Decking the Halls

For whatever reason, I was tired yesterday. Yes, I'd been cooking for two days, but I can't recall feeling so worn out by it in the past. Maybe it's just age creeping up on me. Also, I haven't cooked the whole dinner in a couple of years, so see above about age creeping up on me. I had to make a short trip into town, but otherwise, I spent the day doing some slow stitching and just a little bit of sewing.

On the sewing front, I finished the third of five sections for the Purrfectly Pieced quilt. I'd left it like this the day before:

There were two square-in-a-square blocks to make. I actually made these twice when I neglected to trim the yellow square portion of the block. It's one of the ways I mess up over and over again, and then nothing fits as it should. I took off the green square, trimmed it, and then sewed it back together. It needed two large buttons.

Incidentally, the pattern says not to sew the buttons on. "Your quilter will thank you." But I'm the quilter here, and so I do what I want. It gratifies my inner rebel.

After that, I had just to add the hot fix nailheads for the eyes on the cat and the two birds, and it was finished. Too cute.

Here are the three sections I have for this quilt so far.

Okay, and then the only other thing I did was to put out all the Christmas quilts and other Christmas stuff. This is my Christmas Star table topper. 

Those are some Jim Shore creations in the middle. I bought those before I'd ever heard of Jim Shore.

If I'm remembering right, this might have been the first quilt I quilted when I got my sit-down mid-arm machine. 

Here's a poinsettia table topper. The candle and poinsettia plate it sits on were some items I found at Goodwill several years ago.

This was a quilt-along with Lori Kennedy at the Inbox Jaunt. It was just for practice and learning, but I like how it turned out. I used a white metallic thread in the center and around the edges.

I used the white metallic in the bobbin too. Here's how it looks from the back.

This is Santa's Village, made for a challenge (Any Holiday). 

It hangs on the short wall between the kitchen and dining room. The table topper in the image below was made by my friend Marei.

This little Gingerbread Man was made for another Project Quilting challenge (A Well-Dressed Man). If you want my opinion, a well-dressed man should look good enough to eat.

This Christmas tree hangs in our family room downstairs. It's decorated with hot fix crystals, although they don't show up well in the photograph.

This is my Roly-Poly Santa. He came from a kit...kind of fun to make. It was my first try with gridded stabilizer. The kit for him is still available at Keepsake Quilting. There's a snowman and a scarecrow version as well.

You might recognize this one from a few years ago. Those are the tiny trees I embroidered from Mary Corbet's Needle and Thread. Those were positively addicting. Once I started, I couldn't stop until they were all finished. And then I combined them with a little "Tiny Tree" sew-along from Temecula Quilt Company to make this little quilt. It hangs in the dining room.

Downstairs next to the fireplace, the stockings were hung with care. The one on the right is Matthew's stocking. The two on the left are for the kitties.

These are my two little Santa figurines. I felted the one on the right when I took a class some years ago. The one on the left is a hand-carved Santa made by my friend Carol from high school. If you look carefully at that, you can see it's the same Christmas tree quilt shown above. The kitties below are Smitty on the left, and Gracie on the right.

A new addition this year is Mrs. Claus' Cookie Team, finished last month. It sits on the coffee table beside me.

Here's one I don't put out every year, mainly because I'm not sure what to do with it. I saw it in a catalog at some point...can't remember when or where. I thought it was cute, but it's just a clay head on the Santa with a weird mop of a beard. Matthew calls it the "Rasta Santa." He's sitting on the piano downstairs this year.

Finally, this little paper mache snowman. Erik made this in about the third grade. I put it out every year. You know how when you put your Christmas decorations away for the year, and something always gets left out? It's this snowman at our house. It's okay...he works for winter too.

Sadie followed me around while I did this. She doesn't like any of this stuff. 

If there's no tree to climb then what's the danged point of decorating at all? Sheesh. Humans. Such cretins.

Okay, so I'm feeling more rested today. There isn't much on the agenda, and so I'll spend most of the day sewing. I'm starting a new project today, and I'll tell you more about it in tomorrow's post. 

Coming up, I'll be starting on my next project for The Endeavourers art quilt challenge. The prompt this time is "Portrait," and I have a photograph I've wanted to do for a long time. I won't be able to show it to you until the reveal on February 1st. (Not showing you is the hardest part of the challenge.) I'll take breaks from that every now and then, however, and I'll get to work quilting the Trashy Triangles quilt. It's been lounging on my machine, relaxing its wrinkles, and I'll get started quilting it probably within the next couple of days.

You might remember this when I sewed it together. It was made from cut off bonus triangles accumulated over many years. 

So there's plenty to keep me busy, as usual. Right now, it's time to get back to my nemesis quilt, Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage. One day it will be finished, and I can throw it on the floor and walk over it, just to show it who's boss.