Christmas: 20 days away

Well it's a good day in Zegiville today. I managed to get my butt out of bed and out for a snail-jog (I am super-slow) this morning. It was cold and snowy but thankfully not windy, and really a nice morning for a jog all around.

I didn’t get much quilting done this weekend. I got ½ of my next appliquéd block done. That wasn’t a lot of progress. But I did go to the annual family cookie baking party. Between me, my mom, sister, and cousin, we had about a dozen kinds of cookies and goodies to share. We each bring our own dough to the party and spend the day baking & icing and of course gabbing. Lots of fun, and I made the cutest snowflake cookies. (I sense a snowflake theme developing here.) It was a recipe I got from a Martha Stuart cookie magazine. They are gingerbread with royal icing piped on, and sugar sprinkled on the icing for sparkly-ness. They look fabulous. I am very proud of them.

And while we’re mentioning Martha—isn’t she a model to convicts everywhere? She doesn’t seem to have missed even a half step in her merchandising. I suppose it helps to have the backing of a huge conglomerate. And lots-o-money.

The other weekend accomplishment was the Christmas Tree. We went with The Husband’s family to pick a tree out and cut it the ‘ol fashioned way. The Husband cut it down with a non-power saw very efficiently and dragged it back to the car like fresh kill.

It’s in the stand, lit, and decorated. Last night I put my only UFO quilt (that’s UnFinished Object) top around the bottom as a tree skirt. I would like to finish someday it but The Husband doesn’t want me to. It’s actually the first quilt top I ever made. Really I guess I’ve only made three, not counting The Girl’s flower quilt.

Anyway, I made this random nine-patch quilt when I decided to make The Husband (who was then The Boyfriend) a quilt as a wedding gift. I made the nine-patch quilt top as practice. I never quilted it for two reasons 1) I realized I was running out of time to make The Boyfriend’s quilt, which wasn't finished for the wedding anyway; and 2) I sewed on this God-awful border that I should have recognized as ugly before I even bought it and I’ve never gotten around to ripping the the damn thing off. Last night I got one and a half of the border sections off before I gave up and put it under the tree. Maybe I’ll remove the rest next year.

Oh, and the reason The Husband does not want me to finish it is that he thinks if I make it into an actual quilt I won’t let him use it as our tree skirt anymore. I offered to make it into an actual tree skirt but he didn’t like the idea of my hacking it up, either. So it remains unfinished. Sigh. But I am not letting it bother me too much since I don’t actually have time to finish it right now.