)

If you do now know Eleanor, she is a doll maker who is a lifesize doll herself (I am not kidding)

Are you creating and not listening to other people's critisisms ?- I wouldn't be doing what I am doing if I had listened. I hang out with positive, fun people now and we all see the world as a happy place filled with other nice people. We just wanna be happy.

WONDERFUL JANE below.

Speaking of happy people, this is colorful Jane Sassaman who is wonderful inside and out. She is always inspiring, kind and fun.
Laura Jenkins-Thompson holding a great dessert menu-she is a teacher from South Carolina-isn't she beautiful? And she smells wonderful too!

!
This is my cohorts for most of the trip. Carolyn Lowe my roomate who works for Debbie Mumm took this photo of breakfast. Sheila Reuen from TN is in front and next to Jane Sassaman, and then me in the corner and Laura Jenkins-Thompson on the right. What fun to share Europe with wonderful people and all because we love Bernina!

The beauty of European decorations- I wanted to bring them all home.........Scroll way down for more

Hope you are happy this time of year and baking, imagining, sewing, smiling or calling a friend who would love to hear from you.

Happy Day.

HOOCHY MAMA SNOWMEN-PILLOWCASE KITS-TOO MUCH FUN!

Hoochy Mama Snowmen for Every Friend in Holly's Bee (San Diego) ! I want one!

My friend Holly who is very generous to many people made one of these Hoochy Mama snowmen for each friend in her Bee. How is that for generosity? You have time to make them if you start now. The pattern is in the Hoochy Mama book!

Great Job Holly!

My Cousin Sent Me the Perfect Latte-Hot and Creative

Since I do have the name Lattegirl, I think this is the perfect thing for every morning's wake up. Only I want Santa in there after Thursday. How about YOU?

I order a Grande, Non fat, Two pump Vanilla Latte, HOT and after 4pm, half Caf.

Yum YUM.

Memories of Germany and the design, color and creativity

Above was a pair of boots I thought were cool if I was thinner and younger. Pretty shopgirls.

Click on this photo for a closeup. Can you see how irresistable these lovely places are in Germany? This was a bakery in a Department store. Great and creative food is everywhere downtown.

OK, I took this photo because I did not know what this meant and thought it was amusing. I now find out that it means " GOOD JOURNEY". So now you like me can relax knowing this has nothing to do with eating too much sauerkraut and sausages.

I love the creative signs of people- isn't this cute?

Just a little preview of Christmas...I took this in Munich. The displays in Germany were wonderful and gave a quilter so many great ideas. Amazing what one can do with a little paper.

Above is a little display of German dolls. Pretty cute.

Germany is a GOOD place for buttons-ZER GUT!

I thought I would share what I found in a Department store in Germany. This was quite a find and I spent alot of Euros on these colorful trinkets. Such Fun!

If you haven't visited Germany one of the best treats is that you can eat in a Department store and the food is just excellent and they have wonderful decorations made with food and it is arty, clean and wonderful. Plus, the variety was wonderful. I wish we had that here!

A Story Quilt Student Shares her finished product!

It is always so wonderful to see what a finished story quilt looks like from one of my workshops. I think this is an amazing example of what someone can accomplish/

Today I got the nicest letter about this quilt and thought I would share it with you. It says:

Mary Lou,I wanted to thank you for the wonderful class that you taught at the Clark County Quilt Guild in September. It was great fun making the star blocks and also using your tips and Hoochy Mama concepts in the design of the Harry Potter quilt image that I am including with this e-mail. The non-star blocks were made by members of a book and quilt group. The star blocks were made by Sharry O., the CCQ president and myself. In all we made star twenty blocks, but decided to not include them all in this quilt. A couple of those not included looked like spinning pinwheels. The quilt is 50 inches wide by 70 inches high and will be auctioned off to benefit the Medical Teams International (formerly Northwest Medical Teams).Others from the class are still working on their quilts and the group just recently had a get together at one of the local firehouses to continue the work on the quilts.Thanks again for such a wonderful time.cathy erickson

This totally made my week. I hope you enjoyed seeing this wonderful quilt too!

Wholly cow this is cute

I took a photo of this fun cow at a latte place in Seattle- one can never have too much coffee or too many smiles with funny cows

Welcome to Charmagne's house- note the black curtains in the background. If you click on the photo, it will enlarge and you can see many details...there is alot to see!

Aren't the witches on the top shelf here adorable> I would love one of those!

A Mantel to remember below. Can you believe that Charmagne has two small children and they leave all of the decorations alone and the candy too? What is her secret? A spell perhaps?

This kindly old witch is just one of the hundreds of greeters waiting to say "hello" to you.

And you thought you had spicer problems!

A nice paper group of Halloween pals to welcome you.

Dressed in lights to help you see the way...nice eyes on this scarey skeleton!

Another Skeleton greets you...her yard is huge and she has dozens of skeletons all over including hanging on the house! I can't imagine how much fun those 150 school children who visit on Monday will have!

Please comment it would make both Charmagne and myself very happy....

VISITING MY FRIEND EMILY AT TASUTI ZOO

Tasuti Zoo in Pacific Grove California is one of my favorite stops. The girls who own it "Mary" and Emily" have all kinds of wonderful things for sale and they inspire any artist who is lucky enough to happen along.
(below-This was on one of the windows of Tasuti Zoo

Here I am (Mary Lou) standing with Emily and my friend Tanya is on the right with a happy smile. We both love this place and are giddy being there.

This rug is in the entrace and I think it is darling.

More metal flowers at the entrance