Merry Christmas!

I'm down in Salem for the Christmas holidays to hang out with my dad and his girlfriend. Her daughters are both married, so they have a lot of family to get around to for Christmas time. They all came over early, so we celebrated Christmas yesterday. It's a bit odd to have all the presents be done already! So for today, actual Christmas, I've just slept in. We're all going to see Avatar later today, and then it's off to Eugene tomorrow for a meal with my aunt and uncle, and then back to Portland and my sewing machine!

I knew I wouldn't be able to take it with me when I came, so I've been preparing a project I can do by hand. I bought the Aunt Millie's Garden pattern from Piece O' Cake designs. Here's a photo from their website.

Looks easy right? We'll see how it goes. I guess I like jumping in feet first to quilting sort of projects. I'm such a sucker for red.

I've decided to track a two things with this project, time and money spent. I really enjoy quilting. I've done a lot of art type things over the years, (painting, drawing, piano, illustration) and this is the first one that I've actually done on my own time, and not for a grade. I'd like to get to the point someday where I can make my own patterns and sell them, or enter shows. Keeping track of time and money should give me an idea of how I should value these projects. I'm not saying I'll ever make oodles of money off this, or that anytime soon I'll have anything worth selling, but I think it might be a good habit to get into.

I've also decided I'm not going to buy fabric unless it's for a specific project. I decided this a while ago, but I got an email from Cool Cottons talking about an after Christmas sale and my first thought was, "Oh, I should go in a check it out, what a deal!", before I reminded myself that I'm a) on a budget, and b) it's not a deal if you weren't already going to buy it.

I'm quite wary of sales and coupons (not that I think the very nice women at Cool Cottons would have a scam sale) ever since I worked at a large department store for the holidays last year. They had "sales" and "coupons" that weren't really deals. Things that were "on sale" were in-house brands made by the company, and they always were on sale. People were so pleased that they got such a good deal because the sign said 40% off, but they were always 40% off. The coupons they had were misleading, and half the things in the store weren't eligible. You had to spend a certain amount to get the discount from the coupon, and people would get to the register, find out they didn't have enough eligible stuff, and go back to find more just so their coupon would work.

I think this is all fine, only as long as it was something they were going to buy anyway, which is a philosophy I'm trying hard to adopt. All that being said, I did join the Joann's preferred customer program, and they send me lots of coupons that seem to be legit. There are exclusions, but they don't seem to be to restrictive. I wouldn't really buy fabric from Joann's, but I do get a lot of notions there, so the coupons seem to save me money. The only thing I can think is that the stuff at Joann's might already be overpriced, but I did get the Aunt Millie's Garden pattern there for 40% off, and the retail price at Joann's was the same as the Piece O' Cake website.

I have all the money spend so far listed at home, so I'm going to post that info when I get back.

Happy Holidays!