Design Wall Monday: Jingle Pieced Block No. 8 Completed

Jingle Pieced Block No. 8

I finally managed to finish another pieced block for my Jingle BOM project, designed by Erin Russek of One Piece at a Time.  Don't you just love how I fussy-cut the Christmas tree for the center square?  So did I -- until I remembered that the blocks are going to be set on point, like this:

Glad I Worked So Hard to Achieve a Perfectly Crooked Tree...

Ah, c'est la vie, n'est ce pas?  I did enough frog-stitching (rip it!  rip it!) with this block already to get nice points on all my triangles.  I hereby name this block The Leaning Tree of Christmas.

Meanwhile, I spent about a thousand hours stitching down the bias stems on the large center medallion applique for this project over the past couple of weeks.  Now the stems are done, and I glue-basted my center poinsettia petals in place so I can start stitching those down RIGHT NOW while I read The Hobbit with Lars.  Hopefully he's brushing his teeth while I'm typing this.

We're pretty much set for Christmas Eve tomorrow.  It's my dad's birthday, so my parents will be coming over to our house for a birthday/Christmas Eve dinner before we all head out to church.  The rouladen is made and ready to bake for dinner, the birthday pineapple upside-down cake ingredients are ready to go, and those stockings are hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that Santa's elves have a sense of humor and put the boys on the Nice list despite their shenanigans.

I'm linking up with Judy's Design Wall Monday over at Patchwork Times because I'm thrilled to have FINISHED SOMETHING today, even if my tree did end up crooked!

Merry Christmas, everyone!