18th Day of Advent - Last stitching for 2019

I finished stitching my January Calendar Girl on Sunday.  It took me three Sunday afternoons of stitching, I'm happy with that, it means that I know It will be possible for me to get one a month done without putting too much pressure on myself.

I really enjoyed the stitching of this one, hopefully I can find some time before Christmas to make it up ready to put out in January

I went a walk around the park again this afternoon and took my bag of bread for the pond life.

I think the seagulls were even more greedy today, I thought this one was coming for me, lol

I'm really quite happy to have been able to get such a good photo with just my phone! 

Luckily he didn't come any closer, aren't they cheeky!!

Speaking of cheeky, I had a new Advent in the basket afternoon

This basket is where I've been keeping my Advents from Jo, and because there is a space now, Molly thinks she can fit her fluffyness in there🐱🐱

My lovely minis from today along with a bath bubble form Jo.

Sorry the light was not good for photos this afternoon.  The two yarns that look grey actually have some green in them too but its just not showing up, and the one from Jo is not as orange as it's showing here.   

I opened a Strawberry glossing conditioner today from my Body Shop calendar.  

I had already opened the matching glossing shampoo a few days ago so i'm glad I got the matching conditioner too because i'm really impressed with the shampoo :-)

So that's another day closer, It's whizzing by now isn't it? 

Are you all organized, or will you have last minute present buying to do?

-X-

17th Day of Advent - I'm a sucker for a mug

It all started with this one last year

And then the two little reindeer ones

Then the lovely vintage Santa I saw when passing a charity shop in town.

I found these three all on the same day in two different charity shops a few weeks ago

And you have already met the newest addition earlier in the month

Some may say I have a problem, lol, but I love my Christmas mugs, although it has become a standing joke and I think the kids fear for my sanity😜 

🎄🎄🎄

Today's beautiful Advent minis, and a little chocolate treat form Jo.

And another face mask from my Body Shop calendar

Not long left now, another seven days, It's been such a lovely treat opening these goodies every day!

I hope you had a good day

See you tomorrow

-X-

16th Day of Advent -Wednesday - A basket full of minis

The lovely June  and Marlene asked if I'd got any plans for all my Advent minis, and indeed I do :-) 

I have wanted to knit a mitered square blanket for a long time, they are usually made by using up all the left over scraps from when people have knitted socks, but as I have yet to complete a pair of 

socks (!) I didn't have any left over 4 ply yarn. 

Then I found out that you could buy mini skeins of yarn, so, happy day's,  I started collecting and before I knew it I had a basket full!

I have made a very small start on my blanket, there are several patterns you can use but I'm using the Knitted Patchwork Recipe by Martine Ellis, (which is free on Ravelry) and the chevron layout that Ellie of Craft House Magic suggested on her video tutorials, which you can find on you tube.

As you can see, there is a long way to go on this one but I have enjoyed choosing the colours I've used so far and It's nice to see how they knit up.

Here are a close up of some of the colours, although with the poor afternoon light some of them are not showing up true to colour.

So my blanket is where a lot of  my Advent mini skeins will be going and I shall be choosing some to add in over the Christmas holiday

Here are the one's I opened today :-)

A gorgeous pink theme going on today :-)  I think all of these would fit right in with the colours I've got going on in my blanket at the moment.

I opened another lovely body butter from my Body Shop Calendar.
I still haven't sorted out something to keep all these goodies in yet!

Thank you for all your lovely comments every day, I really do appreciate you taking the time to stop by. 
Jane, you have left me some lovely comments every day, thank you, blogger is not letting me find your blog when I click on your name though, can you leave me a link back to your space please?

I do hope your Monday wasn't a Manic one

-X-

15th Day of Advent - Rudolph

A couple of weeks ago, while I was having a sort out, I came across one of my purchases from our Yarndale trip in September.

This cute little kit came from The Knitting Gift Shop who had a stand there.

 

There are other kits too, a bird, an owl a sheep, but as soon as I saw Rudolph I knew he was coming home with me 🦌

I knit his little jumper last night and now he is hanging on my tree, isn't he cute with his little silver bells and dummy ❤

Here are today's lovely minis from my yarny Advents, Jo popped a lovely progress keeper in today's  gift bag too, thank you Jo, this will come in handy for when I cast on my Betwixmas shawl😀 

My Body Shop gift today was this facial soap, I don't usually use soap on my face so It will be interesting to see what this is like compared to face wash.

I'm on a count down to breaking up from work this week, so it will either whizz by because I've got lots to be doing at work, or drag on because I'm looking forward to breaking up, lol.

Hope your Sunday has been good, see you tomorrow

-X-

14th Day of Advent - When everything goes right

I've had a lovely day today, it's been one of those rare days when everything runs smoothly and you get everything ticked off your list :-)

I've made curry and chilli to go in the freezer, popped to town to get a few things and came back with everything off my list (and a few things that weren't😉 and then I made a project bag to hold my Calendar Girls stitching.

 I've had this fabric for ages so I'm glad to have finally used some of it.

I thought as I'm going to be working on these throughout the year they should have a home of their own.  I made the bag big enough to hold the clip frame and the chart and the little tin I bought for the threads fits in there too

I bought the little tin from home bargains and it's just the right size for the floss bags I use to store my threads

I should mention that I use Vonna's (The Twisted Stitcher) tutorial for these project envelopes, it's one of her earlier tutorials which you can find on you tube.

Here are today's Advent gifts

There was a chocolate included with Jo's, but I'm afraid I ate that before I took the photos😀

I opened a lovely lip butter from my Body Shop calendar

I hope your Saturday went well, I'm off to put a Christmas film on and do a bit of knitting

See you tomorrow

-X-

13th Day of Advent - A walk in the park and a surprise package

It's been a lovely bright day today, a little breezy but perfect weather for a walk to the park after work this afternoon.  I took along a loaf of bread to feed the ducks. 

There are a lot of seagulls, a few of them today literally swooped down and took the bread right out of the ducks mouths!

Skimming a slice of bread across the pond gets rid of them for a few seconds so that the ducks get a look in.  I do feel sorry for them, they get plenty of food in the summer when the park is full of children, but come the winter not so much.

 

 

I had a lovely and completely unexpected package in the post this week, my stitching friend Elaine sent me this beautiful ornament.

We have been friends online for many years, we met through bolgging, although Lainey no longer updates her blog we do still talk on Instagram and fb messenger,  She does some beautiful stitching and is such a lovely generous person, some of you may remember her from her blog or Instagram and will know what a lovely kind person she is.  I really feel spoilt this year!

🎅🏻🎅🏻🎅🏻

My yarny gifts today, all beautiful 😃 Jo included a Taylors Rose and Lemonade infusion too, I've never tried this one before, I'm enjoying it while sitting in bed writing this post 😁☕

I opened another bath bomb from my Body Shop calendar today.  I've got a lovely selection of bath time treats now, I really should sort something out to keep them in.

A couple of you were tempted by my yarny purchase from yesterday, it would be lovely if you decided to join in with the Christmas Eve cast on for the Betwixmas shawl.  I'm sure there is still time to get the yarn delivered before then, the pattern is free on Ravelry now I believe too.

Hope you all had a fantastic Friday

-X-

12th December - Getting ready for a new cast on

I've never managed to have a Christmas Eve cast on before, but this year I'm more organized.  I saw that Black Sheep Wools was once again doing a betwixmas pattern so I treated myself to my last yarn purchase of the year, and it arrived today 😃

The yarn is a beautiful soft DK Alpaca by King Cole.  I chose the Platinum colour because I thought it would go with everything although all the other colour choices are equally as nice.

I'll be winding the yarn over the weekend and it will be going straight into our Christmas Eve box ready to start on Christmas Eve :-)

Well, we are half way through the Advents already!! I really look forward to opening these little packages when I get home 🧶

Jo included a cute little cross stitch kit in with today's yarn, thank you Jo :-)

The other two are of course Craft House Magic and Lay Family Yarn,  I forgot to say before, there is a theme to the Lay Family Yarn minis, I will tell you what it is once I've opened them all 😉  There was also a few little extra goodies in the box and a sock pattern by Sew Sweet Violet to download.  Again I will post a photo of the extra goodies once I've opened all 24.

oops, bit of a blury photo today!

I loved reading your comments on yesterday's post about your childhood presents  Thank you for joining me in remembering, it's funny what sticks in your mind is't it.  Jo, you reminded me that I had a post office set too :-) I do remember getting a Tiny Tears doll one year and at some point my sister cutting most of her hair off!

See you tomorrow

-X-