Works in Progress Wednesday - The Freakout Edition

I had a post all ready last night for today -- it's the strikeout section below. But when I woke up today, I realized that it's only 10 days until Christmas Eve! 10 ... days ... until ... Christmas ... Eve, people! Aaack! There's too much to do between now and then. Plus, I have to be ready early because our visitors start arriving on the 22nd. So that's actually only 7 days for me.

Beware, what you are about to read will undoubtedly shock you. I know I look all calm and laid-back in that photo on the left, but my hair is on freakin' fire right now! If you do not want to have your image of me as the cool-collected-quilter-mom-extraordinaire dashed to bits, skip to the strikeout section below, where I am my normal, blow-sunshine-everywhere self. ;)

I'm "We" are hosting Christmas this year! Okay, so Iwe hosted last year and I'm we are only hosting Réveillon on Christmas Eve and probably brunch on Christmas day this year, but it still means making a ton of food that will feed everyone for days afterwards. Okay, so I buy a lot of it ready made. Like the tourtières (meat pies - sounds way nicer in French, right?). Why buy it when Costco makes it better? But I still have to heat it up, people, and arrange it all nice and all. Like, that's hard!

Then there's the baking! In my crazy pre-holiday calm, I invited a bunch of friends over for our 2nd Annual Mom's Office Lunch and Cookie Exchange, figuring we could have fun and that I could dupe my friends into making my holiday goodies for me. My evil plan backfired though because I also have to contribute! D'oh! So 10 dozen fudgey oatmeal bars it is. By Monday. It had better be fun.

Gift purchasing is almost done and it's a good thing too because it's getting mean out there, people. I elbowed this lady out of the way the other day because she was about to grab the last crayon maker and she had the gall to elbow me back. I mean, really, what the hell? I won though. My kids don't even want it, but I got it anyways to teach that lady a lesson.

And don't even get me started on the gift making. Yes, I was all cool showing off a couple of pillowcases for my boys that I made a couple of weeks ago. But I still have Micah's growth chart that I'd like to finish for him. I want it to be all art quilty like the other two, but that means actually staring into space a lot and playing on the design board. That's two days right there and that's not taking into account the sewing! Plus there's the 20 mug rugs for teachers, colleagues, bus drivers, etc. to be paired with mugs, tea and cocoa. I mean, why pay decent prices for mug sets when you can make them for way more? Truly beyond me.

Oh, and the decorating?! Yes, the house is largely decorated. Yes, it all looks fabulous. I'm a freakin' Martha Stewart...if you can get past the windows with God-knows-what smeared on them and the toys all over the place. The tree is even trimmed. But I bought a bunch of new ornaments at the after Christmas sales last year, which means that we have a lot of extra ornaments now. Plus the kids seem to be coming home with new ornaments every day (between Beavers, church, school, and various holiday parties, plus the ones I'm making them do, I think we have an additional 30 unique-and-lovely-handmade-by-children ornaments). Now, you could ask why I don't just donate some to Value Village or the Sally Ann? Well, I just don't think they are going to appreciate Daniel's three-eyed Rudolph like I do. Sooo...it probably means that we'll haul the artificial tree up from downstairs and decorate it this weekend. I'm starting to get hives thinking about taking everything down...

And then there's this craft that I found on Pinterest. I don't need to do it and I don't even have a door in mind to put it on, let alone the door hanger thingy to hang it on, but I have to make it! And the other cardholder wallhanging that I designed after making this one is just itching to be made. Not to mention all my other WIPs that are totally being ignored. Poor little guys.

And then I noticed that the house next door is now up for sale and that they are having an Open House this weekend. You know what that means, right? It means that we have to have the kids outside playing during the Open House so that we attract a family. Prospective buyers need to know that they are going to be moving to a fun, friendly, community-oriented street so it can't be just my kids playing outside. So I think we'll have to organize an impromptu street hockey game with all the kids in the neighbourhood. Yep, and if the kids are all outside playing, then we'll probably make some appetizers and get some beer and wine for the adults, kind of a street holiday party. You know, to make sure that prospective buyers know what a great street they can live on. Just need to make sure John up the street doesn't drink too much though. Wouldn't be good for prospective buyers to see him peeing on the For Sale sign...again. Oh boy...

Then there's the cleaning! Oh and we haven't visited Santa yet or made the gingerbread house or the sugar cookies. Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh....I think my head just exploded.

Oh wow, will you look at that, my holiday freakout came early this year. Nice! Well, glad that's over. Let's get back to business...

Must...stop...visiting the giveaway blogs. So...hard...okay...maybe...just...one...more! This is the first time I've participated as a host and as a visiter. I've been blown away by the response. Wow! I'm loving the travel suggestions that you all have left for me. Oh, how I wish I could visit all those places right now. And to those who decided to follow -- thank you so much! Hopefully you'll enjoy what you read and see here. If you haven't entered my giveaways yet, there's still time.

The cheeky Lucy of Charm About You is hosting this week's TGIFF! Did you see that she was profiled on Live a Colourful Life's The Name Game? As always, if you've got a finish, you are more than welcome to link up. Let's see those holiday gifts and projects! Check out the TGIF Friday! site for more details. I'm hoping to have a some small projects to share that I haven't talked about yet.

Making good progress on my list of projects:

New Projects:

Asterisk Christmas Table Runner - As I mentioned on Saturday, I made excellent progress on this Friday night. The top is done! 

I love the simple look to this so I also bought black ones to make it reversible. I'm thinking of making the other side Halloween themed. 

Completed Projects:

Wee Spy Quilts - Finished two of them! I'll admit here that one of the reasons the red one got finished is because I couldn't bear to add another found project to my WIP list. ;) Glad it's done and that it will find a good home with a special child. 

Current Projects:

Stained Glass Lillies - A couple more sections done. Yay! I'm finding this such an odd project. I'm often reluctant to pick it up to work on it, because I'm worried that I'm going to lose some of the fabrics that are glued on. In hindsight, I think I should have just used fusible webbing for the inserted fabrics, but I was worried that it would be too stiff for hand appliqué. Instead, I used a fabric glue stick to attach the inserted fabrics, but just used a few rubs here and there so some of the fabrics are coming loose. Not a huge deal, because I can just reinsert them, but it just makes me reluctant to play around it with a lot. That said, once I do pick it up, I fall in love with it again and I just want to keep working on it. Then I put it down and the cycle continues. Such a roller coaster, this one! ;)

Clockwork Orange - No progress and probably won't be until after the holidays.

Just Me and My Peeps - No progress and probably ditto on this one. :(

On Hold:

Red and Tan Bargello in the Round 2

Happy Villages

Converging Stars

10BX Leaves

Kingston quilt

Micah's Growth Chart

Fibonacci's Not Random

Red and Tan Amish Wedding Ring

Tangled Garden

Spiral/Spring seta colour

UFOs that may one day get finished, but really who knows?

Chop Suey

Wedding quilt

Linus quilt

Nine patch colourwash

WIP Wednesday Recap:

New projects: 1

Current projects: 3

Completed project: 2

On Hold: 10

UFOs: 4

Bucket List: 41

I'm linking in to WIP Wednesday at The Needle and Thread Network. Let's go check out the fun stuff going on over there. If you are a Canadian blogger, come and link up your progress. It's a fun way to meet other Canadian quilt bloggers.

Have a great Wednesday everyone! What are you working on?