Day 7: The Henry Glass Very Merry Holiday Party!

Thank you for visiting The Henry Glass Very Merry Holiday Party! Today is the last day and we cannot believe it! We have a huge post today! We are rolling out the baby photographs! If you come back in the next couple of days, we will give you some HINTS! If you are brave and want to guess all on your own, please do!

Make sure that you read this entire post today! We have a fabulous guest blogger and she's got an awesome post for you! The equally fabulous llustrator Brenda Pinnick and Lizzie B Cre8ive ladies are posting today too!

For our grand prize giveaway of a huge bundle of fabric, we are going to post a baby/child photo of the designers and you'll have to collect your guesses. The winner will also receive a small gift from each of the participatiing designers. From November 18-25, 2012 you can submit your guesses to henryglassinfo@gmail.com. A winner will be chosen randomly from all of the entries. The winner will be announced on November 26, 2012. Good luck!

Kim Diehl has put together an awesome holiday post for you and we are delighted to share this beautiful post with you!

Welcome to my home!  Here in Idaho we’ve already had a dusting of snow (actually, a couple of dustings) so I’m REALLY ready to embrace the holiday season and fill my house with some homemade goodness. 

One of my favorite things to do this time of year is grab a coconut mocha, visit the produce and floral departments of my grocery store, and see what little seasonal things grab me to help make my home feel all holiday-ish. I love it when I discover my next centerpiece waiting on aisle 6 in the midst of the lettuce and tomatoes! 

And while I’m in a decorating frame of mind, I always grab some fresh cranberries for stringing…my daughters and I have strung miles and miles of cranberries onto perle cotton using size 5 embroidery needles, and these are so pretty draped from chandeliers and around your tree. It’s a fun and super easy project to do together with your kids, and it makes for some great memories – my daughters still love reminding me how I used to run a “cranberry stringing sweat shop” at Christmastime when they were little, but they say it with a smile on their faces. And I always paid them well with home baked goodies.

I have the best time decorating so my home for the holidays, and I especially love using things that aren’t intended to be seasonal…like vintage bowls, boxes, and jars that I already have on hand.  Sometimes the most unlikely containers are the most fun to use. What could be better than a rusty box filled with fruit and greens?

Maybe…..a rusty box filled with fruit and greens, sitting on a quilt! This is my “Christmas Magic” quilt from my Simple Seasons book. I break this quilt out every year for the holidays – and I really like that it has snowmen on it because I can use it all winter long, and not just for Christmas.

Here’s another tabletop in my home that’s all decked out for the holidays. This little “Candy Dish” mini quilt was made using scraps from my new Garden Grove collection of fabrics. The pattern can be downloaded for free by visiting the Good Clean Fun page of my website, or using this quick link:  http://www.kimdiehl.com/sites/default/files/CANDY%20DISH%20-%20project%20directions.pdf

And here’s one more little holiday space in my home.  This vintage coffee pot belonged to my grandma and it feels so Christmasy filled with bundles of greenery and red flowered sprigs, especially  sitting on a holiday quilt with a little patchwork cat. The quilt is “Frost on the Windowpane” from my Simple Seasons book, and the patchwork cat was whipped together using leftover quilt blocks and the “Catty Wampus” pillow pattern in my Simple Charm book. These little pillows are fast and easy to make, and I love that they let you put your orphan blocks to good use.  I’ve given them to my quilting friends as Christmas presents in years past…try tying them together in bundles of three with a ribbon, and they are adorable!

Since this is the time of year when we all like to hang out in our sewing rooms and dive into some holiday stitching, I thought it would be nice to offer you a second free project for our blog hop – a mini version of the “Winter” quilt project that I designed for my Hearthside Seasons fabric line (due in quilt shops this coming April).

Just click on the links provided below to download the free project directions and appliqué patterns.

You can download the pattern here and the applique templates here.

Since this is just a quick sneak peek at the Hearthside Seasons prints to come next spring, you could easily substitute the rich colors in my new Garden Grove collection of prints with the same great results, or even raid your scrap basket.  Shhhh!! It’ll be our secret!

My mother taught me it’s always better to give than receive, so I’m giving someone (maybe you?) a copy of my brand new Homestyle Quilts book (co-written with my technical editor and friend, Laurie Baker) and my Simply Beautiful Quilts 2013 calendar. 

To be entered to win, please leave me a quick comment before midnight, EST, on Tuesday, November 20th, and tell me your favorite holiday dish that you serve (or maybe someone else serves it and you just love to eat it!).  Mine?  Definitely cornbread stuffing! Swimming in gravy!!

Be sure to visit the blogs of my lovely and talented fellow designers Brenda Pinnick http://brendapinnick.com/topics/brenda-pinnick-blog//  and LizzieBCreative  http://dreamlaughcreate.blogspot.com/ today to complete this year’s Henry Glass Holiday Blog Hop…

I think it’s been an awesome and inspiring week!

Have the happiest of holidays,

Kim ~

We hope that you've enjoyed this party. You still have time to visit each of the designers' blogs for some giveaways. There are a couple of posts here on our blog so please scroll back and go through all of them!

Henry Glass Fabrics would like to thank our amazing designers for this awesome party and for letting us share their artistic vision with you through fabric.

Happy holidays.

-hg