Sommer the Christmas 'Elf'....

I've been a little M-I-A lately as my sister will atest to based on my facebook updates but I've been a busy elf...don't you just love Christmas!

Instead of the 12 days of Christmas this year....it's been the last several weeks of Christmas for me as I’ve had the gift of WORK- thanks to my own planning ….or rather LACK of planning..... but I can’t complain- I’ve also had some REALLY nice gifts from my true love who gave to me the gifts of service, understanding, patience, kindness and lots of support!


Last year I got totally overwhelmed at Christmastime. This year I am happy to report that I had a much more pleasant experience. Every year I say I am going to start early on my Christmas gifts and every year I take months and months to decide and at the last minute I usually change my mind....those darn cute blogs with all their AWESOME and AMAZING ideas will be the death of me one day!

Here’s what’s been keeping me busy this Christmas Season:

- 1 crochet afghan for my friend Kat
- 2 pieced throws for my friend Shelly and my Secret Santa gift for my coworker
- 40 crochet bookmarks for the ladies at church
- 80 potholders
- 40 felt monogramed ornaments

Since the office I work for is open 7 days a week, my days off are pretty inconsistent. Add going to church into the mix and my schedule gets a little crazy. This is the first Christmas season in a while that I wasn't focused on Relief Society service projects which was a welcome change....but I managed to fill up the time in other ways (as usual).

Since October my "spare" time at home has been filled with cutting up my scraps of fabric pieces into strips and blocks and then sewing all the little pieces together only to cut them out into squares for my potholders. I got a little over zealous and ended up making about 40 pairs (80 single) potholders! I was so proud of myself for getting the ones for my family mailed off on time and then shifted focus to my friends, family and coworkers around here.

On my lunch breaks at work I was either crocheting bookmarks for the ladies at church or embroidering the backs of little monogramed ornaments to be "gift tags" for my potholders.

Last week just a few days before our Christmas party at work, my wonderful hubby was once again roped into helping me turn right side out a bunch of the pot holders. Poor thing, he's always getting suckered into doing crafty projects with me. If it isn't surging up seams or filling little goodie bags it's cutting off the hanging threads or in this case trying to turn a bulky potholder through little openings hardly big enough to barely fit one of his fingers. Somehow, he managed to make it all work. With perfect points! Which is INCREDIBLE! He is so amazing- I definitely picked a keeper :o)

Pictures forthcoming.....