Christmas Houses

So this is it - the very first liberated, wonky house quilt I ever made, way back in 1996. I started out using Christmas fabric that I no longer liked or even hated. Hey, I was trying out a new technique, didn't want to use fabric I'd hate to waste... As I grew more confident I started throwing in purples and fabrics that I actually loved. So for me this is a weird combination of good and bad. Does make me realize that if you only use fabric you like, you have a much better chance of liking the finished product.

I was proud of myself for figuring out how to make the snowman. Easy but complicated all at the same time. I started out with three squares in graduated sizes and added background fabric to each of the corners to make "circles." He's a little pointy - but he works. This is the first quilt I ever decided to not worry about squaring up and making the edges all straight. I used a ruler and rotary cutter, but only straighted it about 2" at a time. It looks good that way.

I've been sewing up gift bags. Here's one that can be used for any occasion. Well, okay hubby wouldn't be too thrilled to see it for his birthday, but you know what I mean. It's a batik fabric and I fan quilted (spiral pattern) using a variegated pinks n whites perle cotton. In the end, you can barely see the quilting, which was hard enough to do through the batik. I guess the fabric is still the star, and that's not a bad thing.

We actually had a few days of good clear skies here, but it's back to eye-burning today. Yesterday my sweetie (who works Sunday thru Thursday - the standard work week here) and I went to the 10:30 am showing of the new Harry Potter film. Oh boy. Dark, dark movie and not just the lighting. I forgot about that.

I was rather amazed at the number of small kids in the audience. One I'd have thought it was a bit too much for them and two, they were Egyptian. Unless they spend a whole lot of time watching tv, how much English do they really know? They're not old enough to read the arabic subtitles. There was definitely some talking (translating?) throughout the film but it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, plus it wasn't as hard for me to tune out as speaking in English would have been.

Boy did my knees (both of 'em) object to being cramped up in the theater. I had to lean on hubby to get out of there. Am I 80-yrs old or what? In general tho, my problem knee is doing really well - definitely much better than it was pre-surgery.

Last night we watched "Christmas in Connecticut" in which Barbara Stanwyck plays a WWII era Martha Stewart - the best homemaker in the world. Or is she? We followed that with "Shop Around the Corner" a Christmas movie with Jimmy Stewart that was the inspiration for "You've Got Mail. " Yes, we were movie bingeing yesterday.