Christmas Sewing . . .

Yes, I know! It seems a little early for Christmas sewing . . . at least for me. There are probably some of you out there that have most of your Christmas planning and sewing all done. Not me!

My quilt group in Brandon has taken on the task this year of making and distributing placemats for folks that use the "Meals on Wheels" program at Christmas time. So I thought it was time to pull out some of the December issues of some of my magazine collection and see what inspires me this year. It is so easy to get distracted looking through magazines! You always spend more time looking than planning.

Next came out the Christmas fabric scraps - I bet some of these are 20 years old.

Just a little walk down memory lane with some of these scraps.

They all needed ironed before I could even see how big the pieces were - that took some more time.

Then I had to see what size some of the bigger pieces were to determine what smaller pieces coordinate the best.

Then I finally laid out the pieces that MIGHT go together the best. Lots of choosing and discarding, re-choosing and more discarding . . . I love this part of designing. The old creative side of the brain can kick in and go to work.

The next part of the day was spent cutting apart the kadrillion triangles for my newest project and pressing them all.

What a lovely little (Huge!) stack.

Now they all need squared up into neat little 2" squares. That sounds painful to me . . . my hand always aches after cutting a 100 or so. This will be a work in progress for a while - I'll be doing this job in stages.

The rest of my day was spent doing more machine quilting on my Dad's Christmas quilt . See . . . I have thought about Christmas - I'm not as far behind as I thought I was! Actually, to tell the truth, the quilt top was done last January, so now I'm just finalizing what I had already started a long time ago. I should finish the quilting tonight if all goes well and then I can get the sewing machine back to sewing projects that are waiting in line. Like maybe the next step in Myra's Mystery Quilt. Looking forward to whatever is going to happen next. How are you doing with the project? Everyone have their sewing all done from last week?

'til next time,

M.