6th December - Better get a move on

 I feel as though I've been working on Jacobs Christmas stocking forever when in fact I only started in the last week of July.  Still, that's quite a while ago and it really should be done now.

I'm so very close and I need to push myself to do it this week.  I have one small motif and his name to add, oh, and the bling to put on, so it's easily doable.  That will leave me the weekend to lock myself into a room and make it into a stocking. 😨 I have already made three of these up so you would think I'd know what I'm doing by now, but no, I still need to watch tutorials on how to go about it, so if you here a lot of cussing going on you'll know where it's coming from!

Here are today's lovely yarn advents and candle

I survived the trip to Ikea.  I got there not long after it opened and although there was a queue It was moving so I didn't wait above five minutes.  I didn't linger too much and got what I wanted and the checkouts were really quiet, I know what you mean about getting lost in there though Jo, the fact that you have to walk all the way round even if you know what you want is a pain, but a very good sales ploy, lol  I don't think there are many people who go to Ikea and only come out with what they went for!

In my case today that was some Christmas storage bags, at £1.75 they were a bargain I couldn't pass up and they will be better than the big boxes I have now that I have less Christmas clutter decorations.

I hope your Sunday has been a good one

-X-

5th December - A five minute project

 I hope your Saturday has been more productive than mine.  I had planned on going to Ikea, not to browse, there is something I've been planning to get for a while so it was going to be in, grab, out and home again.  Mark had gone to Stevie's to put up curtain poles and blinds and I planned on being back by early afternoon but, after someone saying they would be here at 12 o'clock and not turning up till 2.30 I didn't get to Ikea until after 3pm.  I parked, got out the car and then saw the queue.  I promptly got back in the car and drove away.  I'm not desperate enough for anything to wait in a queue THAT long!

On the way home I had to do a quick food shop so didn't get home until gone 6.  So you can say that today was not the most successful.

I'm going to try again tomorrow and get there for when they open.  I don't really like to go on a Sunday but what I want needs putting together and as Mark is away all week it would mean waiting until next weekend.

Anyway, enough of my little rant, here are the lovelies from today's advents/

I have a night time tea most evenings so I will enjoy this one tonight Jo, thank you :-)

The five minute project in the title actually took about ten minutes in all but the point is it was very quick :-)

I have three artificial wreaths and wasn't going to use them this year but when we were on our walk around Arley yesterday we 'acquired' some lovely greenery, is it holly?  I don't know, it's pretty greenery anyway and I made this.

I already had the snowy pine cones the silver organza and the red berries.  

I'm quite chuffed with it, although I think It could do with a bow, what do you think?  

Wish me luck for getting in Ikea tomorrow :-)

-X-

4th December - A Winter walk

 The weather today is much the same as yesterday but with less rain, thank goodness, I went on a naughty elf trail with Joanne and the kids today and was dreading walking around in the rain, the cold I can cope with, and it was very cold.  Joanne had booked this walk some time ago and the place is only open for ticketed events at the moment.

We set off at 10.30, I opened my lovely advents before we set off but only took a photo when I got back, so sorry if the light is bad

The naughty elves trail was at Arley Arboretum, it's about a twenty minute drive from us.  I've only been here once before and that was in the Winter too.  They have a laburnum arch, (the longest in Britain) and a rhododendron and azalea walk so I must make a note to go back when they are in flower, as I have plenty of time on my hands now I have no excuse do I :-)

Anyway, I'll leave you today with some photos of our walk, some very tall trees and lovely lichen.

Some of the naughty elves we found

The laburnum walk, not much to look at in Winter, I'll have to make a note in my diary to go back in the Spring.

Some of the trees were so tall, its hard to see how tall from photos

You can get more of an idea how tall when Joanne and Bonnie are by them.

I'm fascinated by lichen, it was on a lot of trees in the orchard

It was nice to get out for a change, I have to force myself to get out sometimes but when I do I feel so much better afterwards.

See you tomorrow

- X-

3rd December - Ornaments for the boys

 You may have seen two of these ornaments when I was stitching them in Jolly July but I don't think I have shared them fully finished.

Oliver requested a reindeer for this years ornament.  I had bought a magazine chart off ebay a while ago, it was quite vintage looking, a round finish in a hoop with Santa in the middle and all the reindeers around him.  I chose to stitch Rudolf on his own and finished as an oval.

Isn't he cute?  I think this is one of my most favourite stitched finishes and Oliver loved him when he opened him this afternoon.   I may have to stitch another reindeer this year too :-)

I chose a snowman for Arty.  This is Frosty Flakes by Little House Needleworks.

I think he came out really cute too

Arty has two ornaments this year because being a bad nanny, I didn't finish his for last year.

I think this is a Lizzie Kate one, although I can't find the chart now so i'm not certain.

This was all stitched up last year but I didn't like the trim so this year I took the trim off and replaced it, I think it looks much better now.

I've fallen behind with finishing and still have Bonnie's and Jacob's to make up, hopefully I can do that at the weekend.

There are some lovely goodies in todays advents.  I opened a Mr & Mrs Rabbit Yarns one today which included a lovely lavender sachet and an angel charm, along with the one from Jo and Lisa.  Jo also included a little container of bulb stitch markers.  I do love the bulb ones, thanks Jo.  The tea light is from my candle advent and is a Winter spice, very nice.

There was also a little recipe included in with the lavender sachet and angel.  It sounds lovely.

I might give this a go nearer to Christmas.

It's been so wet and dull and dreary all day today, I really don't mind the Winter months but I prefer a cold crisp day over rain.  We have more of the same predicted for tomorrow as well.

See you tomorrow

-X-

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-

1st December - All the advents

 Happy 1st of December.  I hope you are having, or have had, a lovely day. 

I'm re-using my lovely traditional advent calendar from last year, no chocolates behind these doors, just a pretty picture.

I've treated myself to two yarn advent calendars again this year, a Liberty inspired one from Claire at Mr & Mrs Rabbit yarns and a Mistletoe Kisses one from Ellie at Crafthouse Magic

   I had the twelve day calendars from both and will alternate opening them so that they last the 24 days.

I've put both of these into one box to make it easier, the Crafthouse Magic ones are in the silver bags

I've also done a swap with my lovely friend Jo (jothroughthekeyhole).  We agreed to swap 24 6g minis from our stash and a 100g skein for Christmas day.

Jo's arrived in this huge box, isn't it lovely?

Inside everything is wrapped beautifully.  The blue ones are to be opened on Christmas day and Jo also very kindly included a few things to open on my Birthday which is the day after Boxing Day, so kind.

I also took part in a swap on IG organized by Kelly of Layfamily Yarn.  The brief was to include 24 minis, a chocolate treat and a handmade gift, my partner's name is Lisa, who as far as I know does not have a blog.

Yarn advents can be quite expensive to buy so early on in the year I had started to buy some a mini skeins here and there to put together my own.  My plan was to add to it when I went to a couple of yarn shows in the Spring.  Well that didn't happen, obviously, but I did manage to get enough to make up another twelve day package and bagged them up with my eyes closed, lol, which is quite difficult to do!

I've decided now to save these until after Christmas, perhaps give them to myself as a little birthday treat and start opening from January 1st.

So, at last, here are my goodies for today.  Two little packages from Mr & Mrs Rabbit, some lovely handmade soap, a square of Liberty fabric and a Liberty inspired yarn.  

From Jo I opened a Hedgerow yarn mini and a little chocolate, which you will notice is missing because of course it's quite acceptable to have chocolate for breakfast during advent  :-)

The other little mini is my swap from Lisa.

Mark got Christmas from the loft on Sunday and I have promised to sort it all out this week and only keep what we will use as he says he is getting too old to keep getting up the loft!  I have already started on that and got rid of a few things, including giving one of our trees to Oliver and Arty, they share a small tree which they decorate themselves which was getting a bit crowded, now they have a six foot one which should be better for all their ornaments.

For the first time in many years we don't have our tree up on December 1st.  I did want to get a new tree this year and we've been out looking and I just can't find one that I like that doesn't cost a small fortune.  I might just have to settle for our old one for another year or get a real one, I haven't decided yet.   I usually like to get everything decorated in one day but I'm afraid it will be happening bit by bit over the week this year.

Other goings on this week - It's been all go here since the weekend, my youngest daughter, Stevie and her fiancé Darren got the keys to their new house on Friday.  They should have been in at the beginning of July but because of you know what, building was delayed.  Anyway, they are in now and slowly unpacking all their belongings which have been in storage for the last five months or so.  There are a couple of issues they have had to get in touch with the builders about, like the fact that they have a space for the washing machine but no plumbing for it!  So guess who is doing the washing until it's sorted, yep, good old mum to the rescue again.

Jenny's partner, James has finally arrived back home today.  I think I've mentioned before that James is in the RAF and has been in Afghanistan for the last five months.  He should have been back in October but things are apt to change and his date kept getting put back.  It's been a long five months for Jenny and the boys, it's hard enough with kids but I think Jenny has found it especially hard going this time, the boys can be a handful at the best of times but with clubs not operating for them and limited places open for outings and the summer holidays too, it's not been easy.  

Well, that's it for the first day of advent, lots going on, not a lot of crafting though :-)

See you tomorrow for the next installment 

-X-

Sneaking in before the end of November

 I've been telling myself to write a blog post for a couple of week's but just couldn't drum up enough enthusiasm for it.  But as we are fast approaching December I  thought I better before It all becomes overwhelming, or should I say, more overwhelming than it is now.

You'll be pleased to know that I'm not going to go on and on about all the happenings of the last few weeks, I'll stick to just one piece of stitching for now.

 I finished the November Calendar Girl and she has been gracing the mantle all this month.

One more to go and I've completed a whole year of Calendar Girls.  (December is all stitched, I'll share that next time once I've fully finished her)

I've decided to do Blogmas again this year, just a short blog post each day throughout December.

 I have some wonderful advents to open from December 1st and would like to share all the lovely goodies with you.  Unfortunately there will be no Christmas markets to visit this year because of 'The Virus' but we are still hoping to do some festive things in the lead up to Christmas, If Boris allows.

We had booked to go away to Wales from Boxing Day until January 2nd  but with the announcements of the new  Covid tiers on Thursday we have had to cancel.  I'm so disappointed, I was really looking forward to a week away and a change of scenery.  If you have read my previous posts you will know that I was made redundant back in July and to be honest I'm still struggling to come to terms with that.  I know that may sound a bit dramatic, but on top of everything else that going on with the Covid situation I haven't been feeling the best either in myself or about myself lately and this little holiday was something I was really looking forward to.  My birthday is over Christmas so it was going to be a nice birthday treat too.  I have spoken to the people who own the place we were staying in and if the situation changes at any time between now and a few days before Christmas they are going to contact me.  I can't see it changing, but you never know.

Covid needs to do one now so we can get back to a normal way of living!

 I hope you will pop by to see me during my daily December posts 🎄

See you soon

-X-