Christmas Eve Quuiet

I spent the second day in a row in the sewing room - all day long! It has rained here since yesterday morning and I'm wondering if God remembers His promise. :) Water is everywhere, interstates are closed, the wind is howling and the lake, which was down 5 feet for the winter is now back up to summer levels and rushing like a freight train since they've opened up the flood gates at the dam. These were perfect days to spend cutting and sewing.

Of course, first I had to clean. I moved furniture and vacuumed. I dusted the baseboards and the mini blinds (I hate mini blinds!). I confess that my swiffer was so nasty after dusting the blinds I was embarrassed. I can't remember the last time I dusted them. :( I have 2 closets in there; one I cleaned out a couple of weeks ago and the other yesterday. I even measured my pieces of leftover batting and labeled them. Which came in really handy today when I was ready for a piece of batting 15" by 60". I made a Skinny Santa wallhanging (he's not really as skinny as he thinks). I went through a couple of drawers, but not all of them. I stacked up the things I wanted to work on next...cut off and hem a shirt, sew on a button, cut out a new Primitive Gatherings wool Christmas tree skirt, draw some redwork onto fabric, etc. And on the quilt rack I hung all the quilt tops and wallhanging tops that need quilting. Too many of those!

Today I pieced Skinny Santa (again, he's a little overweight if you ask me) and machine quilted him. Did you hear me? Machine quilted him. Free motion quilted. I tried to do stippling but it looks something like a drunk quilter tryied to do stippling. But to my credit I did persevere. There are loops and crossovers and points where there should be curves but he's quilted. Now he's on the design wall auditioning buttons and a scarf. He has another problem. I can never square up a quilt so it's really square. They all look aslant to me. I have good rulers. I have good rotary cutters. I don't have good, straight seams I guess. I don't think he's too far off but he might require a little more slicing on the edges. I'll look at him with fresh eyes tomorrow.

Meanwhile it's Christmas Eve. Jesus is coming people! (that's from a song we sang at church a couple of weeks ago) My children came last weekend to open presents but one daughter and her family are planning to come "hang out" for part of the day tomorrow. Even though this stage of my life is vastly different from previous stages when there were kids and wrapping paper and high anticipation of Santa, I like this part of life. Quiet waiting on Christmas. Quiet waiting on Jesus to come. Listen...I can almost hear a baby cry? Do you hear?