The Joy of Christmas Baking

Okay, I'm cheating a little, but I did actually bake ALL these Christmas cookies - only it was two years ago. I was in the midst of a strong burst of second trimester energy while pregnant with Lucy during a snow storm that left me stranded at home for three days. And I must've lost my mind. 

So far this year I have only been able to pull off our favorite, my Grandma's thumbprints, and I'll try to bust out a couple more tonight while Mark is out with the boys Christmas shopping (read: beer drinking). At least he'll be out of the way so I'll have something to show for my efforts instead of him pillaging each batch as they cool and leaving lots of crumbs behind!

Some of these are recipes that have been passed down through my family, and some are from various other cookbooks or websites. From the top:

1. Grandma's Pecan Tartlets (yum!)

2. Magic Bars (so easy you can't not make them)

3. Thumbprints (our fave)

4. Chocolate Peppermint Sandwiches

5. Russian Teacakes and Peppermint Snowballs

6. Chocolate Mint Thumbprints

7. Creme Wafers (our other favorite, melt in your mouth goodness)

8. Eggnog Cookies

9. Lemon Glitter Sandwiches

If you're interested in any of the recipes, just leave me an message (but make sure I can reply to it!) and I'd be happy to share - even Gram's old recipes!

I hope you all have the merriest of Christmases, full of plenty and surrounded by those you love!

Christmas Pickledish Quilt!

It is absolutely nothing short of a small miracle that this quilt is all stippled, bound and freshly washed before Christmas. It seems I got a little holiday stitching fire inside of me, despite my pregnancy-induced chronic fatigue and mental psychosis! Or maybe because of it.....either way, it's all done and waiting to be cozied up under with hot cocoa by the Christmas tree.

I had a blast piecing the pickledish blocks. I don't know if it was the excitement of getting to use all these cheery holiday fabrics or the satisfaction of successfully pulling off these moderately challenging blocks, but I really do think this was the most fun I've ever had piecing a quilt top.  Aneela put together a fabulous tutorial complete with templates and clear, concise directions for her Pickledish Quilt-along. If you feel comfortable with curves, or have been wanting to attempt them for your first time, I whole-heartedly recommend giving it a try. Even just one block would make a great pillow cover. This will certainly not be my last pickledish quilt.

The quilt I made measures roughly 55x55, using everything from Munki Munki flannels, some Shinzi Katoh Christmas prints I'd been hoarding, Sherri Berry, Minny Muu, Flea Market Fancy, Bliss, Amy Butler Lotus and more. I bound it with a green, yellow and red plaid from American Jane and the back is a super cozy flannel red and white polka dot from the Bliss line.  I did get a few mild puckers on the back due to some hasty basting and the lack of adhesive spray (I'm going to have to train someone else to do it for the remainder of my pregnancy), but another Christmas miracle washed them almost completely away! I truly LOVE LOVE LOVE the way this one turned out! It will be sad to put away each year after the holidays, but I hope it will be a happy tradition to bring it out again each year with all the other decorations.

Thanks for all your supportive comments regarding my last "first trimester monster" post. I don't think I'm totally out of the woods yet, but I'm getting there. I've got some serious baking to tackle tonight so I'm hoping to sneak in one more post before the big day to share some of my grandma's delicious cookie recipes with you. I hope all your holiday preparations are smooth and stress-free!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Since I've finally been able to drag my sorry tired self out of bed a little more frequently now, I've been able to attempt a bit of shopping, holiday baking and decking the halls. Even if I paid my brother in wine to put the lights on our house, made Mark go alone to pick out the tree (which I did about the most shoddy decorating job on ever - this coming from a person who usually spends no less than three hours on stringing the lights alone, I've even been known to use garbage twisty ties to wrap them onto the branches!) and have done most of my shopping online, at least it's starting to feel a little Christmas-y around here. The holidays with a one and a half year old in the house is too fun and special not to enjoy every moment. And taking a bit of stitchy time to work on this quilt has been helping to make me feel festive, too.

When Aneela announced her Pickledish Quilt-along, I knew I wanted to join in despite my lack of energy or need to start a new project. But I'd been searching for a pattern to make from all my holiday prints and this seemed like a perfect way to showcase a bunch of fussy-cut snowmen, gnomes, trees and snowflakes. And I have to say, this may be the most fun I've ever had piecing a quilt! It's so much fun to pick out the combinations for the arches, and the curves are just challenging enough to hold my interest without making me want to scream (OK, maybe just a little). I'm determined to have this one finished and on our sofa for Christmas morning, but if I was a betting woman, I probably wouldn't be betting on my side of things for this one!

I started collecting fun, whimsical Christmas prints when I first started hoarding  collecting fabric, but this is the only project they've been cut up for so far. There's some Munki Munki, Shinzi Katoh, Sherri Berry, Minny Muu and even some of Aneela's own Spoonflower holiday fabric all represented, mixed with a hodge-podge of other red and green prints from my stash. And now I have a million Christmas sewing projects rolling around in my head and after a small fabric buying hiatus I've become a bit obsessed with collecting prints for all my dreamed-up stockings, table runners and tree skirt that I fantasize I'll have enough time to sew up next year. These fun new prints are from Alexander Henry's Merry Modern and Candy Colored Christmas lines.

Thanks so much to all of you for the baby love! I'm eleven weeks along now and feeling pretty good, and looking forward to that second trimester burst of energy!

Pips and Pickledishes

I guess it's an Aneela-project sort of month around here! I waited about one hot second after receiving my precious Sherbet Pips layer cake in the mail to start slicing and dicing. 

In anticipation of it's arrival I had already decided on the design I wanted to go for and ordered some coordinating Bella Solids in scarlet, sisters pink, grey, blue raspberry and popsicle. I'm liking the "snowballs and squares" look - I think it showcases the prints nicely and the solids give everything a little 'pop'. I love these fabrics so so so so much! This is about as far as I've gotten in piecing the rows. It's a little tedious so it's slow going.

And I'm a little late to the party, but you've all heard about Aneela's Pickledish quilt-along, haven't you?

Now these are fun to piece! I haven't sewn any blocks together yet so can't attest to the difficulty or lack thereof for the arc piecing, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. I've already tackled curves so I'm not too frightened.

I love having all of this Christmas mess strewn about my sewing room. I suppose it isn't yet appropriate to bust out the holiday decorations so this is tiding me over until after Thanksgiving. I started collecting all these holiday prints last year but never got around to them, but I'm hoping we have a nice little Pickledish Christmas quilt to cozy under during December. Realistically, that will probably be December  2011!!

I'd love to get sewing on all of this right now, but Lucy is sleeping and honestly, mama needs to go have a nap too!