'Twas the Night Before Christmas Eve

And all through the house

You could hear me screaming

My sewing machine is lous-

ing up these beautiful stockings

That the kids will hang by the chimney with care

If I can finish them before presents we share

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;

But auntie was swearing--and ripping--and crap!

She sewed and she sewed but she needed a nap,

From the machine there arose such a clatter,

I sprang to the laptop to see what was the matter.

What am I crazy? I don't have time for this...

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night."

Facing Facts

I suddenly realized on the way into work today that I need to have the Shepherd's Bush stockings completed by Saturday for the LNS's finishing deadline. Saturday is also the only day I will be able to pick up the concord pearl cotton to finish that patch on the angel's dress. I don't think my FIL will be thrilled to go out to Chadds Ford (I knew we should have waited to go to the Brandywine River Museum!) and sit in the parking lot while I finish the stocking. And then it hit me:

I'm going to have to finish the stockings on my own.

I think it's going to be okay. I went and found these instructions (pdf) and these. (Because you can never have too many instructions when you are attempting something for the first time.)

I have to stop thinking of myself as the person I was in 6th grade when I sewed a jagged circle inside a rectangle for home ec. I have to believe I am a person who appliqued a cherry.

Maybe it's not so bad...

This morning we returned the rental car--thanks Kathryn, that was a GREAT idea. Do you really want a recap of the weekend? Oh, all right.

On Saturday, we picked up the car and went off to Lancaster. We went to the Amish Farm and House. When we pulled into the Target parking lot, I thought this was going to be the worst tourist trap ever, but we learned a lot of interesting stuff about the AIM-ish as FIL and GF are calling them. Thought GF, judgmental as she is, finds the AIM-ish's changing lifestyle and renegotiation of the world around them to be...hypocritical. Yes, that's the word I often think of when I think of the Amish. We planned to go to the Central Market for lunch but it was 1/2 hour from closing by the time we got there, so we ate at a nearby restaurant which everyone seemed to enjoy. Then we went to Wheatland, home of Pennsylvania's only president, our only bachelor president, James Buchanan. (DD, I am so sorry your tour of Lancaster was so crappy, esp, since you love presidential-alia.) Then we drove around in the fading sunset looking at Amish farms before going to Good 'N Plenty for three helpings of buttered noodles dinner. Oh, but first, after lunch, we had to pull over to McDonalds so FIL could fight his IBS. While we were waiting, the GF starts talking about FIL's heart condition. She turns to the dude, the kindest most concerned person in the world, and says, "Were you at all concerned when your father [found out about his heart condition]?" I almost lept across the table and slapped some sense into her. What a malicious thing to say! She was on a roll, though, because at dinner she asked me, "How do you justify that [third helping of buttered noodles] on Weight Watchers?" I just said, "I don't" and then watched her eat two pieces of shoo-fly pie, two helpings of tapioca pudding, and a small scoop of ice cream. What is her problem?

On Sunday, I hightailed it over to Joann's because they had flannel on sale for $2/yard, and I picked out some cute stuff to make a rag quilt for my niece (photo at a later date). On the way out the door I told the dude he should have a plan to leave when I arrived. We shepherded everyone in the car to go to Valley Forge and we were trying to decide how to fit lunch in. There's nowhere to eat near VF, and we couldn't eat first because they had just finished breakfast (11:00). So the dude decides we should go to the Brandywine River Museum, even after I said I didn't want to go back there--it's a really small museum, and I've been there 5 times in the past two years. Six. But I did forgive him for two reasons. First, 90 year old Andrew Wyeth has a new (2007) painting in the gallery. Stunning! Worth the trip. And secondly, lunch there was cheap and fantastic. (I know, at an art museum!) Then we went to VF and walked a bit and rode a bit and hung out with deer a bit (seriously, they were so intent on the acorns, they didn't really care about us). Then my cousin invited us over for dinner, thank the baby lord jebus.

When we arrived, I walked in first, and my cousin's husband pulled me inside and asked what I wanted to drink. The next thing I knew I had a Manhattan, and things got better from there. It was weird because I tried to see the GF from their POV. And she's not really that bad. The dogs loved her (makes you think) and she liked them. She was genuinely interested in everyone. She hugged my sister goodbye. (She doesn't hug me.) It was crazy. So I'm trying to figure out if she's really okay, or if she's only nice to people who aren't related to my FIL....

PS--Alison, you did tell me three skeins of Concord but #1, I'd already bought only two and #2, I sort of doubted you since I had done the other stocking with only one skein of chablis. Sorry about that.

One Step Forward

Alert readers may have noticed that my sheep on Jillian's stocking was floating in mid-air. I was not so alert. When I was waiting for the dude's delayed plane, I noticed that the crook wasn't lining up properly. I searched and searched and then realized that I had put the sheep in the wrong place. I had done quite a bit of new stitching, adding the head and the arm during my WW meeting. I was thinking about how to unstitch the mistake, and thinking backwards as usual "last in, first out." It was much easier in the end to take out the rose on the dress, the yellow and black border of the dress, the shoe, and the green sawtooth design. See, I'm a frickin' genius! The design should end up being about an inch north of center, but that shouldn't make that much difference.

I didn't stitch on Sunday, I was cleaning like a mad woman. (The bedroom is so clean! I put the pile of shoes on a rack on the inside of a door and much of the furniture back into the craft room. I also apparently shed enough to make a wig--or perhaps Victorian hair art--a situation rectified by several Swiffers. I should probably be too embarrassed to tell you that...) Then I had lunch with an old friend, and we went to a panel discussion of this book. A few of us from the class of 1988 had a nice chat meandering in all sorts of directions. The next thing I knew it was 4:45 and we were going to be late to Sunday family dinner. Apparently, home is where they hold dinner for you.

Elisabeth's Stocking

It's all over but the charms. I finished this on 10/2 but I didn't get a decent photo until today. I started this on or around August 30, but I didn't really work on it until sometime after September 12. So I think it might be possible to finish the other one in about three weeks. Let's hope!

As Allison noted, it's really close on the chablis. I ended up with about 4 inches left over, and I was really stingy, stitching as far as I could with each and every thread. I tried to stitch the wing in spirals to avoid the stripey look, but I think since I changed thread so often that didn't really work out as well as I'd hoped.

One down; one to go. Here's where I am with that: