In Mid-December

Well it's almost Christmas and I'm not sure I'm ready, lol. With Christmas less than a week away: I've only purchased three presents, none of them wrapped, and my parents called me two days ago to tell me that they're coming out for Christmas this year after all. Well, that's exciting! I think we'll have Christmas on New Year's Day. That sounds like a plan!

Friday night was our office Christmas party and last night Bran and I hosted a Christmas party here at that house. Not very many guests came to either party, but they were still plenty of fun. Tonight I'm playing a Christmas gig in New Orleans at the Chapel of the Holy Comforter. I'm sure they'll have a party after the performance. There will be more people at this party, but it won't be nearly as fun as Friday or Saturday's parties! :)

Anyways I've gotten a couple of quilts finished in the last month. On Thanksgiving weekend I finished a linen and cotton hourglass quilt and this week I completed a Christmas quilt. They're both lap sized and were the first two I've ever quilted using my new B-Line quilting frame. Now if I could just get a sewing machine with a longer throat, then I'd be all good! :)

Merry Christmas!

My True Love Gave to Me...

Should I have not gotten up this morning? lol.

First, I should have been at rehearsal in New Orleans at 10am. So, I get myself out of bed, run a brush through my hair, slap some makeup on, and leave the house. Two miles from home I look up at my clock in the car and it says it's 10. 10? Really? No - I must have forgotten to "fall back". No - I remembered to "fall back", that was weeks ago. Oh crap. How the hell did my brain allow me to think that aiming to leave the house at 9:45 would get me to rehearsal at 10? Oh, I must have said "I need to leave at quarter to 9" to Bran and I somehow translated that to 9:45 in my fuzzy brain. It's a quarter to something with a 9. OMG.

I've been sick for 4 weeks now. Yeah, 4 weeks. I'm not as bad as I was 3 weeks ago, but I'm still bad enough that I've been taking night-time cold medicine for the last 2 weeks. Is that why I feel so brain dead? Holy crap.

Ok, so then I decide, since I'm out, to grab a cup of coffee and get some Christmas shopping done. First I stopped at America's Best to pick up my contacts that they called me about a month ago. No...they don't have my contacts. They've got my trial pair...that's what they called me about. Trial pair? I got those 8 weeks ago. No, I want the year worth of contacts I paid for. Oh, no they were delivered to my home on October 28th. Really? No. So, they'll follow up on Monday when the office is open. Monday, really? They'd better call on Monday or I'll be opening up a can of whoop ass.

Alrighty, it's not the fault of the girls at America's Best so I'll go over to Rouse's and see if they have St. Germain. No, they don't have St. Germain I should try Martin's Wine Cellar. But, they don't think there's one of the North Shore. I'll have to go to New Orleans or Baton Rouge. Yeah, right.

This is all not so bad. I think I'll go pick up those Christmas gifts. So, I drive myself over Bed Bath and Beyond to pick up that present for Bran I keep meaning to pick up and some Christmas Yankee Candles. It's cold out and I still haven't had any of that hot coffee I picked up. I find a nice parking spot and dash across in the rain to the store with my big ass purse and cup of coffee. Yeah, I'll probably need a shopping cart for the present and the candles and whatever crap might "need" from BB&B. So what if the store is packed, the shopping carts are huge, and the aisles are too small for the shopping cart. Really? The aisles are too small for the shopping carts? And because I didn't want to spill the coffee I've set in in my purse. But the first big bump guess what? No, it didn't spill, but it did splash up out of that drinking hole all over the inside of my purse. OK, that's not so bad, at least it didn't spill.

At least the check out line at BB&B went quickly. While I'm out why don't I stop by my salon and give Ginger her Christmas present and get my bangs trimmed? Great idea. Ginger is available...trims me up in 2 minutes, I "tip" her for the year and leave. At home I get a really good look at my bangs. Well, maybe they'll have grown out by Christmas. Besides as long as they look good for Christmas I'll be happy.

So, my crazy "bad" day wasn't really "bad"...but I usually don't have this kind of luck over and over in the same day. Hopefully the next 2 weeks will be better. Bran went Christmas shopping after I got home. I got most of the ornaments on the tree and he came home with a bottle of St. Germain (from Martin's Wine Cellar in Mandeville!). Bless him! :)

New Toy!

Last post I mentioned that I discovered a quilting store in my area. Well guess what my sweet sweet hubby got for me? A quilting frame! He got it put together and set up for me and yesterday I put my first quilt on it. Now I'm busy free motion quilting a quilt top! I've got another quilt top that I need to have finished by Friday, but I didn't want to start with it...so, my apologies to the friend that's going to get this quilt - but it's really my test run. lol - I'm sure she won't mind. :)

I'm leaving for California on Saturday. I'm looking forward to seeing my brother and friends. When I get back I'll finish quilting the other quilt tops I've got waiting and then start decorating for Christmas. Woot!

Surprise Quilt

I found a quilt shop in my area last week. All the quilting and sewing I've been doing lately and I hadn't bothered until last week to see if I had a local quilt shop. I've already spent a load of money in the shop and I've only been in twice. Though in my defense I purchased a quilting frame for my machine, so that was an investment. Hopefully it will help me be twice as productive.

This morning I went in with a quilt top that I finished about a month ago. I've been looking for quilt backing, but just haven't been happy with what I've found. I finally just bought some muslin in desperation, ugh so boring. There are no pictures posted yet of the quilt top because it's a surprise, but here's a little sneak peek at what I found this morning for the back. I went in looking for something mundane but interesting...was about to give up when I spotted this. Mundane: Fail!

Please don't think I've gone insane.

Productive Weekend

I work from home. You may have already known that. Working from home has many MANY benefits. My favorite is that when lunchtime comes around I can turn on Court TV (TruTV), watch an hour of courtroom proceedings, eat a bite, and work on "stuff". I usually have Wednesdays and Fridays off, but I'm currently working at getting myself a surplus of days so that I can go to California for a month and not have to work the whole time I'm there. So, this last Friday I was working. At lunch I stopped and started cutting and piecing a Christmas "Mix-Tape" quilt (a jump start on Christmas). After my hour I went back to my desk and found myself making all sorts of crazy mistakes. Spelling, thinking, not thinking - whatever I was spending as much time correcting myself as I was working. Maybe I had that quilt on my mind... Whatever it was at 3:00 I gave up. I thought, "I'm not even supposed to be here today"! (This line must be whined like Dante Hicks). Two hours short of a full day of work I stopped working. I can work for 2 hours on the weekend when I'm "fresh". lol. So - I sat down and cut and pieced the rest of that Christmas quilt top. Took a little break to watch the rest of a movie I'd Tivo'd ("The Painted Veil" with Edward Norton. If you've seen the movie you'll understand why I watched it in two parts - good, but kinda slow.) Yeah, I cut and pieced that entire quilt top in an afternoon. I'm loving that Mix Tape quilt pattern. In my back room I have 2 plastic storage boxes of novelty Christmas fabric. I know it's cheesy - but I have a real soft spot for it. If you've seen my living room at Christmastime you'd understand why. Between the quick pattern and all that Christmas fabric I think there may be at least a couple more Christmas lap quilts made this year.

After the high of completing an entire quilt top in a day I thought that I should be working on something that's actually on my "roundtoit" list. I've had Bran's aunt's doll for almost two years now and all I've done is patch her. I gave myself a deadline to have this doll finished, otherwise she'll just sit around here forever (not that I'd complain). Two years is really too long to hold on to something you're working on for someone else. But, I'm doing all this work for free, she can just wait. lol. I plan on having the doll done for Thanksgiving this year. That will be the two year anniversary of her handing the doll over to me. Both of Diane's sons have had little girls this year and I was able to complete baby quilts for both of them - so I'll make this the year that the doll is finished as well. This week I started working on the doll's costuming. I started stockings earlier in the week, and yesterday I made most of the corset. I screwed up the corset once in the afternoon which forced me to stop in frustration for a couple hours. Frustrated because noooOOOoooo I couldn't screw up the lining from muslin, I had to screw up the outer part from a limited amount of vintage material. So at 11:00 pm last night I finished the bulk of the corset. It needs a little handwork done, then the corset will be complete. I took plenty of pictures - maybe someday I'll post a tutorial on making doll corsets.

D'oh!

I'm a reasonably intelligent person. Well, at least I believe that I am. So, how, after checking the remains of the linen I had from the last quilt top I completed am I short by 8 blocks? It's not much - but when I checked last night I thought I had more than enough - like twice as much as I needed. I must have been tired, or hungry, or possibly in need of a drink. Whatever it was I screwed up the numbers big time. I went to order more from Fabric.com and they're sold out. Well bummer. I have enough scraps to piece together what I need to get all 80 squares of this new hourglass quilt finished, so I guess I'll do that. I was going to post this quilt for sale, but if I have to scrounge for bits and pieces I guess I may just have to give this quilt away. Or, keep it for myself. I just won't feel right selling something I don't think is good enough.

I started the hourglass quilt yesterday, after I completed the "other" Mix Tape quilt top I've been working on. I need to get some fabric to back the latest Mix Tape quilt with. But, the person I'd really like to ask for their opinion is going to be the recipient. So now what?

Mix-Tape Quilt Complete

OK, so here it is, the completed Mix-Tape Quilt. I'm still working on another one. I'll probably have that one done in a couple weeks. I really hate working on quilts as big as this one, but I love them when they're done. Though, I almost always have a problem with the backs - part of the reason I don't do pieced backs. The backs always bunch up on me while I'm quilting and I get these puckers that end up being sewn over. They're a mess. I usually spend time picking stitches when I'm done and easing the fabric. Then once washed they look OK, but this one. This one is bad. So Bran gets it. I told him last week - you know what would stop this? A quilting frame! lol. Maybe I'll get one for Christmas. Probably about then I'll be bored with quilting though and will have moved on to something else. lol.

If you're interested in this pattern you can find it on Etsy in Oh, Fransson's shop. She's the bomb. The mack daddy bomb.