Getting ready for Christmas

Viola and I went out today and bought an advent candle, a pointsetta, and an advent calendar for Ask, one for Charles and one for Viola :)It all made our home look much more ready for Christmas...Speaking of ready...I am getting some sewing done in the evenings. I have sewn and handquilted these 2 lilypads for Violas lilypad-toss, I have 3 more cut and ready to sew. Then I need to make some kind of bag to keep it all in.....I am thinking a box-bag of some kind would be good.

Charles and I tested the game last night, and it was fun :) I had planned to make some lilies to sew onto tha lilypads, but that won't work! They would be squashed by the frogs during the first game. So....less work for me. Maybe I can make one and sew it onto the bag. That would (hopefully) look pretty.

On a different note....Charles hung these storage units for me today. They are from Ikea, and they are meant for shoes. I use them for extra gloves, mittens, hats, sweaters, scarves....you know, all the stuff that is left all over the place once the kiddos are home from daycare. I put the large Barbapapa stickers on for the kids. Viola chose the orange barbapapa, so that's where her stuff goes. Ask chose the airplane -very much helped by Viola in making his decision. LOL!I love these already! There is no more clutter in our hallway! Yipee!

-oh....you can see the kids' calendars on top of the storage units. Violas is the one with the princesses (obviously) and Ask's is Winnie the Pooh.

Just do it already!!!

I have been so intimidated by the thought of quilting Charles' Christmas-present-quilt.
After thinking about how to quilt it for weeks (it has been weeks hasn't it? It sure seems like it!) I finally decided to just go ahead and quilt it!
It is not as if my quilting skills are going to improve dramatically while I wait and do nothing, so might as well get started :)
I am going to need to do some quilting within the squares, that'll have to be another night. It's almost midnight, and I am beat! Plus the kiddos will paobably wake up before 6 AM...
I also finished the quilttop for my sisters Christmas-present-quilt! I might just make it! I might just finish my to-do list in time!
Of course there is still Charles' birthday-present, Viola's game and my sisters birthday-present...

I finished Spaceboy and Robot!

I finished them last night :) After taking Ask to the craft store to buy felt and wool. He was not happy! If you haven't tried any of wee wonderfuls patterns, you should! This was so easy to follow, and I think they came out cute :)

Because the kids have been sick, I have been inside for almost 2 weeks, only running the most important errands. So going out yesterday was fun :)
Christmas decorations are up everywhere!

This is the department store I showed you on the bike-ride. Now it is all decorated :)
These windows are beautiful! The windows are decorated in the colors of the rainbow, here is the yellow window..
I tried to get a shot where you could see them all, but no luck, there were too many bikes parked in front of the store :(

This is another department store, they have these huge Christmas-ornaments on the side of the building
They change color
Viola desperately wants one of these for her room :D
And another window....going through town is going to take so much longer this next month.
Both because there is just so much for the children to look at, and because there are so many people everywhere!!!

All part of Christmas....and really.....I love it :)

Less than a month and so much to do...

These are going to be Ask's Christmas present.
I bought the Wee Wonderfuls pattern a while ago, and I thought I had everything I needed to finish Spaceboy and Robot tonight. But no. Turns out I need more felt to make embellishments, the pieces I have are too small. And I need more wool, I didn't even have enough to stuff Spaceboy :(

But on the bright side, that means I get to go to the craft store tomorrow. I also have to go to a meeting with my teacher......and I have to bring Ask, he is not well yet :(
The kiddos have been home from daycare almost 2 weeks now, which is absolutely messing up my planning :D I am so behind schedule! I have a ton of reading to do for a paper that is due January 5th and my Christmas sewing list is downright scary :/

We have had our first snow....I don't know if you can see it all that well in this photo, but it's there!
That is also the view from my kitchen window....

And....just to make my planning even worse I actually gave Charles this fabric grocery bag I made him. I was planning to give it to him for his birthday...but no....why not give it to him now, and put another thing on my endless to-do list?! Sounds clever right?
Anyway...he loves it. I made this from a sheet he had when we first met. I saved it because I like the print :) The tutorial is here, it was pretty easy to make...
Here it is hanging on Asks chair. It folds up so you can keep it in your bag, and not buy any more plastic grocery bags!

My Christmas sewing list is very ambitious...

....but I basted Charles' quilt tonight! Yipee! I had to piece the back from different kinds of fabric. I will show you when it's quilted -sometime soon I hope!
I have had both kids at home the ladt couple of days, they have colds, and I just don't feel right about sending them to daycare when they are sneezing and I am blowing their noses all the time.

They have been doing a lot of coloring, and Ask felt we needed a little decoration on one of our walls...so he took off with a crayon, and made a little piece of art :) Luckily it came off, but not until after the whole wall had been pale blue, and I was wondering what to tell Charles :) LOL!

My parents came over today, and are staying here until Saturday. Right now they are playing wii, and I am sitting here behind my laptop trying not to laugh too hard :D

And look at this!!!!

My parents brought this Barbapapa board game, my sister and I used to play this when we were kids, and my parents saved it all these years. How cool is that?!

I realize I may be the only one who thinks this is absolutely fantastic, but please be patient with me :)

You have to get to Barbamama first to win, and all the little drawings are different tasks -you know how these things are!

Enough of that... Charles is in Stockholm for a conference and will be back tomorrow night. The kids and I miss him :(

Progress...

I decided to go with the white sashing for my sisters quilt. Both because I know how it shrinks, and because it is what I have in my stash. I love the idea of using linen, but I haven't worked with it before, so I'll try it in a couple of projects (not presents) first :)

Jackie suggested cornerstones, and since I have quite a bit of dots left, I decided to go with that idea! Thanks Jackie!

I cut all the pieces last night while watching an old Bond movie on tv.... So when I had a chance to sit down at my machine this afternoon, the first row went together pretty quickly. I am sewing the sashing a little differently than I normally would, but these blocks are a little wonky -probably because of all the unpicking- so I need to be a little careful. So far, so good!

Ask likes it :) He started using it as a dancefloor as soon as I put it on the floor to take a picture. LOL!

I always keep little sewing-related thingamabobs in my sewing room, so there is something for Viola to play with while I sew. Today she played with a new -and rather large- bag of different shaped sequins, there was hearts, elephants, flowers, fish, leaves....you get the idea :)
She spent hours sorting these into different bowls, now that is really appropriate behavior for the daugther of librarians. LOL!

42 days until Christmas....

....and 17 days until December 1st! And I am finally done with Violas Advent calendar bag. Instead of hanging all 24 presents on a regular Advent calendar, we give the children the presents one at a time every day in December. That way they don't get too impatient, and I don't have to have 48 little presents ready by December 1st. LOL! Viola will be getting her presents in this bag -I am ashamed to say, that Ask may have to wait until next year to get his very own homemade bag :(
The little house is made from "Welcome to the North Pole" by Piece O'Cake Designs.
I tell myself that he is so young still that he won't mind -please just agree with me! LOL!
I lined the bag with a Michael Miller Christmas-print. I bought this fabric last year, or the year before, and I love it! The only reason I haven't used it is, that I couldn't bring myself to cut into it. I am happy that I didn't, because I really like it in this project.

I have made some progress on my hexagons... I unpicked the brown, didn't like that after all... Charles wants me to make a quilt. Are you kidding me?! That would take me forever! But so far I am happy sewing these, and I like how scrappy it is :)
I really shouldn't sew anything that isn't a Christmas-present, I have so many to finish, and only 42 days left!
I finished the blocks for my sisters quilt, I am still undecided as far as sashing goes....white or linen? What do you think?
I'm leaning towards white, probably because that is what I have in my stash!

I also should tell you, that Dana at Old Red Barn is having a give-away... She is giving away 3 (!!!) quilts to 3 winners.... Go visit her, but don't win the green quilt, I want to win that one. Me and 800 other bloggers.... LOL!

Why get it right the first time?

Remember the zig-zags I was making for my sisters Christmas-present quilt? Well...I just couldn't get all that excited about them...something wasn't right. And since I have so much time to make all the Christmas-presents I have planned (HA!), I decided to do something different with this.

I am feeling much better -Ask is back to normal and back in daycare- so this morning I started unpicking the zig-zags. And was left with a big pile of flying geese.

I have made these blocks instead, and I am liking it much better. I have enough flying geese to make 12 blocks. So it will be 3x4 blocks with white sashing in between. Much better, I think!

Maybe I'll try AmandaJeans tutorial for a pieced border on this one?!

I think the time spent with my seam-ripper was well spent. It is no fun working on something I don't like, and it would have been even worse giving it away as a present when I'm not happy with it.

I'm still here!!

Another picture from our bikerides through the city....

I am still here! Ask and I are sick, I have a billion pages to read for my class......
On the bright side, Ask is better, and will be back to his normal lovely self very soon, and hopefully I should be so too :-) Once he is okay it shouldn't take me long, being able to sleep at night is so healing -compared to being kept awake by a sick 1 year old!

Election Day in the US is pretty interesting for us in the rest of the world too....so please vote if you are able to do so! Please!
I know I am keeping my fingers crossed and will be checking the internet at the crack of dawn to see who will be the next president...

Until then.....I have been given an award! YAY! Thank you Thrifty Mrs!!!
I am very happy to get this award!