Christmas!

Finally finished the cake I make for my Mum each year.



A last minute letter to Santa.





Christmas day fun with cousins.



My lovely Brother with his son and 'their' new toy crane!!



A heavenly post lunch cuppa (with some wine and a few other yummy things).



And one of my favourite parts of Christmas - delicious cherries.



Hope yours was equally splendid!

A little Christmas cheer!

Goodness, it's been a while!

ALL my special projects are finished and on their way to their final destinations. I still have some stuff to do to my latest effort for the doll quilt swap but I'll hopefully get that out of the way by the end of this week.

So after doing several projects that I couldn't show you I now have one that I will happily show off as I am thrilled with the way it has come out.

This idea came to me Thursday week ago. On Friday I raced into work and grabbed the fabrics and cut, arranged, re-cut, rearranged and finally machine stitched down all the circles.





I finished on Tuesday night and took it to the quilter on Wednesday who helped me choose the perfect quilting pattern.



I got it back on Friday and bound it with my favourite stripey binding.



And here it is!



Actually it's only blog finished as I am handquilting the baubles, star and pot to make them pop a bit.



So look out for it if you visit Amitie as it will be in the window leading up to Christmas.

And in case you haven't seen all the photos floating about on other Melbourne craft blogs, here is my photo of the very lovely Amy Butler from Thursday night.



That of course is Cathy with me. We loved the whole evening - Amy was just so interesting and relaxed and endlessly inspiring. Thanks again to the very fabulous people from Living Creatively - a really great night.

I leave you with a photo of my middle girl Lucinda who this week has overcome her fear of the swimming pool. Yippee and well done my girl!

Christmas Wrap Up

So Christmas is over for another year. I hope you enjoyed a lovely day with family and friends as I did. We all ate way too much and my goodness the presents were never ending - not sure where everything is going to go!

And what a few weeks it has been. I did try to do a post last week but blogger ate my photos and I didn't have the time or the inclination to redo them. So here it is - the last couple of weeks activities and some of the crafty projects I completed.

The 15th brought a mad weekend with lots of Birthday parties including Daphne's.







And look at this gorgeous creation!



A stunning bolster cushion made by my girlfriend Michelle.



Isn't it just fantastic!



I love the colours and all the little yo-yos - a gift to absolutely treasure! Thanks Michelle, we really love it.

We finished the weekend with a big Christmas party on the Sunday with my Mother's group. We provide a Kris Kringle gift for the children and I made these for two lovely sisters.



This is my more basic version of Renata Segtowick's wonderful idea. Renata's are so beautifully detailed - go have a look.

The week following was all about kinder parties, school parties, reports and finishing up the year ready for a good break. I made three tote bags for the girl's teachers but didn't have time to take photos.

Then I finally finished a commission I'd been sitting on for AGES!! Two aprons for my girlfriend to give to some special girls for Christmas.



A frilly smock for the little one.







And a frilly apron for the bigger one.





I discovered the new apple fabric at Amitie and it all went from there. It's the most lovely linen weight and just perfect for aprons. I'm really pleased with them and will definitely be making more.

And finally some gifts for my family.

A scarf for my Mum using some gorgeous Japanese fabric I had in my stash.



And a bag for my sister-in-law Sacha.



I LOVE this bag!!



I cut it from a bag I received in a swap which I think is an Amy Butler pattern (anyone know?). Then I just patched part of it, added some flowers and quilted the edges.

I also made some cushions and did a pin cushion swap with my girlfriend but have no photos yet - show you next time along with some photos of the gorgeous ornaments I have received for the Freshly Blended Holiday Ornament swap. But this lot should keep you busy for a while!!

By the way, before I forget, my pay it forward recipients are Fiona, Beth and Ginger. So can you all email me and let me know if you wish to participate and provide your address if I don't already have it.

'Tis nearly the season to be jolly ..

tra la la la la la la la la

A lovely post from Megan and this post from the Diary of a Domestic Competent (don't you love that name!) have me thinking about Christmas. I'm never likely to be that organised but it would be nice to have some projects underway now so that I can finish them well before the celebrations are in full swing.

I was very sick with gastro just before Christmas last year which kind of ruined any plans we had. Hopefully this year we'll have more fun. We're extra excited this year too because my nephews and neice are coming out from Holland and we haven't seen them for such a long time - in fact we haven't even met our neice.

So, to my projects! The first project to be hauled out is my advent stocking garland. I finished all the stockings last year and we filled them but I didn't complete all the numbers.



Of course, I promised myself I wouldn't put it away until I had and now it's nearly November. I found it still waiting patiently on the shelf near my desk. Let's see if I can have these done by sometime next week - it's only numbers 17 to 24 - easy!

Then after a little research last night I re-discovered this wonderful Holiday ornament swap which I just missed out on last year. I really, really want to do this as I love the idea of receiving lots of little packages from around the world and how lovely to think that something I have made will (hopefully) grace something as special as someone's Christmas tree. So if you are interested go check out Freshly Blended the first week in November.

Here's a little inspiration. One of the best things about this swap is the fantastic mix of crafts and mediums. There's fabric, wool, felt, buttons, paper, beads, wood, plastic, ceramics and even metal. Some of them are just beautiful but my favourites have to be the little aprons (I so wish I had that idea), the adorable pink houses and the sweet penguins.



1. Pinky Ornamenty Goodness!!, 2. all done!, 3. the whole gang!

I would also like to work on some ornaments with my two older girls. Maybe using felt and embroidery or maybe something like this wonderful idea from Domesticali. I think I'll let them come up with some ideas and see if some of them are not too hard to create.

What Christmas/Holidays projects are you up to??