From the Ridiculous to the Sublime!

I am madly trying to finish quilts for Christmas, the same as most quilters I know! Every year I say I won't do this again (leave too much sewing until the last minute and stress myself out) but apparently I like it, because I am doing it again! I would love to be working on my newest mini quilt - some of the bits and pieces are sitting here on my 6" ruler. This is relaxing for me and each day before I go to bed I sew a few more pieces.
But mostly I am working on a bed size quilt for one of my siblings for Christmas. It's the first time in many years that we will be all be together on Christmas Day, so I wanted to make a quilt for each family. I have two of the three quilts finished...the last one is all flannel and hard work to quilt on my small sewing machine. I must force myself to work on that first, and then bribe myself with a little time sewing my mini quilt. I will post photos of my sibling quilts when they are all ready to be wrapped.
And then I just have to finish making something for my 12 nieces and nephews...asking myself again, "why do I insist on hand made gifts every year"? But on Christmas day when they have unwrapped PILES of toys and clothes, I am always happy with my decision to make them something handmade, unique and unforgettable.
And then I have to prepare something for a guild demo on Tuesday.
"Am I done my Christmas shopping" you ask? I haven't even started it yet!
Here are some of the other Christmas quilts around my house. These two quilts are from a round robin group that was together for many years. There were 2 quilters from Manitoba, and 5 of us from Ontario in the group and for each project we had a different theme. On the left is a row round robin that I finished in 2003. The rows are 20" long and for that project I asked for Christmas themed blocks. The quilt on the right was from our strippy round robin in 2000 when there were 6 of us in the group. For each project we had to make a vertical row 60" long, and I asked for star blocks. The second column from the left was my row and it was made up of blocks from a star making workshop I took from Andrea Curtis many years ago. This was in my UFO pile until this year when I finally sewed the rows together and quilted it. So this is our first Christmas enjoying this wonderful quilt. Thanks to my quilting friends (Gail, Carol, Shelley, Linda, Carla, and Cathy) for contributing to many of the great quilts I have in my house!