Working on the whale quilt

 

I started quilting on this at the first of November.  It's hard to quilt on a regular basis with Christmas emerging upon us.  I'm quilting using six different threads.  It's makes it more interesting for me.  If I had to pick the thread again I would leave out the lightest (far left) and the darkest.  I just think it would look better.  But, the top of the quilt frames shows the last row so I'm going to continue on since I'm close to being finished.

I finished embellishing the right front of my denim jacket.  Here are both fronts together.  This isn't a hard project but the embroidery is time consuming.  I picked out a design for the collar below and I love the way it looks but I keep making mistakes and have almost done as much unpicking as sewing.  I worked on it for an hour yesterday and later realized I'll have to pick all of that out.  I'm learning a lot as I go.  I'm a beginner at this Sashiko Embroidery so I have sore fingers and that makes it hard to do much hand quilting too.  I finally ordered a palm thimble so I'm hoping that using it will make things go forward a little better.

This is the pieced denim and  I've cut out the back of the jacket and yoke.  It is awaiting embellishment.

We had our Christmas Quilt group potluck on Monday.  I wish I had taken pictures of all the show and tell.  This quilt was just made out of random scrap blocks.  It turned out really well.

When you're with other quilters even the stack of coats is coordinated - ha!

We went and got my Christmas present yesterday.  Two weeks before Christmas is not a good time for an oven to quit working.  I never had a black and stainless steel stove before.  I already miss my white one.  The white brightened up the kitchen so this is going to take some getting used to.

This is my husband's Christmas present.  It was delivered in a big wooden crate and so he, with very little help from me, managed to get it on a piano dolly to push to the back yard for uncrating.  He is so pleased.

My other Christmas present was an unexpected root canal I had to have last week.  It's been an expensive month.

  Christmas sure is a different holiday as we get older.  I'm at the point where I give my six children and their families money because I don't know what anybody wants.  They have started their own family traditions (which is good) so we don't do as much together as we used to.  I'm not complaining.  I'm usually too tired to go do anything in the evenings and their days are full.  But, I love them all and they love each other (a big blessing) and I look forward to the times when we're all together.

Minimal decorations but maximum quilty goodness.

I'll just close with this (really bad) picture of a headstone.  I do a lot of family history and when I came across this headstone I just had to share.  What a sweet thing to say about someone.  

I hope you're finding joy in the season,

Robin