Christmas catch-up: stockings

I've been known to break out in rants when shops continue playing Christmas music past the holiday, so apologies for continuing the Christmas chatter into January. But I didn't want to give away what I'd made for people before they got their gifts, and I only had spotty Net access whilst travelling.

First, though, have a look at our family stockings (with blogified names). As a kid, I thought everybody who celebrated Christmas had something similar. Everybody in the Mother's family had versions just like this, after all. It was only as I grew up that I came to realize such festive felt creations might be considered tacky. But taste rarely factors into family traditions, and actually, the stockings are kind of at home in my adult aesthetic. Never mind that it wouldn't be Christmas without them.

This year brought new stockings, one for the Other and one for Middle Brother's wife (they spent the holiday elsewhere, so their stockings aren't pictured). The Mother makes them all (except mine, which was made by an aunt), and she actually has near-heraldic guidelines for who gets what images. It's serious business, folks.

• The Santa head was the Mother's favourite as a kid, and she put it on the Father's stocking when they got married. It would have gone on all of them, but it wasn't on the stocking my aunt made me, so none of my brothers got it either. But our partners do.
• All the women in the Mother's family had angels (each different) on their stockings. Being a clan abundant in Y chromosomes, our immediate family didn't see the angel again until Mrs Middle Brother entered the picture. The Mother was delighted with the chance to make something pretty for a change. (Apparently the car on the Father's stocking didn't qualify.)
  
• Everybody gets a Christmas tree, but they're all different. I believe they're all embellished with sequins and beads, though only the Father was lucky enough to get gold rickrack. Perhaps a joke on his intolerance of tinsel?
• The Mother's dog, Mazie (whose stocking shows the real lettering), gets jingle bells not just because they're seasonal, but also because she rings a bell hanging from the doorknob to ask to go outside. No kidding.

The older stockings have had to be repaired several times after being stuffed annually with such delights as candy, deodorant, socks, and more personal odds and ends. It used to be Santa Claus who filled the stockings, but once he stopped visiting, we filled them for each other. For a few Christmases in high school, Middle Brother and I subjected everyone to the tackiest fillers we could find at the dollar store, which I believe included an "I ♥ Michigan" mug for the Mother, who doesn't. We were charming, thoughtful youths, us.

More Christmas catch-up on stuff I made and stuff made for me to come soon.

Getting ready for Christmas

With the last few work projects heading out the door, I'm scrambling to get everything else ready in time for the holidays. The tree, though, has been up for a while, displaying ornaments plucked from thrift and antique shops by the Other, the Mother, and me. I think the Other considers my colour coordination of the tree a little fascist. I can live with that.

Slash/Backslash quilt top

I should probably be devoting all sewing time to Christmas presents, but I was feeling the quilting bug and threw this top together. It's another one I designed a while ago. I'm pretty much over the colours, but it used up fabric I'd been gathering to go with Plain Spoken and Day at the Beach.

Piecing the triangles wasn't as scary as I'd been led to believe—the hardest part was working out the math so I could sew squares (and then slice 'em apart afterwards) rather than actual triangles. Oddly enough, I found it much easier to match the points on opposing 45-degree angles than I did on the perpendicular lines. I'm quite looking forward to putting my walking foot to use with the quilting, now that I've finally got one.

So now, thanks to a coupon from Jo-Ann.com, I'm off for a half-off batting....

January/Febrary Quilter's Home out

The latest issue of Quilter's Home has been spotted in the wild, so head to your local quilt shop if you'd like to check out my article on killing off lingering UFOs. I'm looking forward to reading about Quiltzillas, McQuilters, and other characters from quiltland....

Update: And thanks to Whip Up for featuring my Transport pillow in their recent What's Quilting post!

Christmas comes early

The thrift store gods continue to smile upon us—look what the Other spotted at our favourite shop this morning!

Are those taper legs? Yes! Is the stain a perfect match for this desk? Yes! Is the sewing machine that retro shade of aqua that I find so luscious? A thousand times yes!

While the table's not crucial furniture, I think I can modify the table to fit Gertrude, my more modern sewing machine, which would give me a nice flat surface. Gertrude's no looker, but she probably has to stay my workhorse machine.

On the other hand, the old Singer seems to work—I need to play with it a bit more—and it has such a big throat that I wonder if it might prove useful as well as lovely. And even if lovely turns out to be the Singer's only real quality, I think she's mighty cute.

So now I'm off to scour the Internet for a manual, clean her up a bit, and see what she can do.