Jingle BOM Pieced Block No. 5 Completed

Jingle BOM Pieced Block No. 5

Design Wall: 8 Applique Blocks and 6 Pieced Blocks

I finished another block in my Jingle Block of the Month.  This is Pieced Block No. 5 (I'm doing them out of order) and now I have only two more pieced blocks left.  I continue to waste obnoxious quantities of fabric by cutting out my triangles the wrong size with my specialty rulers, and piecing these blocks is really nerve-wracking for me.  I may just lay those fancy rulers aside and try following Erin's DIRECTIONS on the last two blocks.  Imagine that -- following the directions!!    What an admission of defeat THAT would be...

I'm linking up with Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.

Anders with the Studio Christmas Tree

Today was a busy Saturday.  We had piano and violin recitals for Lars and Anders and went out for a celebratory brunch afterwards.  Then Bernie installed a new ceiling fan in Lars's bedroom and the boys attempted to cooperatively decorate a small Christmas tree in my sewing room.  Only one ornament was smashed and neither boy is bleeding, so I'm going to call it a SMASHING SUCCESS!

I've never had a Christmas tree in my studio before, but this is the first Christmas since we remodeled the room to suit my creative needs.  That project still is not finished -- still need to figure out how I want my sewing machine cabinet rebuilt, and a few other things -- but the room is very functional at this point. 

My Studio Today, Ready for Christmas!

The boys are hanging out with me in the Studio now, working on their own projects or homework while I'm sewing, and I'm sure there will be even more time for us to spend together in this room over Winter Break.  All of the Christmas giftwrapping will be done in the Studio, too, so it's fitting that there should be a Christmas tree twinkling away in there, don't you think?  Nevermind that I already have a full-size Christmas tree in my Living room and another one in the family room that opens into my kitchen...  My home is Christmas Central from now through Epiphany.   Considering that it has taken me a week to decorate all of these trees, maybe I'll just leave them up until Epiphany 2015?

Tomorrow we're going to see a touring performance of the Broadway revival of Godspell after church, and then Lars will be painting with Grammy and Anders will be coming up to the sewing room to work on his quilt, which is why I have his Featherweight all set up and ready for him. 

Hey, here's a question for you quilters: Anders opted to use UNWASHED cotton fabrics for his pieced quilt top, but now he wants to use Minky for the backing.  I would have prewashed his fabrics if I'd known that ahead of time, and now I'm concerned about what will happen the first time we wash his quilt if all of the cotton fabrics in the quilt top shrink and the polyester Minky backing does not.  Is there a safe way to shrink his completed quilt top before it gets layered with batting and quilted?  I don't want all his 1/4" seams to ravel apart, and I don't want the quilt top to get stretched or distorted from being handled wet.  Do you think that I can shrink it enough with a hot iron and plenty of steam? 

What if I layer just the quilt top with a very thin 100% cotton batting and quilt in the ditch to secure along seam lines, then baste a temporary backing fabric around the perimeter RST, turn inside out like a pillowcase and baste close, and THEN throw it in the wash machine to shrink it?  I could remove that temporary backing after the laundering.  Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

Have a great weekend!

Of Christmas Trees, Candles, and Electric Lights

Bing Crosby and Marjorie Reynolds in Holiday Inn, 1942

Lars and Anders were watching Holiday Inn for the first time this morning, enjoying the silver screen shenanigans of Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire.  Anders, my snappy dresser, especially enjoyed Fred Astaire -- dancing in TUXEDOS?!  What's not to love? 

I was startled when I noticed that the Christmas tree in this scene was lit by actual CANDLES.  In 1942?  Didn't they have electric Christmas tree lights by then?


First Electrified Christmas Tree, 1882

Well, my curiosity was piqued, so I did a little online research and found that, although Edward Johnson, Vice President of Edison Electric Company, first wired up electric lights on a Christmas tree in his home in 1882 as a publicity stunt, the majority of American Christmas trees continued to be lit by candles for another half century.  Wealthy people began electrifying Christmas trees for their parties around the turn of the century, but not only did this require hiring electricians to individually string and wire bulbs together, but they also needed to be hooked up to generators.  The first pre-strung lights weren't introduced for sale until after 1917, but even then they were so expensive that some department stores rented them rather than selling them outright. 

Still, Holiday Inn was made in 1942, and it was a big Hollywood studio production -- surely they could afford electric lights for their sets, right?  So here's the really interesting part, the part I knew but had forgotten: The introduction of electricity was confined to urban areas for decades, creating huge disparity between the lifestyles of city dwellers versus the millions of Americans who lived in rural areas.  This was because the power companies paid to create the infrastructure necessary for providing electricity, and it just didn't make good business sense to spend a lot of money running wiring to rural areas that were sparsely populated, with so many fewer potential customers.  It wasn't until after World War II that the majority of Americans had electrical power in their homes -- so, in 1942, the Christmas Trees in "rural Connecticut" absolutely would have been lit by candles, because the farm-turned-inn and the entire town of Midville, Connecticut would have still been without electricity at that time. 

If you're interested in reading more about the history of electric Christmas lights, I found the most complete history here from the NECA National Electrical Contractors Association.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

I'm Sew Inspired to Knock Off Mackenzie-Childs Jester Stockings and Christmas Tree Skirt!

Jester and Festoon Stockings, $240 EACH

Aren't these Jester and Festoon stockings from the Mackenzie-Childs catalog adorable?  They would look darling on the kitchen fireplace mantle, next to the kiddos' tree (the one decorated with miniature toys, candies, and all those handmade preschool ornaments that can never be thrown away). 

 

Unfortunately, the folks at Mackenzie-Childs must have gone stark, raving mad, because they want $240 EACH for these stockings, made of silk and polyester satin fabrics and rayon trims.  There are four of us, so we'd be kissing a THOUSAND DOLLARS goodbye for new Christmas stockings if I was going to order these (which I have NO intention of doing, Bernie, so please stop hyperventilating.  You're freaking out the dogs).

 

Court Jester Tree Skirt, $740

Anyway, you can't stop with the stockings, can you?  I mean, with these wild and whimsical stockings hung by the mantle with care, you'd need to get the matching tree skirt or no one would notice you had a tree at all.  Since the Mackenzie-Childs Court Jester Tree Skirt is $740, you're looking at close to two thousand dollars just for a tree skirt and stockings.  You could buy a sewing machine for that kind of money.  Not a sewing machine as nice as mine, mind you, but a very good sewing machine...

 

Which brings me to the point of this post.  For past generations, home sewing represented thrift because readymade "store-bought" clothing and soft furnishings were so much more expensive than the cost of the fabrics required for making them.  Now that so much of what we buy and wear is cheaply made overseas, home sewers can expect to spend MORE to make a garment themselves than they would pay for a similar readymade garment, unless you're talking about super high-end couture.  If someone has the skills to successfully knock off couture garments from Chanel, Dior, etc., they can find fabrics from those fashion houses at Gorgeous Fabrics and Emma One Sock and save thousands of dollars while looking like a million swanky bucks.  Unfortunately, I do not have couture garment sewing skills.

 

Court Jester Tree Skirt, for Crazy People with Money to Burn

But this Christmas tree skirt and stockings?  The sewing is not difficult, and the fabrics and trims are not expensive, either.  I could definitely make something like this, and have a blast doing it, too.  I probably have a few fabric odds and ends already stashed away in my sewing room that would work for this, I definitely have leftover fringes and cording trims, and I could pick up similar fabrics to the ones used here at Fabric.com or Mary Jo's Cloth Store in Gastonia and probably spend less than $50 for the tree skirt AND four stockings!

 

By my calculations, if I can make this tree skirt and stockings for $50, I will have SAVED close to $1700.  Stay tuned... 

Puppy Rabbits at Eleven Months Old

Lulu, aka Princess Puppy, aka Lulu the Terrible

My puppy rabbits are going to be eleven months old on Tuesday!  Can you believe it?  We are enjoying them immensely.  Rottweiler puppies are not for everyone, and I can only imagine the havoc they could wreak in a home where they were left alone all day with the run of the house, no training, no walks, etc.  However, we were committed to training them, walking and working with them every single day, and our dogs have paid us back for this investment a thousand times over.  They are the sweetest, smartest, happiest, and best-behaved dogs that either of us has ever owned.  We couldn't be more pleased with them!

Now that they're growing up, we can see that although they are both Rotties and even littermates, they have very different personalities.  Lulu is the more confident of the two, and she's the pup who is most likely to get into mischief.  Bernie dubbed her Lulu the Terrible when she dug up a sprinkler line in the back yard and gave it a Swiss cheese makeover with her pointy puppy teeth.  Clearly, someone should have buried the sprinkler line deeper in the first place.  Ahem.  Lulu is also an instigator; she'll pick up one of Otto's favorite chew toys and wave it around in his face until he'll get up and chase after her.  She also likes to take a running start across the yard, leap into the air, and land on her brother's head like she's doing some kind of crazy football tackle.  Both dogs love to run, chase, and wrestle in the back yard, but they have learned that this kind of play belongs only outside in the yard, not in the house.  This is good news for my floor lamp in the living room.

 

Lulu and Otto, 11 months

Aren't they just the most beautiful dogs you've ever seen?  I love their soft, silky smooth coats.  My last dog was a Golden Retriever Shedding Machine, and shedding is much less of a problem with my Rotties, even though I've got two of them.  They don't get those awful mats and tangles that the Golden always had, and I don't notice nearly as much fur drifting around on the hardwood floors between vacuuming. 

Sweet, Lovable, Otto the Sharpie Marker

Here's my little Otto Pumpkin.  He loves to run and chase after his big, blue ball, and sometimes retrieves it (as long as Lulu is in the house -- if she's outside when we throw the ball, she runs after the ball and turns Fetch into Tug-of-War).  Otto is more low-key indoors than Lulu; he's very content just to rest in a central location where he can supervise what everyone else is doing during the day. 

Both dogs have a rock-solid recall (Come), Sit, Down, Shake, Touch, and Watch Me.  Otto's favorite trick is shaking hands (Lars taught him that one), and I just started working on Kisses with him yesterday.  Ongoing training is so important with these dogs.  It reinforces who is the leader and who is the follower, and challenging the dogs to think and figure out what they need to do to earn a treat keeps them from getting bored and frustrated. 

I'm following the training instructions in Kyra Sundance's book 51 Puppy Tricks, available here from Amazon.  She has you smear a little peanut butter on your cheek to teach your puppy that Kisses means to lick your cheek.  Otto is very affectionate and smoochy anyway, so it's just a matter of having him do it on command and lick my cheek instead of my mouth, nose, or eyelid!  Once the puppy gets the idea that Kisses means to lick your cheek for a treat, you eliminate the peanut butter and just reward with the treat.  Lulu will not be learning Kisses, however -- she has a tendency to do a lick, lick, LOVE CHOMP!  So with Lulu, I'm working on Find Me games instead.  I sneak out of the room with a treat, hide someplace else in the house, and call, "Lulu, Find Mommy!"  She runs around sniffing and listening, and I'll make kissy noises or tap the floor to help her out if she's having trouble. Once she knows the game well with me, I'll start involving other family members so she can Find Anders, Find Lars, and Find Daddy.  This will also ensure that she knows everyone in our family by name, as well as engaging all of her senses in a hunting challenge.

It's actually working out well that we're finally (finally!) listening to our trainer and exclusively walking the dogs separately.  Just like children, they need that one-on-one time to really bond with their humans, so while Bernie is out walking one dog, I get to do a one-on-one training session with the other one.  Both of our puppies are sweet and friendly around people with very few exceptions, but they still go cuckoo-crazy when they see other neighborhood dogs on their walks.  I need to get some really high-value treats and keep them in my other pocket just for dog distractions because we're randomly giving treats throughout the walk for good eye contact, loose leash without pulling, etc.  Then another dog saunters into view and our puppy goes nuts, and the treats we've been doling out over and over are nowhere near as interesting as that other dog.  I'm thinking of breaking up some freeze-dried lamb lungs (I know, gross, right?) into small pieces for the next walk, or I could microwave a hot dog and cut that up into little treat bites, too -- something has got to work.  They are perfect little angels 95% of the time on a walk, but when they see another dog down the street my puppies leap and lunge and bark and do doggy double lutzes in the air, trying to get to the other dog, and it does not feel good to have my arm yanked out of my shoulder every time we see another dog!  Also, they look really ferocious when they're behaving this way and I can only imagine what my neighbors must be thinking. 

Princess Lulu likes to nap beneath the Christmas tree

Now that Otto is getting close to a year old, I think I'm going to schedule his neutering operation.  Lulu was spayed at 6 months, but since larger breed dogs mature more slowly I wanted to give Otto more time for his bone structure to more fully develop and wait to see whether I felt like neutering was even necessary.  After all, I'm not about to let my Rottweiler roam the neighborhood in search of females, so the whole neuter-to-reduce-unwanted-litters argument doesn't apply.  Neither of my dogs has ever even attempted to escape from my yard, and since it is fenced, no intact female dogs can get in.  However, Otto has been doing some intermittent urine marking in the house lately (prompting Bernie to nickname him Sharpie, as in Big, Black, Permanent Marker).  I've done some research about male dogs urine marking and I understand that he's just being protective of our family "pack" and our home and that there's nothing vindictive about it, but I'm obviously less than thrilled about it and it could be a hormonal thing -- if so, there's a high likelihood that neutering would reduce or even eliminate that behavior.  Also, when he's going nuts about trying to get to other dogs on our walks (and he's much worse in this regard than Lulu, especially when walked separately), that could be hormonal, too.  Is he trying to get to a female dog?  Is he exhibiting male-male aggression toward the other dog?  Either scenario could be helped by neutering.  I talked with my vet about it and I'll probably schedule it for the beginning of the Christmas holiday.  I'm not looking forward to having to confine him and keep him from running around and playing afterwards, but with everyone home for the holidays it should be easier to give him lots of attention and love while he recuperates.

Tree Number Three: The Manly Outdoor Freeze-Your-Butt-Off On the Screen Porch Tree

Now, you might be thinking it's mean of me to put Bernie's tree outside in the cold.  However, when we were house-hunting, a screen porch was at the top of Bernie's wish list.  It's his favorite place in the whole house, where he likes to sit and drink his coffee in all kinds of weather, so it's actually the perfect place for his little tree.  It has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that I hate that tree topper with a passion and have tried unsuccessfully, year after year, to "accidentally" have it get mixed in with the giftwrap trash.

Actually, although I didn't want it on my bird tree or on the sugarplum kiddie tree, it works pretty well with the ornaments on this tree.  We have skiers, tool belts, fishing lures, basketballs wearing santa hats, and motorcycles on this tree.  This year I added the red balls and the red, green, and gold garland to unify the tree a bit, with the pleasant side effect of making the star topper look better.

Don't you just love the fish in the icebox ornament?  You can't put an ornament like that on just any old tree. 

The only thing still lacking for this tree is a skirt to cover up the metal stand.  I haven't seen one I like yet, and it really ought to be made of outdoor fabric so it doesn't get mouffy.  I am tempted to make one myself now that there are so many choices beyond basic Sunbrella canvas (Pindler & Pindler has some gorgeous outdoor chenille fabrics that I used for a client's custom dog bed cover once), but the only work I'm going to get done in my sewing room for the next couple of weeks will involve giftwrap, scissors, Scotch tape and stick-on bows! 

In fact, I'd better head up there right now and see how much wrapping I can accomplish before I have to get ready for our church Christmas concert tonight.  Wish me luck!

Christmas Tree Number Two: Woodland Forest Theme

The second tree at our house is sort of a "woodland forest" theme.  It all started with a beautiful wire and glass bead garland I found in a catalog several years ago, pictured as part of a tablescape.  I bought a bunch of them for this Christmas tree, and I think it looks like glittering ice and snow.  Then a snowflake ornament thing started, and then I bought a couple of feathered bird ornaments, which blossomed into a full-blown bird ornament obsession.  I looked at hundreds of tree toppers before choosing this blown glass star topper from Christopher Radko, but I didn't like the way it was made to attach to the tree so Bernie made some custom welding modifications for me, and my sparkly sprays at the top of the tree cover up the wire spiral that secures the star to the tree.

New to the tree this year are the true red poinsettia sprays and the red cranberry sprays.  I had sort of burgundy poinsettias on this tree in previous years and I couldn't stand them another year.  Now that I have more red on this tree, it works with the first Christmas tree skirt I ever made back when Lars was a baby and I was sewing on a Husqvarna Viking Rose sewing machine. 

As you can see, the concept is really similar to the subsequent skirt I made for the kids' tree, but I was much more limited on the other machine when it came to built-in decorative stitches to embellish the patchwork seams.  There's no hand embroidery or beadwork on this skirt, just readymade gold piping trim and machine embroidered poinsettias on every other skirt section.  If you look carefully, you can tell that I had to do some gathering around the center hole at the middle of this first tree skirt, too, because I made the pie slice pattern too wide on the skinny side and I didn't end up with a flat circle when I sewed all the pieces together.  Live and learn!

That's it for today; back to work for me!  I'll show you Bernie's special Christmas tree in a few days.  Happy Advent!

...And We're Off to the Races: 17 Days Until Christmas!

I am so unbelievably overcommitted and overextended right now, so this will be shorter and sweeter than most of my posts. I've got my Christmas decorations up, the Salvation Army Christmas stockings were filled with goodies and dropped off at church on Sunday, and I have gathered up almost all of the gifts for the family of homeless children that we're sponsoring this year through A Child's Place.
Our family has decided to scale back on the slightly overboard gift-giving we've indulged in in the past, and instead take on more tangible hands-on charitable giving this year in addition to just writing checks to our favorite charities. Although it's been hard to find the time in the midst of pageant and choir rehearsals and goings on at the schools, it has turned out to be so worthwhile to incorporate service projects into our holiday traditions. There has never been a better antidote to the gimmee-gimmee-gimmee epidemic that comes over the kids at this time of year than our family shopping trip to Target with our sponsored children's wish lists in hand. We chose Salvation Army stockings tagged for boys the same ages as ours, so Lars and Anders were really able to think about what would be the best small toy to put in each stocking along with the hat, gloves, markers and toothbrush, for little boys who might not get any other toys this Christmas. We were assigned a family of girls for the A Child's Place Christmas sponsorship, and although the minimum commitment we agreed to was to provide a grocery store gift card, one article of clothing, and one new toy for each child, we were able to come up with almost everything on our kids' wish lists thanks in part to the generosity of an old high school friend of mine who is actually mailing me a tricycle from a U.S. military base in Germany (thanks, Jennifer!!). With the economy still limping along feebly and so many people still looking for work, there are more families in need than ever. Does your family's holiday tradition include service projects, or did you add any new service projects this year? If so, please tell me about it in the Comments section!

Now, for the photographic meat and potatoes: Christmas Decorations! Woo-hoo!

This is my favorite of our three Christmas trees this year (yeah, that's right -- I said three trees. We all have our weaknesses!). This tree is next to the fireplace in the sitting room area of my kitchen. We refer to it fondly as "the kids' tree" because of the toy and candy themed decorations. This works great along with all of the handmade ornaments they have made over the years.

Christmas Tree ornament in paper, Elmer's Glue, crayon & glitter, made by Anders in preschool

Another fave, this is a varnished and glitter-painted cookie Lars did in preschool

I'm sure my sisters remember these Raggedy Ann & Andy clothespin ornaments from our childhood Christmas tree. One of the orange pom pom "hair" pieces came loose on Raggedy Ann, but after a few drops of Elmer's Glue she was as good as new. Note to self: Assemble an ornament repair kit and pack it away with the Christmas ornaments for next year!

Can you believe my mother didn't want this beautiful fish ornament anymore, either? It's another one that was on our childhood tree for as long as I can remember. It looks handmade, and I think she might have gotten it from some trip to a Scandinavian country before I was born. Mom, feel free to enlighten us all as to the origins of the fish in the Comments. I'm "fishing for comments" today, can you tell? ;-)

Now, last year about this time, I was knee deep in piano research, feeling very discouraged about how expensive pianos were. So every time Bernie asked the kids "What should we get Mom for Christmas?" Anders stubbornly replied, "I'm getting her a piano! I have $25 in my piggy bank! She only wants a piano!"

So, this is the little red sparkly piano that Anders got me for Christmas last year:

I added this blown glass golf clubs ornament for my Lars this year, who loves any color as long as it's orange, and who has been taking golf lessons after school:

...And I couldn't resist this blown glass pair of green Converse sneakers for Anders. He wears those green Chuck Taylors almost everywhere he goes:

At the bottom of this tree, soon to be completely obscured by wrapped packages (if I ever get around to wrapping them, that is), my tree is wearing a crazy-quilted Christmas tree skirt that I worked on off-and-on for about two years, more off than on. It was a fun way to use a variety of Christmas-themed quilting cottons, and I used the project as a sampler to try out lots of decorative stitches on my Bernina Artista sewing machine. I experimented with bobbinwork techniques (wrapping threads that are too big for the sewing machine needle around the bobbin instead, and sewing upside down on the project so the bobbin thread shows on top -- LOTS of fun), hand embroidery, and hand beading.

I love how the heavy bobbin threads give the machine embroidered stitches a "handmade" look, and it was fun and relaxing to play around with bead embellishments. I used Nymo thread to hold the beads securely.

THIS is why you want to step up to the next level sewing machine that has a couple hundred decorative stitches that you're sure you're never going to use! This project reminded me of a collage of Christmas cards while I was working on it.

The feather stitch and blanket stitch were embroidered by hand, the floral stitch is preprogrammed into my sewing machine, and I stitched the line of beads and the floral seed bead embellishments by hand.

I've got little sequins, paillettes, and seed beeds stitched on in this picture, too, and I hand-stitched a little jingle bell to the points on the outer edge of the tree skirt.

Project Notes:
This was a relaxing project, but it took forever to complete and you really can only see the fruits of my labors around the outer edge of the skirt.  Even crawling up under the Christmas tree with my camera, I still couldn't get a picture of all the embroidery and beading at the center of the pole.  Uh, duh!  Poor planning strikes again.  If you're reading this thinking that you might like to try making something similar, I definitely suggest concentrating on the outer edges of the skirt when you embelllish the patchwork seamlines.  In hindsight, I wish I'd made a table runner instead of a tree skirt.  Then it would have taken me way less time, required a lot less trial and error geometry to figure out how to make a pattern for each "slice" of the skirt so that I'd end up with a circle, and best of all, no one would have to crawl underneath my Christmas tree to see the embroidery! 

Happy Advent, Folks!