Christmas dolls

Fall decorations are back in the attic and the huge plastic tubs of Christmas stuff - all 10 of them - are all over the living room floor. The large artificial tree - the bottom tier anyway - is in the stand waiting for me to arrange the limbs. I have a severe allergy to real evergreens - put one in the house and you'd swear I had pneumonia within 5 days - so we have the nicest artificial trees we could find. We have a little tree for the family room upstairs too, which is usually the last thing decorated. I'm really late getting this done this year - everything is usually up by December 1st. Rebecca and Rick are coming over tonight and will help us with the decorating.

I do have lots of pictures from prior years - that's what I've been posting - so I'll still put up a few at a time. The first is a Santa I made probably 10 years ago. We had a very talented lady in Tangled Threads for awhile who made all sorts of wonderful things. She made these Santas one year and sold them to Nordstrom - who sold them for $250 each. She helped us all make our own. Mine is a Woodland Santa with a forest green wool coat trimmed in rich dark fur. His pack is a red plaid wool. Real wool is used on his beard, hair and eyebrows. He stands about 18" tall. Karen painted the faces for us - thank goodness! We spent 3 weeks making these and they were so much fun to do!

I made the second Santa over 20 years ago in a class at a local shop. The shop was a "precursor" of today's quilt shops - fabrics, country crafts, etc. He was lots of fun to do - especially because I didn't have to paint his face either - it's stenciled.

I made dozens of these bears in two sizes when I was doing bazaars - this one is the only one I have left. He's made from white wool and mohair coat fabric - wonderful stuff that retailed for $27 a yard in the mid 80's. I bought it when it was on sale and was able to make over 20 bears per yard. I still have some of the fabric - in camel's hair brown also - so one of these days I'll make more bears for myself. The little angel came from another crafts booth at one of the bazaars. I love her moss hair and doily wings.

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Gratitudes:

1. Pizza for Christmas decorating dinner - mine will be weight watchers.
2. The scale says 4 pounds down this morning! I weigh every day because it keeps me on track.
3. Lunch out with my current and future supervisors today.
4. Rebecca and Rick have moved to #10 on the adoption list!
5. Icy blue winter skies

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