I finished my Christmas present quilt today.  Hooray!  It’s definitely not perfect, but then, of the dozens of handmade projects I’ve done, they never, ever are.  Tomorrow, hopefully I’ll get a cry-free, rain-free spell to photograph it.

Like the quilt that inspired it, I quilted horizontal lines on the solid fabric with a walking foot about an inch and a half apart.  I initially tried to use the walking foot on the pieced columns, but it was way too hard turning the quilt over and over, so I switched to a darning foot and free-motion quilted it.

 

I’ve gotten all of the items we purchased for the kids for Christmas in the mail.  We’re only getting them a couple things apiece because the relatives go to town.  For L, we got:\

Micro mini scooter  Blue, naturally, since all things in L’s life must be blue.

And Highway Maintenance Vehicles  L is a huge fan of construction sites and construction vehicles, and she also loves her set of mini toy cars and trucks.  She plays with them a few times a day, every day.

On a side note, I give L a “special toy” every day when I’m nursing B.  This is typically something very small, such as a marble.  Well, I bought this marble run for her.  (Note that is was available prime for $55 when I got it; Amazon must be out of stock at the moment as the price has gone way up.)  I was hesitant as to whether to buy it was there were cheaper plastic sets with more pieces.  However, I think it was a great buy.  I’ve been dispensing it to her one piece at a time over the last week or so, and we’ve been having a blast playing with it and learning how all the blocks work.  She’s actually very good at putting the pieces together.

On a side note, L counted to 10 (in my hearing) for the first time today.  I haven’t really taught her to count, and nor has B, so she mostly picked it up by osmosis.  Pretty cool.  She’s also getting really good at counting objects (as opposed to just reciting the numbers).  We were having a lot of fun reading Ten In The Bed  by Jane Cabrera.  (One of my all time favorite books for L is by her, The Wheels on the Bus.)

For B, we got a couple items as well.  First this Haba story book:

And second, this flutterbug:

We’ll let L help B unwrap.  It should be fun.

B and I aren’t exchanging presents as we’re part of the family gift exchange round robin.  We both have birthdays in December, so we just get each other birthday presents and call it a day.