When the Tree Tips Over, Just Go Back to Quilting

Hello Friends!  What?  It's December already?  How did that happen?

 

I am just getting around to decorating.  I'm not one to have Christmas up for a whole month.  Especially since we have an important birthday on the 5th.  And I need a few days to recover from that.

 

 

Mr. Fourteen.  I love that kid.  (puppy cake tutorial here)

 

 So, we finally got our tree up and decorated on Sunday night.  On Monday, I was madly basting a quilt while watching the clock cause I had to pick up the kids from school in a few minutes, and I heard a swoosh and a crash in the next room.   

 

 

Fantastic!  (Mentally pencil in an extra hour or so of clean up on my to-do list.)  Try to pick up the tree and I can't.  So I take a picture and instagram it instead.  A friend asked me if the dog pulled it over.  I wish I could say yes.  Sadly, I'm sure it was just bad tree-stand management.  The funny thing is, it crashed into the room, the side where all the ornaments were (the kids do all the actual placing of the ornaments onto the tree--there were no ornaments on the window side).  So they think it happened because there were too many ornaments on that side.  I have reassured them that it is mom and dad's fault and they are not to blame.  We did have a few ornament casualties but luckily many of our ornaments are what we call "folk art" i.e. cardboard and pompoms or pipe-cleaners, so those survived just fine.

 

After I cleaned up the wreckage, I resigned from any more decorating stress and decided to just get back to quilting.

 

Segway into the quilting news:

 

Last week after the busy-ness of the yarn shop wound down (pun!) and after I decided that there would be very few hand made gifts this year (it's only the 17th--there's still plenty of time for last minute knitting craziness to ensue),  I had a couple of days to catch up on some quilt projects. 

 

I am still working on the same three quilts that I showed in this post.  And it is a sad realization that I only actually finished one quilt this year.   I am ready, in the waning hours of 2013, to put on those quilting turbo-jets and crank out some FOs.  Here is a status report:

  

 

Quilt #1--started in May, top done in September, basted in October, ready to quilt!

 

 

Quilt #2--started in January, top done ? (I forget), basted this week, ready to quilt!

 

 

Quilt #3--Star Wars Quilt--started in 2010, top finished this week, ready to baste!

 

 

And Quilt #4 (because I didn't have enough projects going) I decided that I really had to piece this Giant Star that I had been thinking about for months. 

 

Giant Star:  Started this week, top finished this week, basted this week, ready to quilt!

 

So 2013, I'm looking at you.  Not my favorite year ever, but I'm finishing you out with some good quilting mojo and looking forward to what 2014 will bring. 

Thanks for hanging out with me!  Love you guys!
Emily

p.s.  Follow me on instagram (emilyquilts) for real-time Christmas tree action.  And a lot of quilts.