Dr Seuss Christmas Quilt

My favorite color combination for Christmas is red, green, and purple. It gives my husband-- Mr Traditional--fits. You can see a better picture of the Merry crusty pictured in the upper right and another red christmas tree quilt here.

This is our Christmas tree. It's up on a table so that we can see it, and the table is crammed with other things so that the kitties won't jump up. The three Santas were made in Egypt.

I have been searching for French Noel decorations, but it's pretty skimpy. Lots of imported Chinese santas that you can find anywhere. Very little Father Christmas or things with french words. The exception is the ornament that says "J'aime le Pere Noel".

This is my Dr Seuss Christmas Quilt. I made it a few years back. I have my usual assessment of my earlier work: needs more quilting!

Still working on making Christmas, particularly name tags.
One of my family's traditions was to open one present for each kid on Christmas Eve. My parents always chose it and when we were younger it was a game we could all play together. When we were older it was always a book. My husband and I have continued the tradition of opening one gift, but it's pretty hit or miss. My husband can never remember what gift could be where. This year I made special tags and told him in particular that a quilt book would be a great choice.

I make these tags the same way I make a crusty (follow the Susan Shie link in my sidebar). The batting and backing are a quarter inch smaller than the top and I just fold the top back over and use embroidery floss to hold it down. I have no idea what stitch that would be. Then I stem stitch or quilt the words in.

For my tag I used a silvery Madeira thread along with white perle cotton to stem stitch the words. I like how it looks although it's lumpy. But all that fraying is a pain in the ass. Certainly wouldn't do a big project like this.

Here's the back of it. You can even see where I've sewn on the safety pin.

For my husband's tag, I used 3 strands of embroidery floss to stem stitch the word "open." I quilted "24 Dec" with white perle cotton thread and then wrapped the green floss through to get this great candy cane effect:

On Sunday we watched Christmas in Connecticut, a Barbara Stanwick movie about a Martha Stewart character who's actually a fraud. It's fun, but I got hung up this year on what a goober the sailor is. bleck, didn't like that character at all. I definitely choked on the spending 6 months worth of salary for a mink coat. Aiyee. No kind of clothing item is worth that. Never. That's a car or house remodeling.

We finished up Jonathon Creek Season One as well. Jonathon is a brilliant Englishman who creates magic tricks (for a stage magician played with a horrible american accent by Giles, sorry Anthony Stewart Head) and uses his skills to help solve murders. It's along the lines of Columbo or Monk, none of the grisly CSI stuff. The puzzles are always great and I have a thing for British crime shows. And nerds. 4.5 out of 5.

I can also recommend Jenny Bowker's blog Postcards from Cairo if you're not already reading it. Jenny is currently posting pics of her desert trek to see cave paintings. She's far more adventurous than I am, although that doesn't take much. No toilets or showers? I'm out.

I have to go now and wrap presents that are too oddly shaped to go in bags. They're for me of course. Now I'm not only choosing my own presents but wrapping them.