T-minus 6

Since Wednesdays seem to catch me by surprise every week or so, you can probably imagine how it happened that I woke up yesterday morning and realized that Christmas -- along with all the necessary planning of gifts, mailing cards and presents to far-away relatives, not to mention planning all the activities needed to keep young boys on school holidays out of trouble -- was only seven days away! And in the afternoon, I suddenly recalled that one of my boys' teachers was finishing her term today. I had plans of gift cards, with simple little gift card wallets for all the children's teachers. So I whipped one up - I just enough time from the moment of realization, to the moment of school pickup! Did I take a picture of it? Nope. But here are two other wallets, yet to be sewn together.

In other, more photogenic, news, I finished the tree skirt!

I did the star quilting with silver thread. It was definitely the easiest and most satisfying part of the quilting.

I added some swirls in the middle, mostly just to try them out, because they will never be seen under the tree. They were fun, and I love the look of them, but quite time-consuming. I filled in the outer edge of the skirt with loopy free motion lines.

The original pattern from Fat Quarterly included only houses and trees, but I wanted to throw in a few other whimsical little buildings -- castles and onion domes...

Chapels and Dutch roofs...

Here is my inspiration - these little papier mâché ornaments that my partner and I made for one of our first Christmases together.

I'm linking up with WIP Wednesday, so come on over and check out all the awesomeness!

Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it, happy holidays to those of other persuasions, and I hope you all have a great Mayan apocalypse!

Thanks for visiting!

 

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Starry night.

Hmm, almost didn't realize it was Wednesday today! What does that tell you?!

I have finished cutting out and placing all the little appliqué pieces for my tree skirt.

Did a little FMQ experimenting, and hope to have this quilted and bound and under the {naked!} tree by the weekend.

Linking up with WIP Wednesday, and am off the browse the rest of the links :)

Thanks for visiting!

 

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Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Winner

I just want to say that I am sorry that I have not been able to respond to all of your fabulous comments on the giveaway post - so many of you were so sweet!! I was so happy that so many people were interested in adopting the tote - way more than I ever would have thought! And welcome to all my new followers -- I am flattered that you want to stick around, it makes it so much more fun to share things, when you have people to share them with :)

I visited random.org this morning to determine the winner of the giveaway, and the RNG says:

 (There were 436 comments, but unfortunately the final comment was posted after the 5pm PST cutoff.)

The winner is Kat from Diary of a Flutter Kat in Australia - congrats Kat! I have emailed you.

Thanks so much to everyone for entering - I can't believe how much fun it was to participate in the Sew Mama Sew giveaway - mostly because of reading all of your awesome comments!!

Our family is heading off this morning for a ride on the Polar Express, a vintage steam train ride, run by the Westcoast Heritage Railway for two weekends in December - it involves snow, PJ's and hot chocolate!

Thanks for visiting and have a great weekend!

Wednesday.

Whew, it has been a busy week, what with Sew Mama Sew's giveaway day (my giveaway is here), and life in general. We are moving into school concert season starting next week - it's so fun to watch my kids performing in these little concerts and recitals, I am charging up my video camera to be ready! Most importantly this week I finally bought the DVD of Elf. My Most Favourite Christmas Movie Ever!! So I am beginning to feel super Christmassy! Once again, not a lot of sewing, but I did start my item for the VMQG scrap swap. Here's a little peek...

Yep, that's my seam ripper. This is my first time making something for someone else, with their fabric - yikes!

I also pulled out all my Christmas fabric (much more than I thought!) to get started on some time sensitive projects.

I'd love to make a bunch of Christmas gift bags so that we can cut down on wrapping paper. I'm also planning to make one of these "The Hood" Christmas tree skirts, it's so cute, and it looks like the little papier mâché ornaments that my partner and I made for our tree twenty years ago (they are still some of my favourite ornaments, of course).

So, I guess I should get moving! I'm looking forward to seeing what everybody else has been up to on Lee's WIP Wednesday, if anybody got anything done what with all those giveaways to enter!

As always, thanks so much for visiting and have a great Wednesday!

 

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Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day

**GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED**

Welcome to my Sew Mama Sew giveaway!

If you have never been here before, welcome! My name is Yzo (sounds like Izzo), and I am a parent to three young children -- what you see here is what I do to make myself feel sane. I really believe making things that combine beauty and function is both therapeutic and reflects/contributes to the culture around us. As an added bonus, we crafters are totally gonna rule the world when the zombie apocalypse comes!

Now on to the giveaway!

I made this Cut Out and Keep 241 Tote many months ago with no real recipient in mind (and while I love the design, it's not really my style) ... Now I realize that I must have made it for one of you, I just didn't know it at the time!

It is made with some Cut Out and Keep fabric (I couldn't resist Anna Noodlehead's original tote!), with It's a Hoot ovals for the side pockets and lining.

It has an adjustable strap, an inner pocket, and a key fob. Not to mention two side pockets and two zipper pockets on the front - that's a total of five pockets, people!! You can never have too many pockets to root through in search of lip balm, I always say.

Rules for entering:

• Leave a comment before the giveaway ends on December 7th at 5pm PST.
• If you leave a comment after that time, but before I close the giveaway, it will not be counted.
• Please make sure that I can contact you if you win.
• International entries are welcome.
• You can earn a second entry if you are follower by commenting and letting me know.
• A winner will be selected with the Random Number Generator and announced here after the giveaway is closed, and emailed.

Thanks for visiting and good luck!

Ps., our home is pet and smoke free, in case you were wondering.

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Speechless. (No, not really.)

December. I am speechless.

November was not bad, considering I was single parenting for half the month. I'm hoping December will be a little more productive! And I delivered my taxes to the accountants today, so that deserves a big old fashioned YAY!

I know most of you had a brilliantly productive month, I am almost caught up on reeder, but I look forward to seeing anything I missed over at Fresh Sewing Day on Lily's Quilts.

Thanks for visiting, and don't forget to stop by on Monday for my Sew Mama Sew giveaway! (See here for a hint...)

 

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