Secret Santa and fabulous frost

Beautiful A4 folio cover arrived from my BQL Secret Santa.

Followed by a walk in wonderful frosty park, both adding to a lovely Christmas Day.

And may all your Christmases be gingerbread coloured……

Felt, white thread, too much snow, lots of film watching, leads to…

Happy Christmas to all our readers.

Mini projects and mackerel skies

Still cold, and too much on to tackle big projects.  So, some experiments with stitches and eyelets: elongated blanket stitches on vintage linen

 

Then, bullion, raised chain band and more elongated blanket around eyelets on vintage linen

I had pondered backing these with a bright colour or filling the eyelets with a stuffed piece of something bright, but perhaps simple is best.

Fast sewing of hand / shoe/ pocket warmers: 6 x3 inches of fabric, sewn to a pyramid, stuffed with 100g of long grain rice, in the microwave for 40 secs – instant bliss.

Just dashed out to get photos of a stunning mackerel sky.

Dashing through the snow…….

4cm of snow and elder son’s school is closed. 

Pond looks lovely though

At least it is an excuse to get out the Christmas cushions and start loud renditions of the song title thereon, much to children’s embarrassment.

Advent adventures

I enjoy Christmas, mostly for the family traditions and habits that it involves.  Ours started yesterday with putting up the stitched advent calendar, packing off the presents to Australia and spending more time that would seem possible finding the Christmas quilt.  The excuse was that it hadn’t been out for two years as were in Australia for Christmas last year.

  

The wonderful Gina Ferrari is attempting an advent blog, with a post every day through to Christmas – she is really superwoman.

PS if you know anyone who is a beginner quilter, I can recommend “Ultimate Quilting Bible” edited by Marie Clayton – and not only because my Christmas quilt is in it.