Things on the Anvil

Good morning, superfriends!

I've been busy the last few days... making alterations to a dress (almost done, hooray!!), decorating more for XMas/winter, and so on.  Nothing new on the random quilt front, except to add more ideas to my list.  At this rate, I will never have better than a 15% completion rate!!  (But most of the time I am all right with that!)

Here is my HexMas tree.  I finished the stitching together last night - this afternoon and tonight I will work on decorating it so I can hang it up.  I've pulled beads and such to decorate with.  Hopefully that won't take too long, since I am getting close to the end of decorating time!  It would be nice to have it up by tomorrow, to give me more time to enjoy it.

The HexMas tree is made with the Hickory Nut hex pattern - I changed the size a little (shrank it down) from the one in the magazine.  Now I have little ones and huge ones.  :)  I thought about a huge HexMas tree, but didn't have a place to put one.  Maybe next year.

Yesterday at work I came back from lunch to find a chicken on my desk.  A stuffed, country-looking chicken.  Now, normally I am not a country-decorating kinda girl.  However, I do have a stuffed turkey under my desk that comes out for Thanksgiving decor.  So the chicken seemed appropriate to my co-workers.  Now the chicken has a name (Cogburn) and a Santa hat, so he can stay out for XMas.  I am already planning his next costume (he'll get a party hat for New Year's, and so on....).  So... here's Cogburn, the Christmas Rooster. 

Tonight, after I finish the dress alterations, I intend to finally get BST on the hoop so I can start that one.  I am really hoping it co-operates tonight.  So many ideas that need following up on... so many things to sew.  With luck and hard work, I can get BST done pretty quick.  I will be posting a tutorial pretty quick on Sea-Glass.  All I need to do is flesh it out a little, and we'll be in fine shape.  So, tutorial to come.

On the quilting front, BST will take me a little longer than anticipated, because Frank is currently unavailable for quilting, which slows things down a little.  By Thursday, he'll be back up, but right now, not so much.  The machine is fine, but since the weather turned frigid really quick, we moved our dwarf fruit trees inside where it was warmer.  The only place to put them is right around Frank, who now is hiding in a jungle of fruit trees.  But... he'll be out of hiding soon enough, so it's all good.

And soon... soon... things begin to ramp up for Scarborough Faire Renaissance Festival.  I only have to make a new bodice this year, but I may make another skirt just so I can rotate the ones I have just a little more.  A little less wear and tear on the ones I have would be good.  But there are plans... oh, yes... there are plans.... 

Secretly, I love this time of year.  (Not the incessant commercials and Christmas music, mind you).  But the snap of the air (and the pop of static electrical discharge), and the anticipation.  I look forward to another year at faire, to the quieter days at work, to all sorts of things.  I may be solar-powered, but bring it on!   Come on, Texas winter!  Show me what you've got!  (oh, look... 68 degrees by the end of the week).

So, in trucking terms (and in forge terms, too!), time to put the hammer down and get things moving!  I've got a lot to do, and a short time to do it in!  Cya later, good buddies!

S