Saturday, December 20, 2014

It's Almost Christmas Already--Happy Holidays!

Here I am, catching up once again!  It has been a very busy month and I've meant a hundred times to get a post together.  Better late than never, I hope. 

Our quilt holiday meeting on December 8 was a lot of fun.  We had a potluck dinner, a drawing for gift cards, a Dirty Santa gift exchange game, the results of the crayon challenge, a fat quarter game, details of next month's ugly fabric challenge, show and share, and preview of a round robin that anyone could join.  My crayon challenge project turned out well, I thought.  My crayon colors were gold and yellow-green:


The colors are a bit off in this photo as the gold is much more gold in person.  The little trees were a bit frustrating to make at first, as I kept cutting them too wide at the base.  But I got the hang of it after about 6 of them :)  This runner is less than 24 inches wide so these are very small trees.  It's displayed on my coffee table for the season.




I won these great Gingher scissors in the gift bag exchange. We drew numbers and in turn picked a bag or wrapped gift at random from a table.  There was Dirty Santa stealing and my sister Kathy ended up with the most popular gift of the night, an Ott light, as only two steals were allowed.  These fat quarters came home with me in the game where we stood in a circle and passed the fat quarters to the next person every time the word "THE" was said in the "A visits from St. Nick" story being read.  Fun!  Next month's challenge is an ugly fabric one.  And boy, it is ugly.


Hideous shoes in hideous colors.  We are to make one 12.5" block--keeping the modern aesthetic in mind.  It's going to be tough!

Here's a nighttime shot of our tree this year.  I bought a new tree topper that is a reasonable facsimile of an expensive Capiz shell star.  Erica and I had quite a time with putting on the lights.  It took two store visits and two days to get all the lights we needed and then ON the tree.  We bought new LED ones this year and they look fine.  I can't seem to be able to stop buying new ornaments!  One day we may need that 9 foot tree Erica never stops asking for :)

Here's Lucy in her nest of tissue paper as we unwrapped the ornaments.  She loved it.

My early Christmas present to myself was swapped with my husband's early Christmas gift to himself, so we are both down one present to buy .  I bought him new pickups for his guitar :)  This tower of 40 fat quarters was jammed into a priority envelope, amazingly enough. Lots of yummy prints in this Minnick & Simpson collection.  With the great sale from Green Fairy Quilts, each fat quarter cost about $2.10.  Score!



Cove gets a handmade ornament from Mimi tomorrow.  I tried to make it more modern by doing a "negative space" version of the cross-stitch alphabet letters.  This stocking is about 6-7 inches long and I'm pretty pleased with it.   Here's the little devil standing alone for a number of seconds at 9.5 months (his mama helped him stand up).  He'll be 10 months at Christmas.
 


Still on the to-do list are the Holiday Newsletter with photo (which we haven't had taken yet), more shopping, wrapping, and all the celebrating!  I'll be working Monday and Tuesday but then won't have to work until the 29th.  Hope you are all enjoying the festive times and family gatherings.  Happy Holidays!

6 comments:

Chantal said...

Thanks for saying the fabric is about shoes because I had no idea what I was looking at. You sure did score on that great fabric. Love the polka dot fabric for the stocking. Cute picture of Lucy. What a precious little bundle Cove is. Precious.

Cherie in St Louis said...

Oh you do have your work cut out for you with that ugly fabric, lol! I love your little trees crayon challenge project...I guessing your were free piecing them? How great it must be for you to have your sister close by now. Have a wonderful Christmas, especially with Cove :)

Abby and Stephanie said...

I need a relaxing moment in tissue paper like Lucy. Cove is going to be such fun on Christmas morning. Beautiful tree. Merry Christmas.

Kate said...

Your crayon challenge project turned out beautifully. Next month's challenge will be fun. You'll definitely have to make a block with very small pieces for it to not look ugly.

Christmas with Cove is going to be fun. We don't have any little ones at Christmas this year. Though Drama Teen has been wrapping gag gifts as presents, that should liven things up.

Have a very Merry Christmas.

Janet O. said...

You did a great job with the crayon challenge!
Sounds like a very fun Holiday get-together!
That is a very "challenging" fabric, but I think the colors could be a winning combination. I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with it.
Someone is going to be walking all over the house before you know it!

Sarah said...

Hope you had a great Christmas Annie. Cove's a little show off! I like the way you cross stitched his name on the stocking. Your tree is beautiful! I'd love a 9 foot tree too! Ours is six foot, and that was always big enough, but now we bought our own home again with a large living room I'd like to go bigger. My daughter says one that touches the ceiling!

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