Block 9, Glacier Bay, and fifth Applique block

Saturday is not only New Year's Eve, but our 9th block pick-up!
  It is called Glacier Bay, and it is one we've done in past years, but it continues to be pretty!

It's also time for another applique block.  This one is called Rose Wreath

I like this applique pattern quite a bit.  I think it will be nice to quilt around.  Sometimes I think it would be nice to hand-quilt an applique quilt, but am a bit afraid to tackle such a time consuming project.
The past couple of days, I finished off a couple of things, like a neck cowl that I knitted before christmas, and also tried my hand at cutting out a paper silhouette:

 can you tell what it is?  I got it from another blog, by Elsa Mora, here.  You have to look through her blog to see all the free paper silhouette patterns she's shared.  
This is of Alice in wonderland, playing croquet with the stork and the hedgehog ball.

Another project i started before Christmas was to play around with some self-hardening clay.  I'd thought that we would be short on Christmas ornaments to put on the tree, and decided to make some.  However, it seems that I was worried about nothing, because it is Very Easy! to get lots of Christmas ornaments in no time flat.   So then it didn't seem very pressing to finish these ones off. 

The self-hardening clay is sort of odd stuff.  It seems to be a sort of paper product.  There are no ingredients listed on the package.  It also smells a bit funny.  I have since filed off the rough edges, and now intend to put a little wash of color on them. 

I hope you have been having a wonderful last few days of 2011!!!