Reality Bites….Back

Well, this is what happens when you house sit for a month.  Our  creeping ivy has become galloping ivy.  It is also a bone of contention – I love it, my husband hates it.  (He should sand blast and paint the patio of he wants to get me on board, I’m just sayin’.)

All of that,  a dusty house, and the return to non-central air  conditioning are looming like a veritable sword of Damocles.  Tonight  is our last night over at the house-sitting house and we are celebrating with take out lobster rolls for supper.  It’s a Thursday special at a local restaurant and we figured – why mess up the kitchen again?  We’ll just eat lobster rolls and soak up the cool.  I came home for a quick shower (hey, I’m a girl and all my junk is here) and check email.  I’ve also got to find a little hand sewing to take back with me for one more afternoon of movie watching, hand sewing and at about 4PM EDT, one last, great, epic  indulgent nap on the world’s greatest napping couch, under my woobie – one of Mom’s quilts.  It does not get much better than that.
My two Christmas cathedral window’s projects are each missing a tooth (who counts?) so I’ve got to stitch up a couple of foundations (made easier by my repaired, cleaned , faster, smoother Bernina) and bring them with me back to the “summer cottage,” as we have been calling it.

Sigh.

Monday Design Wall

Or, in this case, design bed.  Whatever.

I thought I had finished my Christmas cathedral windows table runner slash thingie, but now that I look at them as a group  I realize  they do not  all “go” together.  One set is more shiny and gold-threaded than the other.  Who knew?  They all came from the same collection.  This means I’ll be making two table runner slash thingies.  I can put one in the front hall under a big glass vase that I usually fill up with holly and cut greens, so that is easy.  The other can go on the dining room table or find a home somewhere else , it’s not like there aren’t  plenty of halls to deck around here at Christmas.  I just thought I was done – and I’m not! Back to the layer cake of holiday prints to find – and this time I’ll pay more attention – the ones I need to complete the set(s).

Design Wall Monday

As the Bernina is still not stateside, my hand sewing projects are continuing with this is a bit of reverse cathedral windows done with a layer cake of Holiday Flourish by Peggy Toole at Robert Kaufman Fabrics. This was my trip treat from a recent visit home that was also an epic road trip.  I found this in St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin, where my sister lives.  I rarely (well, pretty much never) buy Christmas fabric but this collection was such a wowza I could not resist.  It seems a little decadent to use it for this particular block as most of the fabric gets chewed up in the process – but I don’t care.  It’s for Christmas and I’m willing to bend a little.

I’m still finishing the windows, but it is nice to take a break and rearrange them and see what a little gold star or silver snowflake looks like in the center. This will probably be a table runner or a mini-quilt for the table in the front hall.  It’s also going to be reversible so I need to figure out what (if anything) to put on the ‘plain’ back side of things.

Oh yes – Cherrypalooza continues apace.  I’m still in love with that Kona Chinese Red fabric.

Design Wall Monday II

Flip Side