Surviving the Holidays

I hope that you're not too stressed with the holiday preparations. I've been taking some of my advice this year...because not much is ready here 😁 

10 strategies for surviving the holidays 

Do you want to know the secret to surviving the holidays? These are my suggestions. I’m not an expert – except that I have managed to survive 58 of them so far…

BTW I can’t be held responsible if others in your family don’t approve of these great innovative ideas!

Survive and maybe even enjoy the holidays!

1. HIBERNATE! 

This is by far my favourite idea! Hide out in your quilting studio and don’t come out till the holidays are over – or better yet, when spring is in the air, your bulbs are peaking through the snow and the birds are back! 

If you just can’t swing this, negotiate at least one day (or a few hours over a few days) to yourself, in your quilting studio during the holidays. Hopefully that will be enough to energize you for a while.

Hibernate in your studio...for the holidays
or for the entire winter  😊

2. Gift giving - Online shopping

I know....we should be finished by now...but not a chance! 

We’ve all become experts on doing online shopping. It doesn’t mean that we don’t love our local quilt shop, it just means that we have expanded our horizons! The perfect time for online shopping is when all is quiet in the house! If you can’t get to the store across the city during the day, shop online and have it delivered…and if you spent lots and lots of money, they’ll deliver it for free!

Pamper yourself, or others, online

You can even buy locally online

3.  Gift giving - Quilted gifts

I can hear you wondering how this is going to help you survive the holidays since this is possibly one of your major holiday stressors. My innovative idea – give the hardest to-shop-for person a quilty IOU. In a Christmas card or on a large gift tag, write down what their quilted gift will be (keep it general, small and realistic – they may actually expect you to deliver on this!) Then you can shop the Boxing Day sales from the comfort of your home, buy some yummy fabrics for you and to make the gift!

This year, I am following this idea, sort of....I managed to make 2 Christmas placemats but only one of them got quilted before my son and his girlfriend left for the holidays....so I wrapped the one that was done, and will quilt the other one and send my son a picture of it so that he can share it with her 😊 on Christmas day. I can have it FMQ before Christmas, but not before they left this morning!

The one left to quilt! 😀

The finished one 😊

Here are some great gift ideas that could easily be delivered later....after Christmas!

Make a set of microwave bowl holders

Quilted baskets are a great gift and don't
need to be Christmas themed

4. Gift giving – Support local crafters, artists and companies

An alternative is to support local quilters. artists or specialty food companies, either online, in stores or through crafts shows. I know of several quilters who have Etsy shops with incredibly well made and reasonably priced quilted gifts and textile art. Don’t procrastinate though cause you’re going to run out of time!

Buy from local quilters on Etsy!

Cheesecakery Bakery - locally made cheesecakes
in a jar 😋 Yum!

5.  Decorating

Take out all of your Christmas quilts, runners and wall hangings and call the house decorated! If you really must have a tree, get two or three of your grandchildren, nieces and nephews, or neighbour's kids to help decorate the tree. Have them decorate your tree, then feed them holiday sweets and send them home before the sugar rush sets in!

Take out the Christmas quilts!

Take out your home-made holiday decorations

If the tree really needs to go up, get bribe the grand kids to do it!

6a.  Cooking – get invited

Get yourself invited for Christmas dinner somewhere, pick up an amazing desert at your favourite local bakery and a bottle of wine. If you can’t pull this one off, consider cooking less. There are great places that make excellent food that you could buy for parts of your meal.

Buy some locally made food to give or for parts of your meal

6b. Cooking - Try out your festive meal ahead of time

Make sure that the meal that you’re planning for Christmas dinner only includes recipes that you’ve tried before. This year, we practiced our dinner twice on company – so the third time will be a breeze! 

If you’re having people over, when they ask you what they can bring, instead of saying “Oh, don’t worry about it”, seriously consider letting them contribute. If they are really good at making something, give them the pleasure of making and sharing it with everyone.

7.  Sleep in

Even if you can't sleep in every day, give yourself permission to sleep in at least on one or two days.  If you're the type of person who wakes up at 6 am every day, consider getting up to make a coffee and then going back to bed with a great book. Give yourself permission to rest :-)

This Christmas we are dog-sitting my brother's two small dogs. They wake up early but once they've done their business and gotten their treat, they don't mind taking a nap 😊

Twix and Taffy going back to sleep!

8. Pamper yourself

What is the one thing that you haven't done in ages that you used to love to do, before kids, work and responsibilities? It could be singing your heart out, dancing, going out with friends for a cup of coffee or tea or maybe even giving yourself a manicure (or better still getting someone else to give you one!) Take the time this holiday season to do something that makes you happy or makes you laugh. You deserve it!

Take it easy and enjoy the holidays!

9. Reach out

The holiday season can be very difficult for people who are grieving or who are lonely. If you can, take some time out of your holiday to call or visit someone who could really use a friend.

Visit those who are lonely or grieving

10. Gratitude

No matter how busy or stressed this holiday season gets, remember that you are blessed with all kinds of wonderful people around you. You are also blessed with this amazing art that makes your soul sing! Be grateful for all that you have.

Gratitude makes everything better :-)

Do you have any other ideas for surviving the holidays? Please share them with us! 🎄🎅🎉

I wish you all a Christmas / Holiday season filled with love, joy, fun and peace.

Thanks so much for sharing this quilting journey with me. It means a lot to me 😊

Love, Andrée

Related links

• Original posts
• 8 strategies for surviving the holidays with Free Motion Mavericks, December 19, 2019
• 7 Ways to Survive the Holidays, December 23, 2016
• Sandra of mmm quilts on Etsy
• Cheesecakery Bakery 
• Superior Threads

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties. Let's see how other people are coping with the holidays😊 Mosaic Monday, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, 15 Minutes to Stitching 2021, Patchwork & Quilts, Oh Scrap!, TGIFF with Anja, Peacock Party, Off The Wall Friday, Tips and Tutorials, 

Free Motion Mavericks & the Holiday Season

Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday Season for everyone joining us this snowy Christmas eve. Welcome to Free Motion Mavericks week 312. 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday Season

I'm keeping it light on content today. Just have a look at some pretty Christmas and holiday season quilts. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then here is my very long post! 😊

Chevy and I wish you a happy, happy holiday
🎄🎅

Linking Parties

I will be linking up to some fun linking parties. Let's see what's going on! Remember to link up your FMQ or holiday post below!

To-Do Tuesday, Colour & Inspiration Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Peacock Party, Off The Wall Friday, 

Free Motion Mavericks

Thank you for linking up last time. I always love looking at your ongoing projects. Did you get to see Cheryl of Gone Stitchin's  Wonky Hexie Quilt? It includes two of my favourite things in one quilt....wonky and hexie! How cool is that? If you didn't see it, have a peak!

Wonky Hexie Quilt by
Cheryl of Gone Stitchin'

It's now your turn. If you have FMQ a project this week, please link up. However, if you just want to link up a Christmas or holiday related post that is recent or of years ago, please feel free to do so.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

7 Ways to Survive the Holidays

Hibernate!

Want to know the secret to surviving the holidays? These are my suggestions. BTW I can’t be held
responsible if others in your family don’t approve of these great innovative ideas!

1.  HIBERNATE! This is my favourite idea! Hide out in your quilting studio and don’t come out till the holidays are over – or better yet, when spring is in the air. If you just can’t swing this, try asking for at least one day to yourself, in your quilting studio during the holidays. Hopefully that will be enough to energize you for a while.

Winter Vacancy

2.  Quilted gifts: I can hear you wondering how this is going to help you survive the holidays since this is possibly one of your major holiday stressors. My innovative idea – give everyone on your list a quilty IOU. In a Christmas card or on a large gift tag, write down what their quilted gift will be (keep it general, small and realistic – they may actually expect you to deliver on this!) If you can’t do this for everyone, consider giving the hardest to-shop-for person a quilty IOU.

3.  Decorating: Take out all of your Christmas quilts, runners and wall hangings and call the house decorated!

Snow Globes make a great quilty IOU

Tree Skirt

4.  Cooking: Get yourself invited for Christmas dinner somewhere, pick up an amazing desert at your favourite local bakery and a bottle of wine. If you can’t pull this one off, consider cooking less. There are great places that make excellent food that you could buy for parts of your meal. If you’re having people over, when they ask you what they can bring, instead of saying “Oh, don’t worry about it”, seriously consider letting them contribute. If they are really good at making something, give them the pleasure of making and sharing it with everyone.

Take out your quilts and call the place decorated!

5.  Pamper yourself: while planning next year’s quilted IOUs, have a glass of wine, turn on (or off) the Christmas music and peruse the internet for fabrics you’ll need for those projects. There are lot of sales, so make sure to pick up a few quilting gifts for yourself!

Pamper yourself!

6.  Sleep in! Even if you can't sleep in every day, give yourself permission to sleep in at least on one or two days.  If you're the type of person who wakes up at 6 am every day, consider getting up to make a coffee and then going back to bed with a great book. Give yourself permission to relax :-)

Bandit sleeping in my fabric stash

7.  Gratitude
No matter how busy or stressed this holiday season gets, remember that you are blessed with all kinds of wonderful people around you. You are also blessed with this amazing art that makes your soul sing! Be grateful for all that you have.

I hope that your Christmas / Holiday season is filled with love, joy, fun and peace.

Thanks for sharing this quilting journey with me,

love to all,

Andrée

Winter Door Hanging

Gingerbread Mug Rug

Christmas Ball Mug Rug

I've linked to these great linky parties. Check them out!
Linky Tuesday, Let's Bee Social, Midweek Makers, Needle and Thread Thursday, Off the Wall Friday, Finished or Not Friday, Can I get a Whoop Whoop? I have also linked up Bandit's picture to Pets on Quilts 2017. Check out everyone's adorable pictures!

Ribbon Wreath Wall Hanging

Winter Door Hanging

Winter Door Hanging

I'm getting better....it's still winter and I finished my last seasonal door hanging! And is winter here with a vengeance today:-)

I always make up my door hangings in sections while trying to incorporate different quilting techniques. Of course, since it's my creation, there has to be lots of colour.


The first thing I did was take out my Christmas fabric stash (I hadn't taken it out yet - I wasn't in a very merry mood). I knew that I didn't want just a Christmas theme, but all of my winter fabrics with snowflakes and such are stored together. I decided that I would use the amazing blue fabric with snowflakes as my sky, so of course, a few stars had to be incorporated.

The second layer includes a couple of shapes I received at the Common Thread Quilt Guild social. I found a lovely Santa with polar bears fabric to add to the reindeer and sleigh.

All Bundled Up Snowman

Looking through my magazines, books and quilting patterns, I found a gorgeous snowman pattern called All Bundled Up designed by Kelly Mueller for The Wooden Bear. It doesn't seem to be available any more - that's really too bad.

Next to the snowman, I incorporated a winter cabin which was paper pieced from the book Quilter's Home - Winter by Lois Krushina Fletcher. I couldn't resist putting the Christmas tree in the window and of course, adding a red door. I was going to appliqué a few trees in the background when I found some lovely fabric with romping deer in a snowy forest. It was just perfect for the background.



At the bottom of the hanging, I added more abstract blocks. I had never made snowball blocks, so I incorporated two of them at one end. I had planned on hand-embroidering the snowflakes within them based on &Stitches' blog but finally I got impatient and used FMQ.

I've been wanting to make a log cabin block in dark and light fabrics for a long time. This was my chance. I adapted Block 8 - Winter Cabin from the Quilter's Home - Winter by Lois Krushina Fletcher.


Finally, the last panel is made up following Rayna Gillman's Create Your Own Free-Form Quilts technique. I've used this technique in several projects and find it most effective when the free-form quilt includes a print as a focal point. I think that so far, my best pieces using this technique are my scrappy Christmas wall hangings.

Although the photos don't really show the quilting (except for the coloured snowflakes within the snowballs and the snowflakes behind the snowman), I used this project to keep practicing my free-motion quilting skills. I echoed around the stars, the reindeer, the sleigh and the circle for the two top panels.

I quilted around the trees in the background as well as the cabin itself. For the log cabin and the free-form blocks, I practiced many of the free-motion quilting background patterns that would fit within 1½ inch strips.

What I learned:

• These door hangings are very improvisational - however, when I put the bottom panel together, I could see that my snowball blocks were too large and sticking out. I really should have reduced the log cabin block or the free-form block by an inch ....but I was too lazy to undo these three blocks. It's too bad, because it would have looked much better. 
• Amazingly enough, the FMQ snowflakes came out well - except that I really could have measured out the six branches of the snowflake. It's a good thing no 2 snowflakes are the same!

I'm really proud of my 4 seasonal door hangings. Here they all are!

Spring Door Hanging

Summer Door Hanging

Winter Door Hanging

Fall Door Hanging

This post is included in the following link-ups:

• Fabric Tuesdays

Go see what's going on in the quilting blog world!

February 10, 2015
Check out the new section on my blog: Projects from Books, Mags and Patterns. Since I learned to create new pages and a navigation bar, I am unstoppable :-) I am sooooo happy that this much fun is NOT illegal!