Happy December & meanderings in thread

Now that the 1st of December has come and gone,
I can start my decorating for Christmas...

My daughter's birthday

is on the first of December and

we've always waited until after Thanksgiving

and her birthday to start our Christmas decorating.

She'd tell you it's her rule -

no Christmas décor or wrapping paper!,

but really,

it's been that way since before she had any say in the matter

and for over three decades. :)

Happy Birthday dear daughter!

So, back to the getting ready for Christmas...
I'd love to drag out the Christmas décor boxes
and throw the garland around...
I'm ready, but I'm not.
Too many things to do, not enough time!
Do you know what I mean?
I still have my Halloween quilt hanging in the great room!
Yes, I do have a Thanksgiving quilt - paper-pieced pumpkins,
but it hardly ever makes it to the wall.
(And it didn't make it to the wall this year, either.)

And, truly, the quilt I hang for Christmas is
a redwork and pieced, red & white quilt called
"Walking in a Winter Wonderland"
(Crabapple Hill pattern)
and it stays hanging all Winter, not just for Christmas.
I have a couple of Christmas quilt tops finished
to quilt for myself,
but that didn't happen again this year!

I have been doing quilting for others, though.
So someone will have Christmas quilts to hang or gift -
it just won't be me!  :)

This is Joell's - a gift for her sister's friend:

Joell always make LARGE quilts, and this is no exception.

(Big quilts are so much fun to quilt!) 

Besides being a beauty of a quilt,

it was very graphic and bright!

 (: I live vicariously through Joell's bright quilts. :)

Next, I quilted two tree skirts that Janet made.
Here's a picture of one of them:

Isn't it adorable?  Can you see (bottom right corner) the great candy cane fabric that is the backing?  Janet always has perfectly matched seams and has her tops so well pressed.

Since both tree skirts were the same, I took the second tree skirt picture while it was on the quilting machine. Check out the great border fabrics that she used.  Those fabrics really were great choices in my opinion - totally tied the charm squares together.

Looking back at these pictures,

I guess at this point they really weren't tree skirts yet.

They were not split to the center or circle center-cut yet. 

But there are some lucky people getting these for Christmas, too!

I'm off to start meandering the next quilt/Christmas gift!

Maybe tonight I'll throw some garland around  do a little decorating, too!

Hope you are getting some stitching time in

during this wonderfully busy time of year!