The placemats are finished and residing in their new home. Alas, I have no pictures to show for my work as I sent them along without photographing them. Hopefully, a picture or two will be taken while under a plate or cup and I will be able to show them. They were not perfect by any stretch, the binding was much better, in some respects, as I neared completion of the project. Now to begin work for this Christmas.
I was able to complete 5 more placemats for Julie. Even though one picture shows 6, only 5 were delivered because I found a small 2 inch section that needed to be sewn again. I’ve ripped that section and repinned. I discovered that I needed to pull out new pins and trash the old ones. A craftier would have kept them and made some new thing out of them, but they were too dull to keep using on fabric. Now I’m on to the winter/summer placemats-one pinned, nine to go.
Today I was able to sew more of my super top-secret Christmas project. I’m willing to say that I am about half way through the project.
Well, the best laid plans . . . Here it is December and I’m still working on my super secret family Christmas Elf gift. I had hoped to be done before Boo arrived, but at least I’m not late, yet. This is post number 2 because in July I posted a bit about what I was working on, of course I danced around what it the project actually is and I’m still dancing. Until the gifts are presented I’ll not be sharing too much, only what I think can safely be viewed without giving too much away.
Should you happen upon a password protected post for the 2009 Christmas season and you feel I am not making the gift for you, please leave a comment here with a valid email address. Your email address will not be published. It will only be used so that I am able to send the password your way, unless of course you are the recipient of this gift. The password will be the same for all top-secret posts this season.
I have successfully completed another Nov. 30 posts in 30 days. I have learned some valuable lessons and managed not to blog about the 30 posts in 30 days as any of my Nov. posts. Well, mission accomplished by the skin of my teeth no thanks to my webhost going down for several hours just as I was finishing my post. This week has been lousy for my satisifaction rating with goods and services.
I have a bunch of new Gerber vinyl diaper covers that were given to me proceed to degrade with each use. I have received a note back from the customer service people at Gerber saying that if I send the product into them I will receive replacement/refund. That’s possible for three of them, but the others were thrown away one at a time as the holes developed, which means people purchased gifts for us that we basically threw away. Why is our society so disposable? Why, oh why, has it taken me this long to get our cloth diaper supply up and running? Well, procrastination and unscheduled abdominal surgery at the end of September, but mostly the first and only a little of the second.
I tried to order prints from webshot.com, which by the way I will never recommend to anyone and will not attempt to use them again. It took me most of the day but I uploaded a bit over 460MB of data to their site before the colossal fail. They had a nice coupon deal wherein I could receive 100 free prints, I had 150 I wanted to order. Apparently, despite the fact that it is still plastered all over their site at 1AM EST, you can’t actually use the coupon. That, however, was not my problem because I didn’t try to order them on Dec 1. It was still Nov 30 when I was ordering but the clock switched as I clicked to pay for my order. My order suddenly when from $13.45 to over $20. I deleted my cart, my pics and sent a complaint email as well as a request to delete my account.
Maybe Dec 1 will be better, it really can’t be worse. To end on a positive note, my MIL (mom-in-law) came over this morning and hung out with Boo so I could work on my Christmas project. After I found the iron I misplaced, I spent an hour and a half in the morning and a few minutes in the evening working so that I am 37.5% completed which is to say, well, I’m working on it.
I will not be late this year.
I will not be late this year.
I will not be late this year.
I will not be . . .
For the last several years, I have participated in Proefrock family Christmas with varying degrees success for completing on-time gifts. The first Christmas, 2006, my main gift for Granny was a bit late, she received it in Feb. or March of 2008. To make up for it, I quickly knitted a hat on one of my circle looms and filled it with goodies so she had at least something to open and keeep. Christmas of 2007 I was on-time with knitted socks and some other goodies for Dad. Christmas of 2008, well, it wasn’t as late as the first gift, but it was not on time. Jeff had to wait until Jan. or Feb. 2009 until I could get all the fish sewn together and to him in blanket form. He was able to open the gift, but I snatched it right back to continue working. If I hadn’t spent so much time coordinating the fish in rows and columns, I would have dumped the box of fish on him and let him figure out what it was. Please follow the Christmas tag or category to read more about those adventures.
I arrive at this year, 2009. Because I 
am horrible at thinking up a gift and executing it with finesse, I asked if we could draw names early. Everyone agreed, we drew so early that I knew who I was gifting to before anyone opened their 2008 presents. I went to visit my family in NY shortly after Christmas 2008 and came up with a brilliant idea for my secret Christmas Elf project. I purchased many supplies in NY as there were good deals in after-Christmas sales and my mom let me raid her fabrics for small scraps of various coordinating and contrasting fabrics. I have vacillated several times, wondering is this the best project for the person, is it too much work, is it a good idea, will the person like it. I have no concrete answers as I don’t want to let too many in on the project. I have decided is to start it, finish a stage at a time and reevaluate each time. I have been working on it over the last several months and while I’m not finished, I have made some progress. Here is a lovely photo of my leftover main fabrics and tools. I have completed the first stage so I’m celebrating Christmas in July. I like it so far. Hopefully it won’t look like Little One put the project together. I’m wading deep into sewing/quilting. While I can sew, I haven’t done as much quilting as I would like. I have lots of books and theory. Merry Christmas?
Three week’s progress: 86 fish for a total of 176 fish completed at this time.
Fish Joining the Fishbowl
3 chocolate brown, 6 grape, 6 dark country blue, 6country blue, 6 gray heather, 6 berry blue, 6 violet, 6 blue mint, 6 autumn red, 6 pink, 6 orchid, 6 iris, 6 sundrop, 6 sping (green), 6 aqua mist
Previous Fish
90 fish: 2 red from stash, 6 orange from stash, 5 yellow from stash, 1 chocolate brown from stash, 1 purple from stash, 6 cream/off-white from stash, 6 watermelon pink, 6 limelight green, 6 lemonade yellow, 6 dark sage green, 6 forest floor green, 6 mango orange-yellow, 6 truffle heather (brownish-purple), 7 soft blue, 5 red, 6 light country peach, 6 bone (khaki), 3 chocolate brown
This post was supposed to appear December 4th, but I was too busy knitting fish, laying them out and knitting more fish. I have pictures, but again, I need to finish this by Saturday, ACK!
As a child, I always seemed to have an advent calendar to help me wait until Christmas arrived. It was usually a cardboard stand up thing with windows to open. As an adult, I have been looking for a reusable calendar that centered around the true meaning of Christmas. Two years ago I finally found a wonderful counted cross-stitch kit and purchased it with a 40% off coupon. I started it last winter after I finished Granny’s rather late and overdue cross-stitched Christmas present. I made a significant amount of progress on it, but haven’t touched it since February. The scene on the calendar is that of the Nativity/Creche. The rest of the calendar is gridded out with a space for each day counting toward December 25. There are ornaments to stitch ranging in designs from shepherds to stars to angels and baby Jesus in the manger. I redesigned the Nativity scene a bit because I do not believe the wise men arrived until Jesus was a toddler, so I took them out of the scene, but will leave them in as ornaments I think. I know they started traveling when they saw the same star the shepherds saw. Because I don’t have a fun way to countdown yet, I’ve gone in search of online Advent calendars. I make no warranty about content because I am unable to open any until December 1. As I remember to investigate, I’ll mark the appropriateness.
This week’s progress: 29 fish for a total of 90 fish completed at this time.
Fish Joining the Fishbowl
29 fish: 2 truffle heather (brownish-purple), 7 soft blue (oops), 5 red, 6 light country peach, 6 bone (khaki), 3 chocolate brown
Previous Fish
61 fish: 2 red from stash, 6 orange from stash, 5 yellow from stash, 1 chocolate brown from stash, 1 purple from stash, 6 cream/off-white from stash, 6 watermelon pink, 6 limelight green, 6 lemonade yellow, 6 dark sage green, 6 forest floor green, 6 mango orange-yellow, and 4 truffle heather (brownish-purple).
when public add tags: tessellate, fish, blanket
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