Trying to not be a Scrooge this year.

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. We had a low key time around our house. And in an unusual move for me we started to get ready for Christmas. In recent years I have been a bit of a Scrooge. For many reasons really but mostly because I feel like a bit of a hippocrate (spelling?) since we do not participate in the religious aspects of Christmas.

We put up the tree and made cookies. I know I know, Thanksgiving is supposed to be more than just the start of the Christmas Season, but hey it was just us. We did what we were in the mood to do.

I saw "The History of Christmas" on the History Channel the other day and according to it, there has always been basically two Christmases. One secular and one religious.

According to our good friends (though we have never met) at The History Channel the secular holiday has always been basically about hanging out with your friends, eating, drinking and having a good old time. Sounds good to me! I am not the only one who ignores the religious aspects of the holiday and admits to just enjoying the cheerful part of it. Gotta love America, we even have the right to "celebrate" Christmas the way we want to or not and none of us can agree on how to do it.

Speaking of the "Holidays" ... I am all packed up and ready to head on over to the Decatur Holiday Marketplace at Clairmont Elementary. Should be lots of fun! There will be over 100 craft and art booths, food and music. So if you are around this weekend stop on by tonight 5:30 - 9:30 or tomorrow from 10:00 - 8:00. It is going to be a long couple of days, seeing some familiar faces would be nice. Plus you can check out the market and support some local artists while getting some Christmas (of holiday of your choice) shopping done. Or if you are like me buy a bunch of stuff for yourself ;)

I am proud of myself for planning well and not being uber stressed here at the last minute. My brilliant hubby helped me set up a mock booth the other night and it made me feel tons better. I was worried that my booth would look all sad and pitiful and I was wrong. It is going to be great. Seriously it will be at least 3/4 assed (you know rather than 1/2 assed) which is acceptable to me these days. Hey I am not Martha Stewart.

Since I had a little time today I started on the Hot Buttered Toast apron that a friend of mine special ordered as a gift for her mother. The nice thing is I had it all cut out from when I was making aprons for the festival and had just put it to the side.

Back when I cut this one out I planned for it to have a ruffle edge. So here is the beginning of the ruffling process. I wanted it to be a subtle detail and not detract from the overall fabulousness of the fun fabric and the fun nature of the design of the apron. So in the interest of laziness and simplicity I finished the bottom edge of the ruffle with a rolled hem - napkin edge finish. Super easy - if you have a serger. Make sure you are using a single needle and remove your stitch finger to get this finished edge. If you have questions about how to set up your serger for this, just ask!

Then I changed up my serger settings and used the serger to create the ruffle. It is a simple change. But you have to put the stitch finger back in and use two needles. Again if you want more details on how to do this serger technique let me know. But I still pull out my manual and use it for the settings just about every time. I also make notes right in the book about how to make it work better.A ruffle made on the serger is more subtle than doing a ruffle by hand out using a ruffler attachment on your sewing machine. You do have less control over what the ruffle will look like. But serger ruffles are predictable and that is what I wanted.

Well I better head on out and get to work. Hope to see you this weekend if you are in town!

Peace Out!
Chrissy