Better late than never, right?

A short while ago (well, back in July), I stumbled across Monkey Dog Quilts and her Christmas In July Blitz giveaway. Basically, she was fired up about getting started on some Christmas quilts, and wanted company. I signed up - heck, I'm tired of trying to get all my Christmas sewing done between December 20 and December 24 at 11:59 PM. Besides, I could win some Christmas fabrics! Well, I didn't win, but I did make a Christmas Tree Skirt, which I've been wanting forever! While it is not completely done, it is done enough to show and demonstrate that I followed through on my commitment to actually make something.

Hand quilting this puppy has been much more time consuming than putting it together. Honestly, this isn't a project that I wanted to commit hours and hours of hand quilting to, as it is going to be just peeking out from under a tree and likely covered by presents. That motivated me to go online yesterday and order a set of quilting feet for my machine - a walking foot and a free motion darning foot, along with a couple others. Machine quilting, here I come!


In the meantime, here's what I did on the Tree Skirt: outline quilting inside each of the tan pieces

and outline quilting around the circumference of the inner and outer darker (red and green) circles. Right now there is only one row of quilting in those circles, but I plan to at least do one more in each.

My plans to complete this by the quilt guild meeting on Saturday have been thwarted by the fact that Jason and I are taking a Nunchuck camp at karate this week, which translates into 3 HOURS of karate every day, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

By the time I get home, it is 8 PM. I have to prepare dinner and put the kids to bed, and then I'm asleep. I made a date with the hubby last night to watch our Netflix selection (the pilot of the HBO series, The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency), and while I was enjoying it, I was asleep within half an hour. My wonderful husband just turned it off and sent me to bed. (By the way, this same WONDERFUL HUSBAND fixed our dryer yesterday!!! YAY! I probably won't use it anytime soon, but when cold weather hits, I surely don't want to be out taking frozen - and still wet - clothes from the clothesline.)

So, while I'm a little bummed about being behind schedule on this Tree Skirt, in reality, I am WAAAAY ahead of schedule, right? I guarantee it will be done a full 4 months before Christmas. And I bet this Tree Skirt will have siblings and cousins before all is said and done, since it was so much fun to make.

Me and my bright ideas

We were at the city pool on Friday afternoon, cooling off from a scorcher of a day and relaxing from a doozy of a week, when one of Jason's friends and his mom arrived. One thing led to another, and all of a sudden I am heading home with one extra child and plans to go to the drive-in movies and a sleepover. I love the spontaneity of summer!

My Drive-In Movie quilt was christened with popcorn and sno-cones - it is officially a quilt now!

Today was school supply shopping day. It turns out it is twice as expensive to buy supplies for kindergarten than for 3rd grade - what is up with that? But the kids are excited for school to start, and that makes me happy. I always loved school as a kid, and I hope my kids continue to enjoy it. While shopping, we made an impulse purchase.

The plan was for us to all end up blond. Instead, we look like carrot-tops, but that's OK, it was fun. I'm sure it will raise some eyebrows at work, but whatever.

Since it was an absolutely beautiful day, I did lots of laundry so I could spend lots of time outside hanging up the clothes, one of my favorite chores. But I also spent quite a bit of time inside, cleaning, but also sewing. I've been wanting to make a Christmas Tree Skirt for quite a while. Usually, when Christmas comes, I swirl some white fabric around the base of the tree and call it good, but when I see everyone else's neat tree skirts I think to myself, "I could do that!" So, I finally got started.

I used this tree skirt by Jen/Cre8tive Quilter as a model, but I had to tweak it some since I didn't have the ruler she had, and I really didn't want to have to sew 40 wedges together. Instead, I used my Dresden Plate ruler in conjunction with a 6"x24" ruler, and ended up with only 16 wedges.

I LOVE IT! It is about 36" in diameter, pretty small, but then, I usually get pretty small trees. Tomorrow, I plan to birth it, and then work on hand quilting it. Perhaps I could have it done for Show and Tell at the quilt guild meeting next Saturday...we'll see.

Here's hoping my Sunday is as perfect as my Saturday!