Christmas Quilt

I had the pleasure of hosting the Sew What (my Friday night sewing group) Christmas party yesterday afternoon.  The crunch had been on the last couple weeks to finish my new quilt, pillow shams and valance.  Friday night, after an already long day, I knew I had to get the pillow shams together.  For the life of me, I couldn't keep the concept of "right sides together" in my brain.  At least three time I did some really nice, long seams only to open them up and realize I needed a seam ripper.  Still, those pillow shams were going to be ready, one way or the other.  Sleep just needed to wait until I finished -- which I did shortly after midnight.  

The original fabric came as a Christmas gift last year from Carolyn Shelby.  She'd found it in a quilt store in Sedona, AZ while on a business trip.  They were so pretty, I just couldn't keep them tucked away in a drawer.  In October I went on another of The Little Shop's Mystery Quilt weekends, and this is what materialized in about 48 hours -- sleep, again, was optional.  

Here's what I learned along the way:  Buy at least twice as much "stuff" as you think you could possibly use.  Nothing's worse than getting settled in for an afternoon and realizing you need to get in the car and run out for supplies.  Next, don't believe for a minute anything takes as long as it's supposed to.  I "should've" had this done a month ago.  So why was I still up on Friday night, trying to miter the corners on those shams?  And third, when stuffing pillow shams, go down to Kohl's with a 30% off coupon and buy a couple of their $5 pillows.  Stuffing and unstuffing those things is such a waste of time.  They're pretty...but they're just for show.

So what do people do who have their house cleaned and decorated for the holidays this early in December?  I'm kind of at a loss.  I'm usually a December 23rd-type person.  Who knows what I'll have time for now!

Comments

[Sharee]

Jean! It is gorgeous! Nice work! How do you get all that done plus work???

[Jean]

Remember, it's only me and the cats:)
Thanks!