Twas the day after Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving went off without a hitch.  The food was good, and the three of us ate like little pigs all day.  We finished off with slices of chess pie that was a new recipe and was so rich, it gave me the sweats.  Not sure that we will finish that one. 

Friday was the start of Cmas decorating.  Rob put out Santas and Syd worked on the tree.  I'd have been hanging ornaments to the swag that hangs in the living room ceiling, but I broke the screen on my phone (did you know they can repair that in store now???  way cool!!), so we went to the mall (yes, on black Friday.  Clearly, we were crazy!) but the mall wasn't busy.  We had a little wait before they could work on my phone and we walked around the mall.  The Apple store was definitely the busiest store in the mall.  And, we just didn't see that many shoppers, which was fine with us, but probably not so good for the retailers.  We planned in advance to walk away if there was a crowd so I was pretty happy to get it done in one try. 

Anyway, Friday was the tree and Saturday was the swag.  And, we worked each day until we were tired.  And, we caught up on a lot of shows we'd recorded but hadn't watched yet.  Yesterday, we rested.  There were some chores, of course.  I'm still putting away good dishes and yesterday, I turned the last of the turkey into a pot pie. 

I spent all the time I could quilting.  Of course.  I was still putting in stability quilting on Thanksgiving.  So, to have gotten this far since really makes it look like all I did was quilt.  But, I didn't just quilt.  I was a good family man, too. 

All those feathers!  But they really didn't take that long.  I was knocking out a block in a little over an hour, as long as I didn't make a mistake I had to correct. 

The beauty of adding this much quilting is that you can't see the mistakes.  There are thousands.  Some were big enough and affected the structure enough that they needed to be fixed before I could proceed.  But, the rest will be saved for the end, when I play a little game called "if you can find it, you can fix it!"  It's the way I handle most of my quilting that isn't going in a show.  Show quilts I'm a little more careful with, but quilts for me, this approach works and it lets me relax while I quilt instead of being all nervous about making mistakes.  I see a mistake and I just keep moving.  Little wobbles in a line, just keep moving.  In the end, most of that stuff doesn't show up when you look at the whole quilt.  It only shows when I'm  focused on a four inch square that's currently between my hands and being moved under the needle. 

I'll show all the decorations at some point, but here's an advance.  This is my favorite Cmas quilt.  My mentor bought it as a kit and made it, then loaned me the patterns and I made it too.  I loved making it and I love hanging it every year.  Raw edge applique with blanket stitching around every piece.  And some piecing to fill in the spaces.   

We were watching my burned copies of Simply Quilts the other day and they showed a Cmas quilt by Piece o' Cake that I might try to find the pattern for.  It looked like a LOT of fun. 

But, no new projects.  I'm just not really in the mood for anything new right now.  I'm having trouble owning my possessions.  My wonderful things are feeling like a burden.  A burden that has become hard to store.  So, I'm trying to clear out spaces by finishing things and giving away things I'm never going to finish or use.  I haven't finished filling that box I'm going to give away.  I need to get back to working on that.  But, there just wasn't time to focus on that this weekend.  I wanted to spend my sewing studio time sewing, not cleaning out.  I can't get much quilting done in the mornings before work on something so complex as that Dresden Plate.  So, maybe I'll spend my time working on some organization. 

Rob and I spent five days together with only one argument.  And, even that one, tho heated, was calm and rational.  I guess we're figuring this whole relationship thing out. 

Sydney tried her best to be sullen and angry.  But, I made it hard for her by being nice.  And, still explaining that showing gratitude will make her a better person.  And, she responded to (most of) that.  We took her out to dinner on Friday night.  With her work schedule, we don't get to eat out together often.  She tried being rude and she tried ignoring us.  But, when we just kept having a nice dinner visit, she finally joined in.  I'm starting to figure out that the best parenting might be ignoring her.

Everybody have a great Monday.  It's going to be a bumpy week.  I'm writing my performance evaluation, and it's one of the best ones I've had in years.  But, I'm worried that my weak manager won't want to recognize how well I've done...because I don't think he's had all that good of a year.

Oh, well.  Some stars still shine in the dark. 

Lane