All I Want For Christmas

I loved this...

and just wanted to share it with you.

They have been at sea for seven months.

There Should Be 34 Days In December

I am lucky enough to be paid to do arts and crafts at work at this time of year.

I start off the holidays like this:

150 handmade cards for our clients.

Then I send out my personal cards... but not handmade!
I am way over it by the time it gets to making mine.

Then, over the weekend I tackled my own decorating...
and it starts like this:
First and foremost, for me... I need a Noble Fir tree.
It is my preference for Christmas trees.



(sorry Kelly, this is my one and only picture of the process)

Usually I wrap the trunk of the tree with that cheap garland in either silver or gold
 and then wrap lights on top of that.
But I skipped that part this year and went ahead and just
wrapped the trunk with clear lights.
I want the eye to be drawn in and that is why that garland is good to put there first.
It reflects the light good.

My husband likes colored lights
and I prefer the clear and amber lights on the branches.
This year, I went with the colored ones... but if I am using the clear
and amber lights I take both strands and
double wrap the branches.
With the light strands I always wrap around each branch
going out and coming back in
 and diverting on to some of
the sides to each branch also.
It is tedious but it really shows off the tree.

Next will be the ornaments... I will be back with more photos and
my strategy for adding the ornaments to the tree.
Oh yeah, also,
Over the weekend my girlfriend came over and
we made Christmas cookies!
I had the oven on all day!
Her recipe for sugar cookies is wonderful...
I really think that the icing isn't even necessary.

(did I mention shampooing carpets too.. it never ends, I tell you)?

Patty brought a newly finished quilt to show me too...




Look at all the hand quilting! Doesn't it look like a snowflake?
I am amazed... the photo doesn't do it justice, we were having camera troubles that day.
Darn it.

Patty might not like this picture... but sorry, I'm not cropping it!

Here is the whole quilt! I love the  fabrics in this quilt!

The pattern is called Triple Crown.
I have made that same quilt... and quilted it myself... so, you can understand why I didn't take it out of the

closet to show her! No way! I really need to kick it up a notch on my quilting.

Oh, the reason why I stopped with the tree lights is because I had two little glitches...

one, half of one strand isn't working... I don't know how that happens, they were in prefect order when I took them off the tree last year, wound them up and placed it in the baggie... how can it not work

and the other reason was... somehow, I ran out of lights, I had to go get one more strand!

I hate that when that happens!

How is your decorating coming along?

Mosaic Monday: The List

My list for Christmas is pretty simple really.
I would like some fabric,
 a sewing chair and pink featherweight like Anne Sutton's,
 pajamas,
a tree house,
more fabric,
 a sweet little vintage trailer,
more fabric,
a sewing studio like
this one and maybe... a little more fabric!
(click here to see more pictures of the tree house)

My Week So Far

Time seems to be getting away from me lately!
I have been trying to go around and do some blog reading. But I
haven't had much time to leave any comments.
I also haven't been very good about answering many of my emails either.
I am sorry about that. I am reading them and I do appreciate all of your comments!
I hope to do better soon. So thanks for taking the time to comment...

So, my week so far-
This is a picture of an apron I have in my collection that I ran across when I was
looking for an apron to wear for Thanksgiving!
I just love those vintage colors... and the little hexies are so cute too.



Here is what I had to start dealing with on Monday.
I haven't been called to duty yet...
I have just been having to call in every evening to see
if my "group" is needed.

It seems that I always get these summons
around the holidays!
The courthouse is an hour drive away.
It is super annoying to have to travel that far to
do my duty. Otherwise I do like court cases.
I had been to school to be a stenographer before, so it's something
that intrigues me.


I have been able to get my blocks together for the
Studly and the Mrs. quilt along.



I love star blocks, so I am liking the way this quilt is coming together.

Here was a cute pattern that I saw made up at Bear Paw Quilts and More.

I was there during my lunch time today...
I met with my sewing machine guru and showed her my
featherweight. Remember a week or so ago that I ran over a pin with it and broke the needle?
Well, it seems that machines don't like that very much and it threw it out of sync.
My friend, Mary, did a little of this and that and got her
all fixed up! Yeah!
Well, I am just minutes away from calling in for jury duty again... wish me luck!