Thinking of Christmas in June

Sleepy Santa--reminded me of sweet hubby when I saw this pattern years ago in a Tacoma area quilt shop. Just had to make him and put him in that cute little chair from a thrift shop. The velvet-clad Santa is also from a kit as I recall but I changed him around a bit. Love his beard. The lumberjack Santa is a tribute to my dear daddy who worked as a lumberjack, log hauler, lumber mill owner, lumber hauler, etc. in the 40's. He picked me up for school one day when I was in 3rd grade in California in a lumber hauler that drove over the lumber, grabbed it up and carried it underneath--rather like a spider thing--we had to climb up a ladder to the cab--it was very exciting to drive the 4 or 5 blocks to school that way!

Wanting so badly to do a fun Christmas quilt. Don't want it to be very big--probably a wall hanging size or a large lap size sort of thing. Love Kate Spain's 12 Days of Christmas line and think I just have to get at least some of her material, but not sure I can justify the whole set of fat quarter's! Choices, choices, choices. So far I've seen several places online (fatquarters.com and fabric.com for example) that carry it, not sure my lqs does--never remember to call until they're closed. You might think of joining ebates as you can get rebates if you go through them and fabric.com is one of the stores they list, not sure what other fabric shops might be on there.

I thought of joining a mystery BOM using Kate's fabrics but two reasons not to--quite expensive and there's just no way I can stand the idea of waiting a whole year to see the whole quilt!! So, think what happens is I'll figure out the blocks to use from a book just purchased today from amazon.com--for just a bit over two dollars--more to ship the thing (301 Country Christmas Blocks). Well, there's some of my angst over what to do with that cute fabric. And I wanted to share some of the many Santas I have--most of which I made out of fabric or wood over the last 20+ years. Merry Christmas a few months early.