Post-Christmas productivity

Christmas has come and gone and I managed to meet all my sewing deadlines on time.  The green and white quilt I featured in November was given to my sister-in-law who had been dropping not-so-subtle hints for some time that she wanted one!

Her husband has been hard at work finishing their basement into a media room with wet bar, home office, gas fireplace and powder room, with lots of green tones, so this was perfect for them.  For my other sister-in-law I whipped up a set of placemats with this easy pattern from Sew Biz called "Set the Table, Mabel!"

And then for my 11-year-old stepdaughter, I bought her a bunk bed set for her two American Girl dolls and made some bedding to match what she likes and has at our house.

I note also that the doll on the top is wearing a pajama set I made her last Christmas (with a matching set for my stepdaughter, each of whom have their first initial appliqued to the white t-shirt in flannel).

As usual, my well-trained family gave me a nice variety of quilter gifts - fat quarters, a half dozen charm packs, a jelly roll, two Accuquilt dies, and Leah Day's Free Motion Quilting Designs book (in print).

Now my husband is off to see his daughters for the weekend (although we just said goodbye to them all Wednesday) and I'm going to have to go through my sewing room, cleaning up from hurriedly-made gifts, putting my gifts away, and deciding what to make with my new goodies.

I do wish my sewing room had better lighting.  It's fine during a sunny day, but there are no ceiling lights and floor lamps only go so far.  We have not yet made progress on finding a new house, but, happily, our old one is under contract, through inspections, and scheduled to go to settlement in mid-January.  So I suppose the next part of getting settled here in Raleigh can move more quickly.  I'd love to find a job soon too, but so far no movement on that front, either with temp agencies or applications.  Frustrating.  More sewing time, I guess.

On the plus side of staying in and nesting, TCM's Star of the Month is my favorite classic film star, Joan Crawford.  Sadly, my DVR only holds three movies before it's full, so today I had to set my alarm for 6 AM to start watching before it tried to record a fourth at 7:15.  Of course, I'll have to make sure there is sufficient room for the start of Season 4 of Downton Abbey beginning Sunday night!