Tuesdays Treasures and a Finish

It is Tuesday December 13 , only 12 more days before the big day and this little elf has been very busy . First off I want to share my treasure for today , I may have shared this last year but it is so precious to me that I will share it again.

We bought this nativity scene around 1986 or 87 from a local artisan and I look forward to placing it out each  year , it is extremely well done and I love the simplicity of it , all one color , I have seen this done in various colors but I prefer it like this. I'm going to tell you a secret but promise not to tell, the velvet that is under the nativity is not even hemmed , and yes I have been using it just as many years as I have had the nativity , pretty sad huh , I simply fold under the edges and kind of scrunch it up like straw and it works ;-) If you have a treasure you would like to share why not join Melody our sweet hostess for this weekly event ,or pop on over and see who else is taking part I am sure there are lots of lovely treasures you would enjoy seeing and you might find another great blog friend too.
  I think I'll share two treasures this week  ,I think I have had these Wise Men about the same length of time , perhaps a little longer , they are carved from stone of some kind and I want to say coal but for the life of me I really can not remember except that the man who carved them was from Port Hood which is in Cape Breton .

They are again simple in design but I really love them , they have been moved around a lot and do have a  little wear but are treasures all the same. So be sure to stop over at The House on the Side of the Hill  to see more wonderful treasures .
 Now for the second part of my post , a finish , this has been a very long time coming so it feels extra special .

My Row by Row Christmas quilt is complete !!! I am doing the happy happy dance after sewing on all those buttons, lesson learned , don't use buttons , I had started out in the beginning just appliqueing on those circles but some are so small it was a real challenge so I thought buttons would be easier and perhaps they would have been if I had done them as I went along. The reason I did not do that was I had a quilt machine quilted once and it had buttons sewn on and she removed them all as she said they interfered with her work and if I ever made a quilt that required buttons again to wait until after the quilting is completed . The challenge is trying to get that needle back up through the quilt into the button when you have no way to see where you are going. I did manage to do some by machine but the real tiny ones I did by hand and it took forever , well not forever but a LONG time.  This quilt is much larger than I ever expected it to be , this is on a queen size bed and it does come down over the sides a little ,I think it is around 85" square.Here is a side view.

I raided my button jars and therefore all the buttons are not the same although most match well. You may be wondering what my progress is on Christopher's quilt , well I am almost there , I have just around the borders to quilt now , I really surprised myself with how easy I found this to machine quilt, I just stitched in the ditch or through the blocks as I am not comfortable FMQ anything this large , that is my goal for next year is to learn a little more about FM , you may notice my new icon on the left I have signed up for this challenge and hope to become a great student in 2012 :-)

Here is the quilt in the process, my handy dandy quilt gloves are ready for me to get back to work .
I'm off to quilting at the church today and last night I learned one of our group had an accident ,Carol fell and did some major damage to her face, breaking her nose , a tooth and her forehead is all smashed up, so say a little prayer for her , she is pretty uncomfortable right now with two black eyes and lots of bruising.
Thanks for stopping by and for hanging in there through this long post. Hugs Sheila