'Tis the Season

I love days like this.  It's rainy and cloudy outside, so we're stuck in the house on this cold, cold wet day.  Truthfully, it's only wet, not cold.  We actually finished school before lunch, which is always the plan but rarely happens.  That freed us all up for an abundance of creativity all afternoon.   A rosemary/garlic roasted chicken is bubbling away in one crock pot, while green beans are simmering in another.  On the counter, a couple loaves of John's Easy Yeast Bread are rising.  The aromas wafting over from the kitchen are heavenly.

Meanwhile, from the sewing and crafting room, formerly known as the dining room, can be heard much buzzing and whirring of the sewing machine mixed with Christmas carols playing softly in the background.  Christmas carols, you ask?  Yes!  Abby and I are both working on Christmas projects.  I can't tell you how happy I am that my girl has been bitten by the sewing bug.  This is the child who grew up playing at my feet while I sewed and smocked a hundred dresses but who never showed any interest whatsoever in learning to sew herself.  So over the summer, deciding she indeed enjoys the art of putting fabric together in imaginative ways, she learned to smock and completed the smocking for Kyle's first Christmas photo outfit.  She now has another fun project in the works and is planning to offer her first give-away on her blog soon!  Be sure to bookmark her blog and keep your eye open for her give-away.

I'm also working on my Christmas give-away.  I challenged myself to construct this one completely from fabric I already have in my stash.  (You'd realize that's not a very impressive challenge if you saw my stash.)  The design finally gelled in my head last night.  This one is going to be in all traditional Christmas colors and motifs.  I will have dozens of hours for stitching during our fall mountain get-away to Blue Ridge in a couple weeks.

It's patchy; it's scrappy; it's appliqued; it's fun. 
I love it already.  And I hope that you will, too.

Love,