Merry Christmas!

I couldn't help but post this photo. Lily has been camped out in a little cave behind presents under our tree. This is the weather I woke up to this morning. Brrrrr! Weather.com says we're under a blizzard alert!

Stay warm and have a very merry Christmas.

Village Table Runner Giveaway

You must check out (or maybe not... better chances for me if you don't!) this giveaway going on at Mrs Moen's. She's giving away a kit to make your own.

How cool is that?

You must enter before January 31st.

What are your favorite Christmas movies?

Jason and I started a tradition for our little family a few years ago. Within the Christmas season we always watch at least our two favorite Christmas movies:
Christmas with the Kranks and The Family Stone. Both movies are awesome.

Sitting on the desk for me to play while I work today is one of my favorites, The Santa Clause.

Does your family have any holiday favorites?

Jargon of the Week - Crocking

Crocking is our term in this week's edition of "Jargon of the Week".

Dictionary.com defines crocking as:

crock [krok]

–noun
1. a person or thing that is old, decrepit, or broken-down.
2. Slang. a person who complains about or insists on being treated for an imagined illness.
3. an old ewe.
4. an old worn-out horse.

–verb (used with object)
5. British Slang. to disable or injure.

Origin:1300–50; ME crok old ewe, perh. akin to crack (v.) and obs. crack whore; cf. LG krakke broken-down horse

When dealing with fabric, the term crocking refers to the transfer of a color from one fabric to another. This can happen when the fabrics rub together during handling or use. It can also occur if the fabrics bleed during washing.

Edited to add this:
How appropriate that I had scheduled this "Jargon of the Week" for this week.

I have been working on a table runner for a Christmas gift for Jason's grandmother. The majority of it is pieced triangles in dark blues. On each end, there is an appliqued angel. The angel has white wings and a yellow halo.

After I finished appliqueing all the angel pieces on each end, I used a little steam in the iron to really make things nice and flat. Well, after I pulled the iron away, I noticed that the blue from under the wings and halo had bled through or crocked. I've tried everything I can think of to get it out, but nothing is working. I'm assuming that since I used the iron, the heat set the color in and I'm just going to need to rip off the affected parts and redo them. It's a bummer, but I thought I'd share my very recent experience with this week's term.

Note: I always pre-wash. I guess the blue fabric that bled through was just super over-dyed and didn't all come out in the wash. Bummer.

Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!

It's coming. It's coming way too fast. We have passed into the freak out stage of Christmas. It's only 9 days away!

I seem to be overly concerned with the Christmas postcards. I've already made them on the computer, we just haven't printed them out. Will this turn into the third year in a row where I don't send something out?

We've only sort of started on the gifts for Jason's family. We've been doing a Handmade Christmas with them the last couple of years. I'd tell you what we're making for everybody this year, but I don't want to spoil it.

I've been working on a table runner for Jason's grandma and that seems to be more time consuming than I initially anticipated. Aaahhhhhhh!

I had my heart set on making a skirt out of this really awesome red plaid I got on clearance at Joann's a while back. Totally not going to happen.

Am I the only one that is seeing the number of days until Christmas dwindle and my list of things to do and make grow?

Jargon of the Week - Bearding

Have you heard the term bearding? That's this week's Jargon of the Week.

Dictionary.com defines bearding as:

beard /bɪərd/ [beerd]

–noun
1. the growth of hair on the face of an adult man, often including a mustache.
2. Zoology. a tuft, growth, or part resembling or suggesting a human beard, as the tuft of long hairs on the lower jaw of a goat or the cluster of hairlike feathers at the base of the bill in certain birds.
3. Botany. a tuft or growth of awns or the like, as on wheat or barley.
4. a barb or catch on an arrow, fishhook, knitting needle, crochet needle, etc.
5. Also called bevel neck. Printing.
a. the sloping part of a type that connects the face with the shoulder of the body.
b. British. the space on a type between the bottom of the face of an x-high character and the edge of the body, comprising both beard and shoulder.
c. the cross stroke on the stem of a capital G.

–verb (used with object)
6. to seize, pluck, or pull the beard of: The hoodlums bearded the old man.
7. to oppose boldly; defy: It took courage for the mayor to beard the pressure groups.
8. to supply with a beard.

Origin:
bef. 900; ME berd, OE beard; c. G Bart, D baard, LL Langobardi Long-beards, name of the Lombards, Crimean Goth bars, L barba (> Welsh barf), Lith barzdà, OCS brada, Russ borodá; European IE *bHaer-dhā, perh. akin to barley 1

Bearding is when little fibers of batting start to come out of a quilt through the holes created by the quilt stitching. I've noticed this starts to happen after a quilt has been washed a few times. The batting fibers are somehow worked through the stitching holes during a wash cycle.

Another term for bearding is fiber migration.

We have a winner....

The winner is from Waldeck Dry Goods (I'm not sure what her real name is). Check your email address for a message from me. Thanks to everybody who stopped by the blog to enter.

Today is the last day to enter.

Don't forget to sign up for the giveaway I have going on now.

You must leave a comment on that blog post before 11:59 p.m.(CST)tonight.

Good luck!

Gingerbread - Studying for the Contest

We visited the 24th Annual Gingerbread on Parade while in Omaha for Thanksgiving weekend. If you are in the Omaha area, it's at the Mormon Trail Center (I'd provide a link, but can't seem to find a website for them) and is fun to see. They have more than 150 gingerbread structures for visitors to see.

Here's a few of my favorite houses:

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you may remember that my family has started a gingerbread building contest. This year is our 3rd year in a row, so I was scoping out potential details for my house. Here's some of my favorites.

TreesReindeer

LightpolesPeopleCritters

If you're interested in the photos from the last two years, here's the links to those posts:

2008: Gingerbread Contest 2008

2007: Gingerbread house contest?

Tomorrow is the last day...

Don't forget to sign up for the giveaway I have going on now.

You must leave a comment on that blog post before 11:59 p.m.(CST)tomorrow.

Good luck!

Black Friday Shopping

Jason and I got up at 4:30 on Friday morning to get out and shop. We hit Walmart, but were too late. We hit Kohl's and got a few presents for the little people. Then the fun really began.

Jason dropped me off at JoAnn's. I got a new iron. It's a Rowenta DX 6900 and it was only $40! I also got some thread and more flannel. That flannel is hard to resist at only $1.50 a yard!

I treated myself a new 24"x36" cutting mat; woo hoo! It's double sided. My old cutting mat was 23" square (at least the grid part) and had been my mom's. I used it in school for x-acto cuts and gluing, so it was pretty trashed. The grid was so destroyed you couldn't really use it to line things up on. It was time.

I got a pair of OttLites to use for a photo light box. I'll build it eventually. I stocked up on rotary blades since they were 1/2 off and I had a 20% off total purchase (excluding doorbusters) coupon. Nice, eh?!

While I was in line at JoAnn's, Jason went to Game Stop and got a new Wii game for us. He also went to Target in search of a new robe (Shh! It's a secret for me!) and 700 t.c. sheets. Unfortunately, the sheets in our size were all gone. Bummer.

We also went to Kmart, Home Depot, and a second Kohl's.

I love Black Friday shopping! You always hear about people getting trampled or being nasty to each other. That's never been my experience. I've always loved going out because it seems like the people standing in line with you are also kicking off their Christmas season. They're always cheerful and just as nuts as I am for getting up at 4:30 in the morning to save a few bucks!

Only 2 Days left!

Don't forget to sign up for the giveaway I have going on now.

You must leave a comment on that blog post before 11:59 p.m.(CST)on Tuesday, December 8, 2009.

Good luck!

Mom's Sewing Room

This week, my favorite thing is my mom's sewing room.

My mom has an awesome sewing room. It's a small bedroom (which used to be mine) in their house. It's got plenty of nice light, a walk-in closet, and a small enclosed porch with swing. I thought I'd share a few photos of where my mom works on her projects.


Isn't that a nice Christmas mini quilt she has hanging on her door? It came from one of her recent swaps.

P.S. Sorry about the tiny photos. I have been having issues getting things to load using flickr as the host lately and this is how I figured out how to get around that.

Omaha Holiday Lights Festival

Thanksgiving night we headed to the park downtown to see the lights.

I took a camera class recently at Photographx Unlimited where I learned all sorts of stuff about aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and basically how to control my camera outside of the "green zone" or automatic setting. We took our camera (we have a Canon Rebel XSi, which is a lot of fun to play with) down to the park with a tripod (thanks, dad!) to try to get some fun shots. Here's a few of the photos we left with:










P.S. Sorry for the small images. I've been having issues with linking the photos in my blog to my flickr images lately and this is how I've discovered I can get around that.