12 Days of Christmas Fabric

While scoping out some new cat fabrics made by Benartex, I happened upon a non-cat line called 12 Days of Christmas. Many of them look like they were made for my block patterns of the same name, although some of the prints are too large for the tiny 4" blocks. If you're curious, here's a link:
http://db.benartex.com/storelocator/FMPro?-DB=collections.fp3&-lay=internet&-max=200&-sortfield=collectionname&-sortorder=ascend&-Format=new.htm&-findall

Here's a tiny url:
http://tinyurl.com/8wv6n

Why do large companies give their web pages such long names? I'm guessing it's computer-generated, but surely they could generate shorter names. :-)

12 Days of Chrristmas Patterns are Complete

I just finished uploading Day 12 of The 12 Days of Christmas patterns to my web site:
http://www.sundropdesigns.com/projects.html

If you're still looking for the other days, check out the Blog Archives on the right sidebar. Links to the earliest days were posted in January.

The patterns will be availble for free for two more weeks. On March 8, I will begin removing them as I update the pages on my web site. The complete set will be available for purchase at that time. I can now cross this off my List of Things to Catch Up On and start on something else! Does everything on this list ever get crossed off?

Day 10 of 12 Days of Christmas

I just finished uploading Day 10 of the 12 Days of Christmas patterns! This one had me stumped for the longest time as to what the lord might be leaping over. After weeks of deliberation, I'd decided on frogs (as in leap frog) over candlesticks (as in Jack Be Nimble). But then on Friday, I heard some senator say that he thought no one (as in no senator nor representative) had actually read the economic stimulus proposal before voting yes or no on it. That got me to thinking about the behaviors of politicians in general. As a result, yesterday I changed the ten frogs to a stack of ten books. My only political comment here is that I suspect a lot of politicians simply leap over things they're supposed to dig into. But since some say this verse symbolizes the Ten Commandments, the books are appropo for that, too.

Have fun with the pattern!
http://www.sundropdesigns.com/projects.html

12 Days of Christmas - Day 9

Life seems to be returning to normal around here. I just uploaded Day 9 for the 12 Days of Christmas on the Projects page of my web site:

http://www.sundropdesigns.com/projects.html

From here to the the twelfth day, some of the pieces begin to get really tiny. For those of you who don't like working with such tiny pieces, embroidery or fabric paints or pens are a good alternative. Another option is to omit some of the tiny pieces. For example, if you omit the ribbon with the 9 dance shoes, the dancing lady will still look like a dancing lady to represent day 9.

Or, you can do the redwork option and not have to deal with any tiny pieces!

More 12 Days of Christmas

Just in case anyone missed it, there's a link on my home page to a pdf that has the words to The 12 Days of Christmas. These are the American lyrics. I know the British version is slightly different, but I haven't taken the time to research the lyrics and add them to the pdf. Here's the link:
http://www.sundropdesigns.com/

I'm still trying to work with only one contact lens, so things are going slowly. Oddly, computer work seems to be the most difficult. My guess is that the monitor is is just far enough away that reading glasses don't really help. Closing my eye without the contact lens helps a little, but I've never been that good at winking. Oh well, I'll keep plugging along at my snail's pace and at least I'll get a little bit done.

12 Days of Christmas: Update #2

We had a mixed bag of weather last week: half icy winter wonderland and half the usual winter temps in the mid-40's. I divided my "warm day" time between sewing in my shed and doing computer work in my trailer, so I only have two new blocks up for you.

Day 6: http://www.sundropdesigns.com/bom/bom09.html
Day 7: http://www.sundropdesigns.com/projects.html

Since the coming week's weather forecast is for another mixed bag of winter goodies, and I have other deadlines to meet, I decided to make things a little easier on myself and set things up to add days 8-12 on the same page as day 7.

In addition to last week's icy weather, the electricity went off, Sunny fell into something yucky and had to be bathed, and two days I had to clean my keyboard because someone left hairballs on it. I suppose it's my fault for forgetting to cover my keyboard when I turn off my computer, but I've not had a problem with this until lately. So why have my cats suddenly decided that the keyboard is a good place for coughing up hairballs? In all my years of living with cats, this is the first year that my keyboard has been a target for hairballs. They started doing this after I bought a "spill-proof" keyboard. Do you think they actually know that it's supposed to be spill-proof?

12 Days of Christmas Update

Well, those warm 50-degree days the weather forecasters promised us for last week never materialized. Instead, we got a temperature inversion that socked the valley in fog with temps staying in the 20's and 30's. I spent most of my week sitting by my parents' woodstove crocheting. However, I did get one more block up for you:

5 Gold Rings - http://www.sundropdesigns.com/critcorner.html

Tooday, the sun came out and it did warm up to the mid-40's. Some of the forecasters are predicting highs in the 50's for the coming week; some are predicting 30's and 40's. I'm rooting for the optomistic forecasters!

12 Days of Christmas

I'm doing a freebie on the 12 Days of Christmas on my web site, in both applique and redwork. My original intent was to post a new block each day during the 12 days of Christmas, Dec. 25 through January 5. But it's winter and I'm learning that I shouldn't make schedules, or rather I shouldn't expect to stay on any schedule, during the winter. It's now Jan. 10 and only 4 days have been posted. So I'll be posting weekly updates here with links to the blocks so that I don't make people crazy hunting all over my web site trying to find them.

So, here's update #1:
Partidge in a pear tree - http://www.sundropdesigns.com/patterns/applique3.html
2 turtle doves - http://www.sundropdesigns.com/patterns/applique4.html
3 French hens - http://www.sundropdesigns.com/patterns/applique5.html
4 calling birds (or colly birds) - http://www.sundropdesigns.com/patterns/applique.html

I'm planning to post update #2 next weekend, but as you read in the first paragraph, it's winter and schedules are unreliable during the winter.