15! FIF...TEEN!!!!

15?  15 what I hear you ask. See if you can guess before you read any further.

15 little itty bitty Christmas finishes that need FFOing.  Well! Luke is away on a college residential to the Lake Distric next week so I could get the sewing machine out and leave it on the kitchen table all week!! So, watch this space!

I got my Around the World in 80 Stitches out during the week as it fitted most of the Stitch Maynia Olympic challenges.  I didn't do much - it was the last week of term which is always hectic as we have to fit EVERYTHING in that doesn't want carrying forward to next term into it.

To add to the Christmas shame...I finished another design yesterday.  In my defence, it is almost FFOed.  All it needs is some felt on the back to cover up the stitching mess that is there. Snowflake Tree by Mill Hill stitched on perforated paper.  It was my first time using the stuff and I am still undecided whether I like it or not.  It is a really cute design and will be lovely on my little ornie tree this year.  This was one of the projects on my focus list for the year which means I have now finished 3 projects off that.

Mill Hill - Snowflake Tree

In other news, Luke brought home a trip letter from college this week.  I think I prefer the good old primary school days when a trip letter meant finding a tenner to pay for it.  This one is a 'psychology' trip to New York for 5 days.  A mere £1000!!!  Sorry, I shouldn't exaggerate, I do get £15 change from my £1000.  Still they are packing in absolutely tons of activities in the short time they are there so it will be well worth it - especially since it will be the first time he has ever left the country!  I wonder if I could get him to go cross stitch shopping for me???  Hmmmm...

Vixen

Rather than have a new start on Christmas Day as is traditional, I decided to revive an old Christmas Day start. This is Vixen by Nora Corbett which I started in 2013 - before and after! I only have the Whispa thread, beads and treasures to add. Could there be a finish before New Year?

(Sorry for the side on photo, I can't seem to change it on my phone.)

Vixen - Nora Corbett
Fabric - Crafty Kitten, Icicle

Santa Sleighs, iStitch Advent SAL, Christmas

***** Merry Christmas *****

Back in 2008, I made Santa Sleigh's with Rachael and Luke.  We have always had fond memories of them and every year since, we have said we should make them again.  So this year we did!  Here is a link to the original versions...Santa Sleigh's...and below are what we created today.  Hopefully you can see some improvement in technique :)  First time round, Rachael would have been 9 and Luke 7.

Rachael's

  Luke's  

Rachael's

Rachael's

Luke's    

Luke's   

Rachael's

Luke's    

A photo taken from a strange angle which makes the kids look about 7ft tall!  Our tree is actually 8ft high with a 12" angel on top!  (The first ever (we think) of one of the cats being in the kids, tree and presents photo.)

Rachael cuddling David...bless.  One of her presents actually reduced her to happy tears.  One of the lads from school, no they're not going out, they're 'just friends', bought her a mug with one of the selfie's of Rachael when she met David Tennant.  Bless...

Luke opening one of his Xbox games, not one I would have chosen!  Sadly, it was an 18 so he will have very limited time on it daily.

This is the tree this year.  You can't actually see many of my cross stitch ornies or the ones that have been gifted to me.  I sit at the far end of the sofa you can see in the photo and tend to hang them to the side so that I can view them when I'm sat on the sofa.

And finally, I have been stitching the iStitch Advent SAL this year and finished it ON TIME!  Can you believe that?  I was about 6 days behind until Sunday but caught up and was ready and waiting for the final part to be released on Christmas Eve.  Now how to finish it???

Advent Calendar bloghop

You have no idea how honoured I feel to have 24th December as my Advent Calendar date.  I don't know where Jo gets the idea that I am excited from although she said it's something to do with the fact that her computer glows red and bounces up and down when she receives an email from me!!!  Imagine if it was snowing too...

Anyway, this is my offering for Christmas.  I bought the kit at the Harrogate show and have never tried beading before...well other than adding beads to cross stitch designs.  I loved it!  Something happened to it and one bit came undone so I unpicked it and started it again which didn't take too long.

Spellbound Beads - Starry Night kit

We don't have many traditions as such that revolve around food in our house.  Our big (non food) tradition is doing the Christmas decorating.  The first full weekend of December, the tree goes up.  Our tree is huge!  It is 7.5 feet tall and with the angel on top there is about an inch gap between her head and the ceiling.  So the big tree box comes out of the cupboard and the children sort the colour coded branches out.  Then the 'fun' part of making the branches look like a real tree begins.  The children do the donkey work whilst I add them to the tree and titivate them so they look their best.  Once this is done I put the lights on the tree. Aftwerwards, all four of us take it in turns to choose a piece of tinsel for me to put on the tree with the only rule being not to have two of the same colour next to each other.  Then the decorations come out and we take it in turns to choose one and add it in a suitable space.  The only person allowed to hang the lovely Kris Kringle that I received from Shirlee about 10 years or so ago is me and it goes where I can see it from where I sit.  I also tend to hang all the cross stitch ones I have been gifted whereas anyone can add the ones I have made.

The final thing to be added is the angel on top.  This year she was added by Rachael.

For food 'traditions' we have breakfast first of all.  Breakfast is either croissants or pain au chocolats depending on who wants what.  Sadly Rachael is very fussy and ends up with either a bowl of cereal or bog standard toast.  She might go really mad and have some Nutella on it this year!!

Christmas dinner is cooked by Colin who does a better roast dinner than me.  We have turkey and gammon with mash and roast potatoes.  Veg wise it's a mix of sprouts, runner beans (home grown but frozen!), peas, carrots, parsnips, butternut squash, cauliflower and broccoli.  Different people eat different veg so we cook them in the steamer and add bits for each person! There is also yorkshire pudding and stuffing with gravy. After dinner, we leave having dessert for a long time!  This tends to be a gateau of some kind, this year is a Marks and Spencer's strawberry gateau.  

Then that is all the big cooking done for the Christmas period.  Boxing Day is a buffet meal with everything being a bung in the oven or whip out the fridge item.  From then on, we tend to graze on buffet bits for the next few days just cooking up things as we need more to add to it.

Christmas Day and Boxing Day see the children allowed to eat chocolate/sweets whenever they want to without asking.  Not until after Christmas dinner though!  Usually sweets are a treat which are generally only eaten after meals.

On New Year's Day we recreate the Christmas dinner as our first meal of the new year.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and wish you peace and joy (with some stitchy gifts thrown in).

First of all I thought I would do a quick Christmas round up.  These are the yummy mince pies that  I made with Luke.  I explained the steps to him, he did the work.  Definitely the best way to do the cooking!!  The photo must be a little dark as they definitely weren't as dark as the look.  There is a close up of one of them too.

Something you don't often see is a picture of me.  This is us at the Christmas table.  Excuse the big plastic jug  at the front of the shot.  We don't have a gravy boat.

This is all the presents under the tree ready for opening.

This is the lovely stash I received for Christmas.  There is CCN - Needlework Shop, LHN - Chocolate Shoppe, Sue Hillis - The Key to my Heart and CCN - Santa's Village which is on autoship from The Patchwork Rabbit with the buttons and speciality threads.

We had a very quiet day but it was really nice and chilled.  The children were pleased with their presents which is the main thing.

Merry Christmas

**** Merry Christmas ****

Christmas blessings to everyone and if you don't celebrate Christmas just enjoy a day off work and have a rest.  I hope you are all having a peaceful day and that you and yours are safe and happy.  Thinking of all the people not at home or with their loved ones this year and especially the people struggling with flooding in the UK at the moment.

photo from http://catholiclane.com

Jo's Advent Calendar - 5th December

Woohoo - it's my day today!!!

I spent ages looking at all my Christmas designs before settling on this one.  It is only a small Mouseloft kit which I made into an ornie.  There is something about this though that always makes me smile. I don't know if it's the precariously leaning tree or just the funky look about it but it is probably one of my favourite ever finishes.

In our house Father Christmas stuffs the stockings that hang at the end of each child's bed.  The latest he has ever stuffed them is 3.30am but usually he can stuff them around 1am!!!  He also visits the lounge where he can get his mince pie and glass of milk and put the carrot we leave for Rudolph in his pocket for later.  He then leaves Rachael and Luke's main present near the tree for them.  Both children know that Father Christmas only leaves the stockings and the one big present. As we don't have a chimney, we have a special key that we hang on the outside of the front door.  He lets himself in and on the way out, locks up and put the key back through the letter box for us!!!

The stockings can be opened when the children wake up.  This usually wakes us too so they bring them onto our bed to open.  When everyone is dressed they can go down and open their Father Christmas present.  This is all they get then until breakfast is eaten and teeth are done.  We then take it in turns to select a present from under the tree for each person and watch each other unwrap these before moving on to the next person.

Colin always puts a couple of little presents away which he brings out after Christmas dinner.  We don't go to church on Christmas Day we go Christmas Eve - to Midnight Mass at 7pm!!

Brilliant day at work today

Every year cbeebies do a panto to be shown at Christmas.  This year our school bid for tickets and luckily got some. I got to go!!!!!  It was filmed and had some of the stars for cbeebies.  Sadly I only knew 2 of them - Justin who plays Mr Tumble and BERNARD CRIBBINS.  Think I was more excited than the kids!!!

Jo announced the Christmas Blog Hop today and a logistical nightmare of a giveaway so get yourself over to serendipitous stitching to sign up for either of them!

No stitchy news tonight.  I haven't stitched for 3 nights on the trot now...shock horror!

Tiny Treasured Diamond

I've just realised that in my last post I didn't add a photo of the Christmas present Rachael sent me.  It's really cute.  Obviously she has very good taste in stitching stash!!

Tiny Treasured Diamond
Mill Hill

Tiny Treasured Diamond
Mill Hill

 I have just finished the bottom middle page of the Cut Thru Garden Shed.  As the last 2 pages are both half pages, I am going to work on both of them at once.  I have a bit of the backstitching done but will save the rest until I have finished the stitching now.

Having joined WIPocalypse, I am now going through all the blogs and have discovered some lovely new ones that I've never found before.  So not only will I get all my WIPs finished this year (yeah right!) but will also have new blogs to read too.  

Happy stitching!

Theme-a-licious / WIPocalypse

Ok...so...it's 2012...yay!  Happy New Year to you all and happy stitching.  I'm not doing a round up of 2011 as I am glad to see the back of it like many other people.                                                                                
Anyway having signed up for Theme-a-licious and WIPocalypse for 2012 I thought I would start by showing where I am at the start of the month. 

I have got the final leg of the RR I'm in to work on this month but will alternate this with working on Cut Thru Garden Shed and Roots to Grow, Wings to Fly.  There will probably be more progress on Garden Shed as I would love to get that one finished.

Below is where I am before starting on them.

Roots to Grow/Wings to Fly
Waxing Moon
As of 2nd January 2012

Cut Thru Garden Shed
Bothy Threads
Progress as of 2nd January 2012

Close up of Garden Shed - bottom middle section
Only got the rest of this section and 2 small sections to the right plus the backstitching 

Rachael gave me this Mill Hill Tiny Treasured Diamond as a Christmas present.  I had to stitch it up and get it on the tree this year!  Didn't want her to think I didn't like it.

Miche'le never received the first ornie I stitched her which is a shame so I chose another design and replaced it.  The second one arrived on Christmas Eve which was lucky.  The design was from Just Cross Stitch Ornament issue but I can't remember what year.  I would check but they are hidden away behind the Christmas Tree at the moment.

Just Cross Stitch Ornament Issue 

Christmas roundup

I had a lovely Christmas with just Colin, Rachael and Luke.  My mum decided that she didn't want to come up this year and decided to spend Christmas at home on her own.  Our traditions include the kids opening their stockings from Father Christmas on our bed at 6.30am - although if they want to leave it later they can, I really don't mind!  After that it's showers, dress and down to open their 'big' Father Christmas presents.  Once this is done Colin makes breakfast for us all.  Chocolate pains for me and Luke, crumpets for Rachael and croissants for himself.  Once these are eaten it's time for teethbrushing and only then can all the gifts under the tree be opened.  Each year we take it in turn to choose presents from under the tree for each person to open then once each round is opened, the next person chooses another present for each person.

Rachael being the ripe old age of 12 now decided that she wanted to buy us each a present with her own money (usually she is given the money to do this).  Luke got a Diary of a Wimpy Kid book, Colin got a model car and I got a Tiny Treasured Diamond from Mill Hill.  I think that is probably the best present I have ever received as she went through my sewandso.com wishlist without my knowledge and chose it before getting Colin to order it for her.  Luke gave me the pair of Union Jack flag scissors that I ordered a while back but had forgotten about!  Colin bought me 3 pieces of Sparklies fabric, a LK santa chart and some stamps for my collection.  There were also other assorted bits and pieces.  I was very lucky.

On Christmas Eve we went to midnight mass - at 6pm.  The church was packed with standing room only.  The children always enjoy this as they know, and usually like, the hymns for it.  They found it terribly confusing though this time with the new order of the mass books and the old mass book with the readings etc in.  The readings and psalms were completely different to the book.  Looking around the church it wasn't just them that were confused though!

Onto stitching news...I have been working on the 2nd round of the RR still.  It should have been mailed weeks ago but with my cross stitch lamp bulb going, it has been hard to stitch.  There are loads of fractional stitches and it is on aida so I REALLY need my lamp for it.  I have now received the new bulb so hopefully will get it wrapped up in the next couple of days.  The next leg arrived today and is quite cute although looks like a hard chart to follow.  I think I will need to enlarge the chart a bit when I get to it.

I have signed up for Theme-a-licious over on Its all geek to me and have a page at the top with my plans for the year which I will be combining with my WIPocalypse stitching and hopefully make a lot of progress on WIPs throughout the year.

Today our washing machine gave up the ghost.  I went to get the washing out of the machine and found it all sopping wet having not spun.  I cursed and tried the spin cycle again - nothing!  The drum isn't spinning at all....grrrrr.  Phoned Colin to let him know - "Are you sure it's not working?"  Suffice to say it's a good job he was at work.  After looking at the cost to get someone out, we decided that it had proved to be good value and we would send it to washing machine heaven and get a new one.  Having spent the day researching, examining and removing powder drawers in the shop that I couldn't then get back in (well if I can't get it back in after I've cleaned it, it's no good) we have settled on an Indesit which seems a really good buy.  We will go back and order it tomorrow.

I've noticed a few new followers in the last few days.  Welcome and thank you for visiting!

Well that's it for now.  Happy New Year if I don't make it back here in the next couple of days.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Merry Christmas to everyone!  I hope you all have a great Christmas with everything you need.  Thank you for reading my blog over the last year. If you're not celebrating today, just enjoy the break and spending time with family or friends.