Christmas is looming

Suddenly it's December and Christmas is looming on the horizon.  I've been ignoring the increasing Christmas presence in the shops through October and November, and averting my eyes from the pop-up Christmas shop in the mall. But then we did some Christmas shopping in Oxford last weekend, the Christmas lights were turned on in our town and suddenly the season seems to have rushed upon me.   It does feel a bit like collective madness - I was in the mall on my day off and the pop up Christmas shop was thronged, and women were pushing trolleys around Wilko overflowing with artificial tree boxes and toys while consulting lists and looking harassed.  We're going to try to put up our lights in the front garden tomorrow if it isn't raining.  We don't normally get properly Christmassy until the second week of December but I guess I had better start thinking about writing Christmas cards soon.

I've moved my bobbin lace angel project down to the dining room in the hopes that it will get more attention and get finished in time to go on the tree.  The quilting frame is definitely staying in the dining room through the holiday so the tree is going to go in the hallway this year.  DS and DH are being very supportive and assuring me they are perfectly happy with that and that they know I will be doing a lot of quilting over the holiday.  Friends have suggested I decorate the frame with some tinsel to make it festive.

Instead of quilting the Star Sampler quilt that I loaded on to the quilting frame last weekend, I've had to do some surgery on my frame.  It turned out that my new metal rods must be slightly shorter than the previous plastic tracks, because my sewing machine carriage was hitting the back of the lower travelling carriage.  It was the brackets that support the handlebar superstructure that were hitting, so I took them off, used my Dremel multitool to turn the bolt holes into slots, and bolted them back on a bit higher to solve the problem.  Although in order to do that, I had to dismantle the frame that I had just loaded my quilt onto.  I unpinned the takeup roller to take it out but left the other rollers as they were.  Since I baste down my top to my backing as part of the loading process, I was able to re-pin to the takeup roller after the surgery and be back in business.

On my day off I spent a lot of time waiting for the flooring fitter to turn up to fit the floor in the ensuite, and I used some of the time to pin up my Snowman quilt.  This has jumped the queue as I realised I should be working on it over the Christmas season as it is a Christmassy quilt.  It couldn't be basted on the frame as the snowmen are made from bulky wool felt, so I pinned it up on the dining table instead. It will be quilted on the sit down machine downstairs.

I finished quilting the diamond borders on my stack and whack hexagon quilt and ran it through the washing machine so it's ready to have binding sewn on.  While it was drying, I sewed binding onto my Japanese fabric wallhanging and stitched that down in the evenings although I still need to make a hanging sleeve.

It's been a bit of a lace weekend so far, because Friday night was the Nene Lacemakers christmas meeting and today I went on their coach trip to attend the Makit lace fair in Solihull.  I was trying to work on my Bucks Point edging at the Christmas party but they kept us so busy with party games that I lost my concentration and went wrong, and had to unpick everything I'd done. But I did win the Bingo. I enjoyed the Makit fair, it was similar to their Peterborough fair in that it was a mix of lace, knitting and fabric.  But a bit bigger than the Peterborough fair I think.  I met up with a couple of my friends there so it was nice to see them, and I picked up a number of things on my mental shopping list.  I got some duplicate tools because my tool bag always seems to be on a different floor to me, some beads for spangling bobbins, a length of pretty vintage crochet lace, four divider pins, a lovely Margaret Wall bobbin painted with an orchid (on the left)  and a gorgeous Sarah Jones bobbin  (right). Lace equipment is so pretty, much more attractive than the tools of my other hobbies.

Tomorrow I'm going do to what will hopefully be the final paint job on the ensuite, and then the DIY tools can finally be put back in the basement.  We just need the plumber to come back to install the cosmetic panel around the shower now and it will be finally finished.  No more DIY or renovations for a while I hope!  It's been a busy year with building the pergola, having the patio installed, digging new flower beds, and the two bathrooms done. (also very expensive). Time to rest on our laurels I think.