Kiss the Ground

I'm home!!! back from Wally Mart and Jo Ann's where I scored big time. Partially due to my own bad & careless record keeping. While at Jo Ann's I perused the Christmas fabric dept. and found everything 50% off because normal people don't wait till less than a month to make Christmas window toppers(quiet back there) ANYWAY-I was hard pressed to find a fabric that I could live with-everything is a little too, too, screamingly bright or has a kind of kiddie theme to it. I just wanted something pretty, simple, and not too garish. I also wanted 7 1/2 yards of it-thus making it nearly mission impossible. However, I kept at it and dug around coming up with the two things you see above. Both are pretty, simple and not too too. One is a little short of the required length so I will have to decide and plan a little. My living room and kitchen are really one big room with a wall that separates only half the space. The curtains really need to be the same all around or it looks like a gypsy encampment. Well...it sort of looks like that anyway but I don't need to add to the confusion sight-wise. Overload on the patterns will just add confusion to an already easily confused group of people. In truth, I could drape the windows with anything and they probably won't notice until maybe April-May. The only way you can get noticed around here is if you're draped in something edible-cold cuts, eggplant Parm, mashed potatoes....Food always attracts the clan members(hello boys!)

But I digress...When I went to pay for said fabric it occurred to me that I should use up the 2 gift cards from BIL Bob from last Christmas, in case he would think I didn't like them and not get me anymore this year. I really thought I only had maybe $20 on each of the 2 cards I had. Here comes the fun part..Wheeeee I had over $80. The bill with Christmas dec items was $100 so I had a big $20 difference. Found Money, does it get any better?

Anyway I'll probably use the holly leaf fabric since there is more than enough of that for all windows and the second fabric is adaptable for other uses.

The only bad part of the day was that everywhere I went was well prepared for winter temps by really cranking the heat and-guess what? Today it's in the high 50s so by the time I got out of Wally Mart I was so beet red I decided to bag any other shopping. Now for the unbelievable part. I passed by the Giant Super Borders....passed by and went home. Didn't go into the book store...me. Only now I feel deprived and grumbly. It needs to be one kind of temperature here for a week or two. This hot cold thing is very strange and now it's interfering with my book lust. Hrumph!

The second picture above is a table runner without borders yet for one of 3 people. Haven't decided which one yet.. I'm off to the sewing machine after I cool off.

Formerly Banned Word Now Allowed

Santa's Christmas Workshop is open around here and going strong-well... sorta strong. This morning I sewed together some blocks for a table topper for a friend. It's just a simple Indian Hatchet -make four and sew them together to make an X-block- -picture tomorrow. Right now I have to get some house keeping type stuff(Laundry???I'll get to that Monday)

Yesterday we celebrated Thanksgiving II- On the actual day, we went to our friends house for dinner(really delicious) and yesterday I made another Thanksgiving meal since James complained bitterly that they didn't have mashed potatoes at Dani's house. They had a feast of things including potatoes, sweet and new red)but NO Mashed Potatoes. Needless to say-the Italian Thanksgiving table(which sounded beyond fabulous to me) is completely lost on James, who turns out to be the consummate Irishman & potato addict. I'm not sure where we got him but Pop was like that. If there were no potatoes on the table-it wasn't a real meal. On Thanksgiving, while I was making the smashies to take with us to our dinner-he was standing by, with a spoon in his hand looking a lot like the guy above...begging for some mashed potatoes. Anyway, last night Dani came to us for dinner and James was, at last, a happy camper with mashed potato lake filled with gravy, sweet stuffing mountain, and turkey for dipping *grin* They're all little boys at heart.

Today is a rainy, gloomy, day and for some reason I am in particular muscle and joint pain. I usually have some of that because of arthritis but this is really awful back, neck, and siatica(sp) in my leg. Wow, very painful. I am finding that the combination of cold and damp together are a really bad trigger for this type of pain lately. I'll have some cheese with my whine and keep going.

I'd like to thank each of you for taking the time to make such nice comments on the last post. I still have a number of letters and they will keep coming for the next 4 weeks so there's that to keep up with.

I hope everyone had a great holiday and I'll be back tomorrow with something to show in the way of quilt-related content. Hope your day is peaceful.