I woke up this morning to one paperwhite in bloom. It made my day.

The one handmade gift was finished today. Phew. Photos will come after Christmas, ok? The rest is all under control, or as much control as I'm going to have. You know what I mean, right? It's December and it's busy and that's life and I wouldn't change it. Well, I'd like a trick for getting the dog off of the couch. But really, other than that, I wouldn't change it.

The girls are out for their Christmas break and I am anxious to spend some time hanging out and relaxing with my family. On that note, I'm signing off until we reach the other side of Christmas. Thank you all for reading my blog and supporting me with comments and emails and more. I feel very blessed and count you all among my gifts. I hope that you enjoy the holiday season. Merry everything!

-Erin

I'm short on words and long on to-do's so I thought I'd share some photos that put a smile on my face this week. I hope there is some merry making happening around you, too. (And that Jack Daniels Winter Jack is only available in Germany. If you happen to be there, I give you my personal recommendation. Heat it up and sip it as a hot toddy. It's really delicious and warming.)

Also, a reminder that my shop will be closing late Thursday, December 15th or before that if they sell out sooner. Just a few camera straps remain so if you are interested, don't wait too long. I'd hate for you to miss out.

I hope to be back here in the next day or so. I'm busy finishing my one handmade gift and getting the last of the presents wrapped and ready. See you soon.

Jane turned 12 on Friday. That's a lot of birthday candles. And kind of hard to believe, you know? She is such a sweet girl - kind, considerate, sensitive, funny, smart, creative. It's an amazing priviledge to watch her grow up. I'm grateful and blessed. She's such a bright spot in so many people's lives. We took her and a gaggle of her friends to see Hugo. Go see it, if you haven't already. All the girls loved it and Fatty and I agreed. Fantastic.

The halls are decked and the tree is trimmed. The tree almost fell over and if I were the superstitious kind, I'd say I had that coming. But, I'm not superstitious so I'm choosing to shrug my shoulders and thank Fatty's foresight for wrapping a wire around the trunk and anchoring it to an eye hook in the nearest window frame. And then thank him again for adding an additional wire and eye hook to the other window (the tree is in a corner) after the severe tilting, almost falling incident. I've planted the paperwhites and hung the garland. I've repaired one smoker that lost its nose and a nutcracker that lost its arm. How this happens while these things are in storage baffles me. I've started addressing the Christmas cards - I got to the letter H and stopped. And I ended up with an extra wreath this year, so I hung it over the kitchen sink. It is so nice to look at it while washing dishes and cooking. That may be the most brilliant idea that I've had recently.

I have not yet finished any sort of handmade gift. I will definitely finish the quilt that has been started and beyond that, anything else I manage will be a bonus. I really wanted to design a calendar tea towel for 2012, but didn't manage that. I guess there is still time so maybe that will happen.

I have a few gifts left to purchase, but nothing crazy or hard to find. I've decided to give the teachers a donation in their name to the local soup kitchen along with a small token of appreciation. We're also looking through the house and finding gently used things that someone else may need at this time of year. So far, I've donated a television and have plans to donate the kids' outgrown bikes.

I haven't baked a single cookie and am not sure if I am going to or not. Gingerbread is definitely on the list to make as well as a surprise culinary gift for my siblings and parents. I plan on picking up gingerbread house kits for the girls to decorate one evening with a babysitter while Fatty and I are out.

The advent calendar is not set up yet, but I've been giving the girls little treats each day. Tomorrow I will fill it. Yes, I will.

And so, that's where I am right now. How's December treating you?

All these glorious patchwork strips have been turned into camera straps that are now available in my shop! I'm pretty excited about this group of colorways and even considered holding one back for myself, but I didn't. The fact is, I couldn't choose which one to keep.

If you are so inclined, please take a look. I'll keep the shop open until December 15th or the merchandise is sold out. I'm happy to ship straight to your gift recipient and enclose a gift card if you need one - just let me know in the notes to seller part when you get to paypal. I'll also ship overseas, but cannot guarantee Christmas delivery. Generally, anything shipped overseas by December 5th should get there, but unfortunately the post office won't make a promise, so neither will I.

Time for me to clean up the sewing mess and get this house spiffy for Christmas. Back here soon.

The winner of Little Bits Quilting Bee is #71 Kelly O

The winner of the Northcote Range fabric bundle is #35 Leila

Congratulations to both of you! Please email me with your addresses so the prizes can be sent off to you.

In other news, the House on Hill Road shop will be re-stocked on Tuesday, November 29th with a batch of patchwork camera straps. I will close the shop on December 15th or when the inventory is sold, whichever comes first. I am happy to ship overseas, but I cannot guarantee delivery by Christmas.

I'm signing off for the long weekend. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you and your families. To those of you outside the U.S., I hope you have a lovely weekend as well.

The people at Cabbage and Roses, an English fashion and housewares company, asked me if I would want to partner with them to do a giveaway of some fabric from their new quilting line Northcote Range for Moda. The collection is full of vintage florals in a soft palette with some stripes and solids, too. Who doesn't like pretty fabric? Right. I jumped at the chance.

They sent me a yard of this green and cream floral and a fat quarter of a small red print. The colors reminded me of Christmas and with the holidays fast approaching, I thought it might be fun to make a stocking. I've had this idea percolating for awhile now and it was great to see it come together like I had it in my head.

I added the green velvet ribbon from my stash to tie it all together. I'm pretty pleased with the end result and it was a quick, satisying project. I might just have to make a few more!

Now it's your turn...Cabbage and Roses are offering a bundle of fabrics (1 yard of a green floral, 1 yard of a matching green solid & 1 quarter yard of a green stripe) to one of my readers. Tell me what you would do with the fabrics if you win. I'll keep the comments open until Sunday, November 20th at 5:00 p.m. EST. I'll announce the winner next week.

You can learn more about Cabbage and Roses through their website, blog, facebook and twitter.

Enjoy the weekend.

Today I have a rare, most likely one-time treat for you: Fatty's taking over the blog! He's working on a small project that I thought you all might want to hear about. He's been talking about doing this since last year and the time finally arrived. Plus, it's his birthday today! I'm not spilling the beans on how old - let's just say that he's older than me. Ahem. Take it away, Fatty.....

 Growing a mustache isn't really all that hard.  Empirically it seems to be taking a little longer than I thought it would.  It's time consuming.  Maybe I should have been tipped off by the actually terminology of "growing a mustache" as opposed to possibly "wearing a mustache".  I feel more like I've been cultivating a mustache over the last 16 days.  It didn't look like a mustache until the end of the first week.  Days one through seven felt like the chia pet stage.  Things really started to solidify this weekend at a local bike race on day thirteen.  I was not racing myself.  I was watching the pros race here in town in our leg of the USGP of Cyclocross.  I wore my favorite Akubra snowy river hat that looks like a real buckeroo cowboy hat (steamed into its current shape one drunken night 20 years ago by a true friend who happened to be a part time rodeo cowboy).  It is my go to hat on a sunny day when I know I'll be outside all day.  The combination of the hat and my fresh mustache drove home the fact that cowboys have more fun.  I crossed over into real mustache land the next day when I went for a mountain bike ride in the late afternoon and could feel the wind blowing through the mustache.  It was wild and kind of cool.  On the negative side, now I have to think about food and beverage getting trapped on the upper lip.

Well, enough rambling.  I'm halfway through the month of Movember and excited to see what this thing ends up looking like.  Movember is a charitable concept built around getting guys to grow sponsored mustaches in an effort to raise funds and awareness for men's health, specifically prostate cancer.  The guys (Mo-Bros) and a few ladies (Mo-Sistas) from our beer company have challenged another beer company to see who can raise the most money for the Movember cause.  Erin encouraged me to write a blog post about it for you charitable folks.  If you feel like supporting my efforts by making a donation, please visit my mospace page at http://mobro.co/fatty.

Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for any help.  Happy birthday to me.  Hooray beer.

Fatty

fabrics for camera straps...

hat patterns for stashed yarn...

backing and binding options.

And you? What are contemplating today?