Christmas is coming

When you take as long as I do to finish a project, you have to give yourself lots of lead time. Actually, though, I bought this pattern last year. Does it count as started if you don’t actually take it out of the package? The temperatures outside might have just finally reached the nice and toasty stage, but I see lots of Christmas craft magazines and fabric starting to show up in the stores.

Mom and dad used to toss an old white sheet down around the Christmas tree. As far as I can remember, that’s about as fancy as anyone we knew ever got. My partner and I don’t even do that. Our good sheets? They belong on the bed, not the floor.

But when I saw this pattern in our local quilt shop last year, I really wanted to make it. And if you’re going to make it, might as well use it, right? So I bought a large piece of coarse, unbleached cotton – osnaburg – as called for in the pattern. I machine-basted it so I could wash it first, and it’s a bit on the crumbly side, but very soft and comfy.

Ginger likes it very much. That’s rather fitting since she and Rusty were my Christmas presents in 2009. They were barn kitties, just weaned from their mother by the time Christmas rolled around, so they came to live here. They love tearing apart our Christmas tree, so I’m sure they’ll get an even bigger thrill out of it once the skirt is finished. It may make it easier to find the ornaments they’ve knocked off the tree.

In case you can’t see  the pattern that well, there are six houses with trees and snow people around the outside, and Santa in his sleigh with his reindeer flying above. I have the fabric picked out for the houses, but it’s going to be a lot of nit-picky work. I decided to begin this while I wait for the fabric to arrive for my second batch of Mexican Stars. Once that’s here, I’ll probably go work on that until it’s finished. Or until I get bored. Guess which one’s more likely to come first? With a Full Moon coming up on the 13th in Aquarius, anything is possible.

Until next time,