Christmas Prep and Quilting

Merry Christmas.  Hope you are more prepared than I am for the Holidays.  We're still getting ready for our Christmas Eve open house.  Not sure how many people will be here, but I'm preparing for 40 (just in case).

That means the whole house has to be company ready.  Yeah...sure.  I'm confiscating eyeglasses as people enter.  For those that don't wear glasses I have some for them to wear.  Much easier than really cleaning.  Takes less time as well.

The food will be the standard snack food:  chips and dips, nachos and salsa, meat and cheese trays, veggie platter with dip, and a few items from M&M Meats so we have something from the oven.  Add hot chocolate, coffee/tea and hot apple cider.  I really don't like those "c" words (cooking & cleaning)

There were no photos of Christmas decorations at the malls this year.  I really enjoyed getting to the malls early so I could take photos to post last year.  But this year our local mall, Londonderry, is renovating.  They've tried to make it festive, but it's a loosing battle.  Next year the decorations should be great.

With a sick kitty and my father-in-law having health issues we've spent more time at the vets and hospital than at the malls.  In fact, other than grocery shopping I really haven't been shopping.  Good thing I got that order from Amazon or there wouldn't be much under the tree.

My sewing/quilting has come to a standstill.  I use the sewing room as a prep station for all the food/dishes/beverage storage for Christmas Eve.  My huge cutting/pressing table is great for this.  So the room is now "reasonably" clean.  Plus all sharp objects have been put away in case there are any little visitors.

 I should have been able to get the last of the flying geese quilts finished.  Unfortunately about 1/3 of the quilting had to be removed because of poor tension.  That took a lot of time.  Then there were holes in the backing to repair.  Now to figure out what went wrong.  Make the machine adjustments.  Then get the quilt back onto the frame.  I doubt it will get finished before the end of the year.

So I didn't meet all the goals I had set for myself this year in the quilting area.  My block of the month quilt was done on time.  I finished all the kits that I had stashed away at the beginning of the year (of course there are new ones now - next year's challenge?).  But I didn't get a top quilted a month.  It would have been great to start 2015 fresh with no unfinished quilts.  My New Year's Resolution?  Get all those tops quilted and cut down the scraps to usable sizes and organized.  Oh...and stay on top of the new block of the month that my husband has given me for Christmas.  This one is a six month project.

I did manage to get a lot of string bags made for the women shelters.  With 10 boxes and huge bags of fabric "gifted" to me from former co-workers and relatives who were downsizing, there was a lot of fabric.  I think it's time to say I give up and bring what hasn't been made into bags to the rest of the volunteer sewers to work on.  That would empty about a third of my sewing room!

After Christmas it's back to vacation planning.  So be prepared to be bored with updates!  And hopefully some news on quilting progress.

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and all the best for 2015!