Decorating and gift making

For some reason this year, as soon as the last mouthful of scrumptious turkey and dressing were off my plate and into my mouth I was excited to start ushering in Christmas. I asked my sons who were home from college to "go get Christmas." They knew what that meant-trips into the house with large plastic bins full of Christmas decorations. I carefully packed away Thanksgiving, turned up the Christmas music and began the joyous ritual. A ritual that has become a tradition and also becomes a trip down memory lane as items are unwrapped and almost discovered as if for the first time all over again. It's amazing how you forget what you have packed away.



My fun snippets wreath wallhanging has a new home right in the kitchen. It was fun to make and even more fun to look at each day.


In the meantime, I'm still putting together gifts for Christmas. This beginnings of a tablerunner (below) is now going on the back burner as I have come up with an even better plan for my #2 Christmas gift. My daughter likes the hexagons though and wants an entire quilt made of these, so that project will have to wait until after Christmas. So for now, I'll try to finish the 3 other gifts I have going all at the same time. #1 gift is in the machine quilting stage, so I'm nearing the end. #2 gift is now ready for the final piecing. #3 gift is an embroidery which has about 2 more hours worth of work, then it will be ready for the finishing stages. I enjoy making things when I know exactly who I'm giving them to. I only wish those whom I'm making these for could know how much I think of them while I'm working on their gifts. Handwork and quilting cause me to slow down a bit in an otherwise hurried and frenzied season. That's a gift to myself!