Not Much in the Sewing Realm

 I did make one thing start to finish this week, but it's for my sister's birthday which is Monday, so I can't show it yet! Other than that, I've been plugging away on quillows. I did get tired of always putting the quilt for my bed on the back burner, so I'm using it as leaders/enders mostly, though I did take one whole day and only worked on it. I felt like I needed a day to work on whatever I wanted. 

Here is one of the quillows while it was on the design wall.

I've got three of the quillows sewn into rows, and another halfway laid out on the design wall. This week I was more about getting a handle on the holidays than I was about sewing. 

I am really excited that DH gave the go ahead to get the custom cutting mat for my new cutting station. They don't charge any extra to cut it down, and it got here in less than a week. 

I opted for just a plain mat, because I don't plan on cutting on it very often, I wanted it so I could pin baste smaller quilts on the cutting station without damaging the table top. You can see I put my regular cutting mat on top of it. This large of a mat was an investment, and I'd rather pay to replace smaller mats than a great big one. I am really thankful to have it!

I know its before Thanksgiving, but I already put up the Christmas decorations. It's been a rough year all around, and if early Christmas decorations makes my family smile, so be it. 

I've spent so much time and energy purging and rearranging this year, that a lot of the furniture I used to put Christmas decorations on is gone or moved. It took a big re-think to decide what to do. 

My old Christmas village ended up getting put outside where my fairy/gnome village usually is. I did use a few pieces from my fairy village integrated into the Christmas village. I used the farm building (barn) on the top shelf without all the farm animals and made it into a Christmas tree farm. I kept the wishing well, figuring 2020 can use all the well wishes it can get ;-) I've caught more than one delivery person taking pics of my fairy village, and I figure they'll get a kick out of it changed over to a Christmas village. It's outside, but it's covered and gets no direct sun since it's on the north side of our house. 

I have a newer Christmas village that my sister (with the birthday coming up) made me and it's on the mantle.

Between the nativity and the village I snuck in a new decoration I bought for DH. Santa is driving a scooter with a sidecar and there's a reindeer in the sidecar. DH has a scooter with a sidecar, and a scooter without one, and a motorcycle, so anything like that is right up his alley. He also publishes a scooter magazine, that's distributed to 38 states and three countries!

You know how I mentioned I keep sticking the quilt for our bed on the back burner? Well, guess who's made Christmas tree skirts for other people but hasn't made one for herself? I'm not a fan of the storebought one I have, but really can't find the time to make one this year either. I decided to change it up and I bought a rattan tree collar.

I'm kind of liking the clean look of it so if I don't get the tree skirt done next year either, I'm good. Looking at this pic is making me think a Christmas quilt or two would look better on that quilt rack this time of year...

Overall, I think DH was more productive this week than I was! He was working on his Christmas projects too, on his days off at least. 

I also did some planning for some quilts that need to be made in 2021, and I don't know about you, but sometimes getting a plan for a quilt can take quite a bit of time. Choosing a pattern, fabrics, figuring size, designing it or altering a pattern all take time, so although I didn't sew a whole lot this week, I did get some quilt-think in!

Next week I'll show pics of my sister's present, and hopefully, I'll get something else done too, but with Thanksgiving next week, we'll see...