'Twas the weekend before Christmas

And all through the house,

all the creatures were stirring, including my spouse.

The stockings he hung by the chimney with care,

in the hopes that the house wouldn't look quite so bare.

He assembled the tree and strung up some lights,

while I sewed up a quilt and baked some delights.

Now the house finally feels like it's holiday time,

trimmed with garland and ribbons and candles that shine.

Goodbye Slag

Favorite Christmas Decoration

So far, this ceramic tree is the only Christmas decoration I've set out. My Aunt Kathy made it for me and gave it to me as a Christmas present in 1980. For each Christmas season thereafter, it sat on my dresser, acting as a nightlight. It came with me to college, spreading Christmas cheer during finals. It even graced my credenza at work because I spent more time there than home. I haven't brought it out every year, generally because I'm so busy, I don't do any decorating. But it is my favorite of all my Christmas things. I hope my niece feels the same way about the quilt I'm making for her.

I wanted to get a good picture of it but need to do some research on getting the exposure and settings just right. In the mean time, I had way too much fun messing around with long exposure times!

Sewing Rows and Random Images

I finally got a chance to get back to the quilt. I have to put away all of my sewing things as kitties think they look like a great place to nap and/or make great toys. So I pulled the squares out, set up three rows, and began piecing them together.


Rather than sewing one long row after another, I assembled the rows in blocks. Shorter sewing lengths = easier to keep neat, at least for me. I pretty much have very little method to my madness and fly by the seat of my pants.


I managed to sew and press three rows, at least as I have the quilt laid out now. It looks like I might want to add a few more "columns" now that I can see how wide it's going to be. A large border will help, too. I'm not looking to make this a true twin-size quilt for sleeping, more like a lap quilt for snuggling.

Now on to random images.


After months-going-on-years of wanting, I finally purchased my coveted Nikon D80 DSLR camera. They're really coming down in price as they are being phased out for the newer D90. It seemed like a great time to buy, so I pounced. I bought a kit with the 18-135mm lens and I think it will be a good set up for general use and especially outdoors. But I borrowed my boss's 50mm f/1.4 lens to see if I wanted to pony up for it over the f/1.8 version. The extra stop costs about $175, so I want to play around with it and see if I think it will be worth it.


One thing I do know—I LOVE the way the image "falls off" and the depth of field control I just can't get on my Canon A620 point and shoot. However, I definitely need to learn how to judge DOF and what will and will NOT be in focus. That f/1.4 has a crazy small DOF at close range.


But it's a lot of fun!

Click on any photo to enlarge

I won!

I actually won a drawing. The Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day blog had a drawing a few weeks ago in celebration of the first anniversary of their book. I posted a comment about making bread and I happened to be one of the two lucky winners. I was so excited!

And check this out - Jeff and Zoë signed it!

Establishing the layout

What a great Sunday. The sun came out for a little while, I didn't have to work at all, and I made a lot of progress on the quilt. I got all of the squares assembled and pressed, then it was on to the layout.

I cleared the dining room table and went to work.

I kind of liked the first attempt but didn't love it. I got Dwight's opinion and tried out a couple of other options. Instead of the linear setup, I tried a 12-block repeat. I liked it, but thought the half-white, half-pattern blocks looked better in a linear pattern, but decided it needed to be more of progression of color than the first attempt.


I bought these particular colors and patterns with the thought of them transitioning from one to the next and I think the revised attempt was much more successful.

But then I took a look at the pictures, and the row of brown squares really jumped out at me. I removed them and simply shifted the rest over and BAM! I had it. Not hugely different than the first, but enough that it's just what I'm looking for.

Top: First layout
Middle: Better progression, but the brown is just too dark
Bottom: I think we've got it!

Next step: sewing all of these bad boys together!