2nd December - All girls together

 My December Calendar girl is all finished.

I started stitching these in December last year and continued to stitch one a month all the way through 2020, I'm both surprised and pleased that I managed to keep it up all through the year.

And here they are altogether 

And all the backs.  I have only used the same fabric once.  The finishing is not perfect but it was great practice making them all up each month.  I must learn to write down what I do for future reference, for example, I could never remember how many strands of floss I used when making the cording, If I had written it down it wouldn't have been a issue, as it is, some of them have thicker cording than others, but that's not really a problem as they are displayed on their own each month.

These charts are by Little House Needleworks and were released as a monthly series back in 2014.  I was lucky enough to buy all twelve charts at a special price on one of our stitching meet-ups at Nimble Thimble a couple of years ago.  As far as I'm aware they are still in print.

I did wonder how I was going to store all these once they were stitched but after searching for weeks I finally found a box in a local card shop which is just the right size to keep them all in.  It lives on the top of my bookcase in easy reach so that I will be able to just pull one out at the beginning of each new month from now on.

They all just fit in lovely

I had visions of covering this box with fabric and perhaps lining it to pretty it up.  But I think that is probably beyond my crafting capabilities, it doesn't look too bad as it is and I don't want to ruin it.

These are todays advent yarns.  The gold one and a tea treat from Jo, the skein is from Crafthouse Magic and the little ball is from Lisa. 

I forgot yesterday, I did also treat myself to a tealight calendar.  It was only a cheap one from Home Bargains but so far the two I've opened have been very nice, the tealight above was todays.

Do you like my Santa biscuit jar?  Joanne bought him for me from a car boot sale in the summer.  I got him out and washed him last night, he hadn't been used at all, he still had the sellotape holding the lid on, (which is the black mark you can see on the photo), and the padding inside the lid. 

Biscuits, when we have them, don't usually last long enough in this house to be put in a jar, and they certainly won't last any longer in here, but I do love his jolly face.

We have a birthday today, my middle daughter, Joanne is 33. December is a month of birthdays in our family so you will see a few more pop up during blogmas :-)

Of course you have to have a cake made by mum on your birthday, I took this sprinkle one round when she got back from work today.

We came out of lockdown today, the pubs, restaurants and places of entertainment are still closed as we are in tier 3, (our area went into lockdown in tier 1 and came out in tier 3, work that one out!).  All shops are open again now and of course that means there was a rush to the local shopping mall, (according to social media, I haven't, nor will I be going myself).  It was to be expected I suppose with Christmas being around the corner.

I hope you have all had a lovely day, see you tomorrow.

-X-