It's Beginning to Look a Bit like Christmas...

Last year I was the person running out to get last minute things the night before Christmas. And the year before I was doing last moment shopping Christmas morning. And - well, you see the pattern.

So this year I started thinking about Christmas in July/August.

I held off on decorating until after Thanksgiving - of course - but this year I was earlier than usual in swapping from 'fall' to Christmas/winter-y decor. The stockings are hung (by the laundry machine with care, because that's where the empty coat hooks are), and the tiny tree we got in our college days has made an appearance:

But anything else has been slow to appear - partly because I'm still searching for the kind of tree I want. I have a fairly good idea what I'm after, but I've yet to find it in a size I want (I'm looking for between 22" and 36") for a price I'm willing to pay (sorry $120 version, and $75 version). I'm about to the point of breaking out a welder and trying to make my own. Or seeing if I can bribe my father into giving it a go.

Without a tree, I have to get a bit more creative about putting up lights and ornaments, so those items are still waiting on their reveal. I can do what I've done in the past - but I'm really hoping to have a tree so I can finally break out the ornaments we purchased our last two Christmases (first two as married people) instead of leaving them tissue wrapped for another year.

That said, I got a little bored over the weekend and whipped up something to add to the decor around here.

Starting with some greens and a brown dot from my rather large scrap pile (I love those brown dots, purchased for Baby C's Stacked Coin quilt. I don't know what I'll do when I run out), then adding a fat quarter of cream that came with my used sewing machine, and a little aqua binding left over from Half Square Quilt and ending up with this:

I suppose in the barest technical sense it's a tiny quilt. I went through the usual process, though the quilting a very minimal stitch around each tree block.

And yes, I realized after I put it all together that I should have put a little more thought into the placement of my trees. When I said that to my husband, he pointed out they were light, medium, dark. I had meant solid, stripes, patterns. Whoops!

It didn't turn out quite how I'd intended - and I lost two trees along the way due to sloppy stitching on my part - but it adds a bit more festiveness to the kitchen, and it's kind of nice to have a home made holiday decoration. It's my first one - well, first since the days of hot gluing candy canes during school art classes... So it seems about time for me to turn some of my crafty inclinations, and my scrap piles, toward home made decorations again.