Weekend at warp speed!

My son flew in late Wednesday night from Oregon for his friends' wedding. It's been a whirlwind visit. He left today - and tomorrow's his birthday ... safe trip, sweetie! In between talking with him when he was in between his activities, I've been attacking the stash! I have "special" fabrics for friends, boxes of fabric for our guild's cuddle quilt project. And clothes I was going to rip for the fabric for the Goodwill! Someone else will find them and do something with them - other than stick them in a box and keep them in the dark for years!

We had a S&B yesterday - it was supposed to be a simple afternoon of stitching. But it was one of those days that quilting wasn't working out! I tried to fit the border on birds of a Feather; I ripped it out last night! I think I've been attacking the sewing room to avoid more of the border. That project's definitely in "time out!"

I've also been ironing wadded up muslin fabric to cut postcard backs and foundations for string blocks. [5 yards of cut squares!]I don't have the totals yet for all this activity - I'm still in the middle of it - but there's a lot of stash heading out.

At the end of this year - I'd like to have stash that I love. If I don't love it - out it goes. Of course, I'm participating in the "No Buy" challenge in Stashbusters so nothing is coming in either!

2008 - the year Doni got a handle on the creeping stash problem!

Now that was a busy weekend!

Today's picture is one of the family room bookcases. The Santas are counted cross stitch by Prairie Schooler. They started designing the yearly Santas in 1985 - I have all 22 patterns, 16 of the Santas are stitched and pillowed and displayed, 3 are stitched, but need to be pillowed - just finished them this fall and I need to stitch the last 3. Luckily, Christmas comes around every year!

I love Mary Engelbreit Christmas tins - can you tell? One Christmas my daughter L came into the room and said, "Everything is me,me,me around here." I thought, now what? and asked her what she meant. "All the tins have ME on them!!!!" That was a relief!!! LOL!

Most of the decorations are up. The trees are decorated and we watched our first Christmas DVD last night. Love Actually. Darling movie FOR ADULTS - there are so many big names in it and I can never remember who they are! Hugh Grant is the new prime minister of England! Others include Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Laura Linney, Colin Firth, Keira Knightley, Liam Neeson, January Jones, Rowan Atkinson

Judy L is having weekly accountability in reducing stash. We should report on Sundays - I'll see if I can get the link to work. This week I made 14 - er make that 13 Christmas post cards. The wonder under should NOT be ironed upside down! I did on the first card [insert your favorite cuss word here!] ... but if you get a sticky iron, leave it on and place a dryer sheet on the edge of the ironing board, "scrub" your iron against it. Works like a charm.

The PCs were from stash of course. PCs aren't very big but in groups they add up. The backgrounds were almost a FQ! Last weekend - before I joined this effort - I made borders for Birds of a Feather all from stash. Ice cream cone borders in greens and a few blues ... still haven't gotten them actually on the quilt - there were spacer borders to be figured out! ICK - math.

On the "No buy" front I managed to go into JoAnn's twice without buying anything extra! The first time I needed to get a ruler and timtex for the PCs. I had the 40% off coupon and got a 90" wide back for Birds of a Feather. That's all - no unauthorized purchases!!! A FIRST!

Today I had to go get some tiny jingle bells for the PCs. I did buy Quiltmaker to see Bonnie's article and two skeins of 738 floss that I was out of ... it feels like such a hurdle but I'll bet some people can do this any time they go!!! Amazing!!!

Nancy Rose, a week ago, asked us to list what we've accomplished - I thought she meant for the year after seeing her list ... she meant for the month of November! YIKES! I just don't move that fast anymore!