Holiday Sewing

When the family is home for the holidays, after many of the traditional holiday rituals, we tend to fall into a ritual of finding our way to the sewing room.  This year the sewing room is sporting a new feature--a television.  It has taken me a long time to make this decision.  However, as our family has matured, I can see that favorite movies, football and laughing at some shows is a together time.  While some of the family who enjoy the action, adventure fair for movies are in the family room, others have picked on favorites and now are loving having music from the 70s.  Nice addition.



I mostly added the tv so that Henry would be comfortable sitting in the sewing room with me and having something to do while I sew in the evenings.   Some people find this funny, but we just added cable tv last week.  We have never had any more than what an antennae could bring in.  Until a few years ago, our family rarely had the tv on for much more than three hours a week.  It started as a discipline of not wanting our family to be congregated around tv.  Then it became a practice and everyone found it easy to adopt other hobbies, reading, sewing, game playing, homework.  Our friends used to tease us that we were the last people on the planet to get a VCR.  When we did get one, the kids got in the habit of treating it like going to the theatre.  It was something you invited the rest of the family to watch a movie with you.  Adding more media to the house isn't so tough on me now as I see it as an adjunct rather than a replacement for our hobbies. 

Morning time, is still my favorite time to sew.  As the kids have dogs that come home with them, getting up early also means I have the breakfast and morning run for the critters.   Grab a cup of coffee and quietly slip away to the sewing room for some quiet time.  But, alas, Therese finds me.  "Perfect.  This is the BEST time of day to sew."  It is nice sewing with her because we don't always have a need to talk about everything.  We get lost in our own sewing and enjoy the view out of the sewing room as the dogs wrestle with each other.

It is funny though to have her commenting on the musicians of the 70s.  She does know who most of them are and is very familiar with their music; but then when I was in high school, I also knew a lot of the music from the 50s.   It is an experience though listening to music that was such a part of my teen culture and hearing it now through my kids' ears.  Every once in a while, she will say, "ooo....that is creepy."  And I would have to agree with her.

But what a treat to share this time with them and to enjoy the holiday season at a very different pace.  I am playing with machine applique and machine quilting.  I am loving the monster speed that my 830 gives me with these techniques.  We also share a few projects.  Therese has had fun cutting out a new quilt pattern that she has loved for a long time and I am going to tackle the applique for her because I love the applique part of that project.

The sewing room is alive with all kinds of projects, some quilting, some stuffed animals, sudoko, a bit of card making, scrap booking and even some video gaming.  I hope your holiday is lively with the inspiration all around you.
All the Best to You, jill