The tree went up on Monday, and it's got more baubles hanging off its branches than you'd find in a John Lewis Christmas department. I may have gone a wee bit over the top, but then Christmas is a time of excess, isn't it? I haven't an overall theme for the tree - there are sparkly stars and frosted apples Christmas puds, cats in Santa hats, snow topped red pillar boxes, a couple of reindeer, plus lots of birds nestling among the greenery. The grumpy looking fairy, who came from my mum's house and which I remember as a little kid so it's proper vintage, has been relegated to halfway up the tree, while a silver sequinned unicorn in a tutu is occupying the top spot.
Getting all the decorations out of their hideaway in the spare bedroom and having everything strewn across the floor meant I began tidying up that room. Which had become a dumping ground for clothes, cardboard boxes and bubble wrap packaging from online purchases, old DVDs, electrical equipment that's waiting for a trip to the tip/recycling centre. I had a major clutter clear, which was weirdly enjoyable, and I felt very virtuous as I took bags of stuff to the charity shop. Plus sorted several paperbacks for the charity bookshelf in my local Co-op. I organised and labelled craft supplies, and put aside clothes to try and sell on eBay. Clutter clearing is definitely good for mental health, I reckon. You feel calmer having bought order to even just a small area of your life, and with Christmas being such a manic time - shops getting rammed, endless cheesy Santa songs over the tannoy until you're sick of 'em - we all need a little oasis of calm here and there.
I finally finished reading 'The Mercies', which as predicted was very good but grim, given its storyline about the witch burnings, and am about to embark on Bridget Collins 'The Betrayals'. I've high hopes for that as I enjoyed her previous book 'The Bindings'. My reading seems to really slowed down this year. Too much staring at screens instead of book pages. Ahh, the seductive power of box sets on the iplayer and crafty videos on YouTube.
The other thing I've been doing this week is messing about with another scrappy piece of patchwork. After vowing to finish the partially completed projects I've got on the go, I forgot all about that good intention! But in its favour this quilt top's growing like topsy and is so simple to sew.
Each block is only three fabrics. The plain rectangle is 6 inches x 8, and the two patterned strips are each 3 inches wide. Easy peasy.
I've tried to be as scrappy as possible, using any and all colours, not bothering about them clashing. I think I'll make this single bed sized, and use a suitably scrappy binding. I haven't got a single length of fabric large enough for the backing, so that'll be cobbled together from whatever substantial pieces of material I have in my stash. After decades spent slow-stitching with English paper piecing hexagons, it's very freeing to machine sew blocks together. You work at such a faster speed. Eventually I'll hand quilt this scrappy patchwork as I like how hand sewing softens the hard lines.
Right, that's all for now. I need to wrap presents, and finally get around to writing Christmas cards before I miss the last posting day. Bye!
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