Distracted

I got a little distracted after I last wrote early this afternoon. I decided it was high time to take a bath and get myself dressed. In the process, I found myself standing naked, staring into my closet, wondering what I might have to wear. (I figured I'd show you some strips sewn together, 'cause trust me on this, you really wouldn't want to see ME stripped, staring into the closet!)

My husband and I have been on this diet for a couple months now, and have lost a bit of weight. My clothes are getting pretty baggy and I just KNEW I had stuff in my closet that I haven't worn for several years--but I wasn't really sure what. So I pulled all my folded tops out of the closet and sorted through them. One thing led to another, and a few hours later, I had a HUGE box of stuff to donate to charity, a garbage can partly filled with old shoes, and two loads of clothes that were so dust-coated that I wanted to wash them before I even thought about whether to keep them or get rid of them.

After washing clothes, I had to try stuff on and sort it all into (1) donate, (2) put in the closet to wear, or (3) put in my daughter's closet for now until I lose a little more weight.

Besides the whole clothes thing (and you'll be happy to know, I'm sure, that I DID find something to wear and didn't spend the rest of the day naked), I had to fix dinner for my husband--he's such a demanding task master!

Then I found that besides these things that distracted me away from my sewing, I was equally distracted WHILE sewing and kept doing stupid stuff. So, finally, here it is 12:30 at night and I finally finished the first little topper.

I'm pretty pleased with it. I used as much of the Christmas Past line as I could and threw in some of my other stash for contrast. Marcie sure did a nice job designing this pattern, didn't she?!

I still have piles of pieces for the second one, but I need a little more of one fabric, so I think I'll probably make a quick run to the quilt shop tomorrow. Hopefully the second one will go together quickly and I'll be a little more focused.

Goodness knows, it would be nearly impossible to be any LESS focused!

Trees on the Table Challenge

Woo-hoo! I've started! I have all my fabrics picked out, I've made the template for cutting the tree pieces, and I've started cutting strips. I'll post photos to my blog as I go, so check back frequently if you're interested. I did find an error on the directions, I believe. Marcie says to use 5 different green prints for the trees and the larger picture of the quilt looks like the trees have 5 strips, but you'll really need 6--look at the pictures of the blocks themselves. So if you haven't started yet, please make this change. If I find other errors, I'll post them.

I'm cutting enough to make two toppers--one for me and one for a Christmas gift. I think it's probably just as easy to make two as it is to make one.

I'm also strip piecing the tree trunk section rather than making the trunks individually--since I need 8 trunks for the two quilts, that makes sense to me. I also think that the gold background on either side of the trunk needs to be cut at 2-1/2" by 3" (rather than 3-1/2") but I haven't gotten that far yet--just wanted to alert you if your section turns out too wide; you can just trim an equal amount from each side. I'll confirm that, though, once I get to that part. I'm trying to do most of my cutting first before I get to the sewing.

Thanks for joining in!