Crazy Christmas Quilt

Not so called because its a crazy pattern, just because at 8pm last night I decided Christmas day just couldn't arrive without having decorated the bed!

Have I ever made anything bigger than a lap quilt? No. Have I ever managed to cut, piece, quilt and bind a quilt in 4 days? No. Do I still have a mountain of handmade presents to make? (and mostly before Friday as that's when they are being exchanged with visiting family). Yes. Did I let any of this hold me back? Oh no!!!

So at 8pm last night I madly started cutting, fortunately I had a head start as I already had a fair number of charms left from the Modern Christmas Swap I hosted. I added to this with fabric I have been hording for years, anything with a Christmas feel went in. I basically wanted to be able to put the quilt on our king size bed. I was rather daunted by making such a large quilt. So the finished article doesn't hang down the sides, I don't mind, after all it will only be used for a few weeks and is most likely to be dragged off the bed and spend half the holidays on the sofa with us!

Here is what I had by 9.30pm last night after an hour and a half of cutting. I then added some large 9.5" squares around the outside as it wasn't big enough for my liking.

By Midnight I had pieced the whole top, hurrah!

I dragged my reluctant daughter out of bed at 9am to dash straight off to the quilt shop for some batting and more red thread as I had run out. A quick trip Trago Mills (the local discount warehouse) and I had 2 yards of festive red fleece to back it with. I had wanted red flannel, I am crazy about flannel right now, but with the time available fleece will do. Then my cunning plan came together, baby girl was worn out from shopping so went for a nap, big girl was bored from shopping so went on the computer to play and I got down to basting and quilting.

Lots of piecing bits of batting together (to save money!) and piecing the back as 2 yards still wasn't quite enough and taaaaa dahhhhhhh........

It is quite possibly the worst quilting I have ever done but my most favourite quilt by far! I think just because I wanted to make it SOOO much! I had to unpick quite a lot of the quilting and man I hate un-picking :(

But I got there, by 3pm, just in time for photos before baby girl woke up. I am so lucky she loves her sleep!

It still needs binding, hey I'm no superwoman! But I have zig-zaged the edges so if time runs out it can still be used for now. Cue gratuitous farmhouse showing off Christmas quilt shots!

Sorry about the next one, I couldn't help myself! I've always dreamt of having a range in the kitchen so I had to show it off!

This next one is our Library! Big girl decided as soon as we realised we had a large upstairs landing it should be a quiet reading area. So now it is complete with sofa and a bookcase full of books. However, anyone has yet to sit there and read, we are all too busy! One day....

And finally, on my bed. I am so proud of myself. Hope you all like it too.

Merry Christmas everyone. I'm off to make more presents, wrap even more, cook dinner and cakes and turn myself into a goddess (pah!) for my Christmas girlie's dinner out tonight, all in the next hour and a half before hubby gets home! Wish me luck, I think I may have used up all my superpower making the quilt!

A little present for me from you?

Well, we are settling in nicely at the Farmhouse, today was spent throwing lots of sticks and walking the dog in the orchard, decorating and scouring ebay for shabby old furniture to kit out the sewing room. We are all looking forward to some quiet family time over the Christmas period.

I'm also really looking forward to getting back into blogging in the New Year and have plans up my sleeve for a colourful rainbow charm swap hot on the success of the Christmas swap. More on that soon!

Perhaps you'd like to share a little Christmas cheer my way right now though, could you spare a couple of minutes to pop over and vote for my entry in the Search Press Christmas Competition on Facebook? All you have to do is pop here and click like on my photo, the same as this one

I would dearly love to win, it would be an absolutely fantastic end to what has been a rather difficult few months this year. Voting is open until 5pm Wednesday, thank you so much!

Im back and im gone again!

Phew, 12 days without Internet is apparently like having ones arm chopped off. Especially when you move to your new house to find that there is no mobile signal and the home phone sounds like you are using 2 yogurt pots and a bit of string at the best of times!

But hurrah, the broadband was connected this morning! I wont kid myself thinking that I can catch up on all my blogger reading AND unpack AND make/buy/wrap Christmas presents! So its just a quick check-in before Im off to toil some more.

Perhaps you guys could be really sweet and leave me a comment about any major developments blogwise whilst I've been gone?! I'm particularly keen to know about swaps etc because I haven't got enough going on right now and life is empty without one.

Oh - and this is completely and utterly photo less. Hopefully soon when all the boxes and bags are banished I can show you the wonders of my new home :)

I'll see you on the other side!!!

This is it, the last blog post from our house. For anyone that is still listening that is! Ive been so pre-occupied with the move the fact that Christmas is 24 days away has escaped my attention (eeek!) and although I have having dreams about sewing its off the cards for at least a week still.

Tonight will be our last night here. Tomorrow we move, by ourselves with a car and a van. 6 years ago, less one child, cat, dog and chickens we vowed never to do it ourselves again, yet here we go! Now I am not 'working' it just didn't make sense to pay someone all that money when we could do it ourselves.

We have had 6 amazing years here and this house will always have a very special place in my heart. Many important moments are linked with it and we had hoped it would be our forever house. It wasn't to be, but it was always our dream house. Perhaps that's the problem, we had it 30 years too early!

I'll leave you with a small selection of all the wonderful times we have had here, with a tear or two in my eye. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas, don't have too much fun without me. I may be gone for some time until we get the Internet sorted at the new house, its rather far out in the sticks! I'll catch up as soon as I can :-)