Holiday Rush

The holiday parties have started. We have our quilt guild party today. It includes a catered lunch, so that will be nice. Tomorrow I have a get together planned with my stepdaughters. We’re doing it a little early this year, but I have all the gifts bought and mostly wrapped. Another party Saturday night with girl friends, and then I can rest until the church luncheon next week! I knew I would be busy, so I got as much work done this week as I could manage. I got the binding put on one I quilted last week. 

She will pick it up next week sometime. I also got a baby quilt quilted and bound.

I’m not sure when this one will be picked up, but at least it’s done and ready to go. 

I also got Susan’s Anna Maria quilt quilted. It’s already been picked up. 

So pretty, and the back is pretty too

It is also an Anna Maria fabric, but I don’t know if it’s the same line or not. 

I have another finished but I haven’t taken it off the frame yet. I’ll do that tomorrow and get another loaded. That gives me three to bind. I am amazed at how many people don’t want to do binding. I do it all by machine so it’s not too bad, but it has never been my favorite part of quilting. Apparently a lot of people feel that way.

Shop Hop Projects

I had high (naive) hopes of finishing my shop projects over the Thanksgiving holiday. Ha! I was a little too optimistic. I had bought three potholder kits, four tea towel kits, and the free shop gift was materials and pattern to make a table runner.

I did so much cleaning and rearranging over the weekend, I think I misplaced two of the potholder kits. I’m not complaining—I needed to clean worse than I needed to sew, and they will turn up soon enough. I did get one of them sewn. 

I got the bird cut and pieced over the weekend, and then yesterday, I quilted it and got the binding put on. 

The binding wasn’t cut very straight, but it’s cute in spite of the misaligned plaid. I stitched in the ditch around the bird and the holly leaves. 

I got the trees for the table runner pieced Saturday night while I was watching a movie

and then I put the border on Sunday afternoon.

I’m not sure at this point when I will get it quilted or what I will bind it with. I think I have some red and green plaid that might work for the binding. I also have enough strips left over to make at least one more runner and possibly two more. It’s a cute runner, and I wouldn’t mind making a few more. Especially when the strips are already cut. 

I couldn’t work on the tea towels because the pattern had no pictures and no written instructions, and I couldn’t remember what it looked like. I will go back to the quilt shop and see if they have one I can at least look at. 

A New Week and A New Month

I think I just realized this year is almost over. It just passed so fast, and I am a little sad about that. There’s just not enough time to do everything I want to do. The only solution is to prioritize everything. Unfortunately, I am not very disciplined about sticking to my priorities and sometimes end up doing whatever strikes my fancy at the moment. I’m sure I’m not the only one who struggles with staying on track.

Our church potluck went well. We had about 70-80 people who stayed to eat, so there weren’t so many leftovers.

I had no hashbrown casserole left, and this started out as a full cake pan of ham. I really don’t like bringing home a lot of leftovers so this was good.

Five or six people brought sausage, and that pretty much got eaten too. The crockpot had chicken and dumplings which were really tasty. There are usually a lot of desserts, but this time there weren’t many. 

I think there were three pumpkin pies. I assume leftover from Thanksgiving. I don’t care for pumpkin pie so I didn’t eat any.

I watched the Texans game when I got home. Final score was 20 to 16. I’m not sure how the Colts got 16 points. They must have scored a field goal in the fourth quarter that I missed. Anyway, I’m hoping next week’s game against Kansas City will be an easy win. 

After the game I got all the fall decorations put away and did some dusting so I could start getting out the Christmas stuff. I got a little done, and that may be all I do. 

The red tree needs new batteries—C cells—which I will try to get today. I don’t know right off the top of my head where the rest of my stuff is, but I need to at least look for the wrapping paper. I went to Walmart for some gift bags and got these candy bars for the girls. They were $14.97 each.

The young man who checked me out (I don’t do self check) said, “man, these better be good for that price”. I have no idea if they are good enough to justify the price, but I will put them in the gift bags with their gift cards and maybe a few other small things.