Another Lovely Gift

My good friend Loulee from the Isle of Man, who now lives in New Zealand, and I also swap gifts each Christmas.  This year Lou sent me a lovely parcel.

It had a delightful angel looking after it.

What looked like 2 parcels turned out to be five!

Look what was inside.

FRIENDSHIP

Happy is the heart

That holds a food friend

What a lovely sentiment.  The hanging is beautiful.  When I get my sewing room in the new house I will have to have a wall of mini quilts.  I have two now from Lou to hang. 

Here is the rest of the gifts.  Yummy chocs, a sweet diary, a very handy bag in Kiwiana fabrics and a bag bag.  We were rather excited about the bag bag, as it was the first thing that I was going to make for our kitchen in this house.  Now I don’t have to and it is in Manx fabric.  A double win.

Thanks Lou for such wonderful and thoughtful gifts.

Secret Santa Christmas Swap

Now that Christmas has been and gone I can show what I sent to Isabel in Portugal.

Firstly, the ornament.  I do love these patterns.

And the gift.

I made a Sew Together Bag.  It was a fun challenge and I’m pleased with how it turned out.

Here it is filled with goodies.

I’m pleased that Isabel liked it.

Now to what I received from Katie in the USA.

Just a recap of the ornament.

Now for the gift.

Here I am opening it. Mick decided to take lots of photos, bless him.

Can you believe it!!! A Sew Together Bag in vintage motorcycle fabric.  There is even a sidecar.  How good is that!

Filled with goodies.

There is also some extra fabric for me to play with.  Not sure what I will use it for, but it is something I haven’t been able to find around here and certainly won’t go to waste.

I was going to make a bag for me, but now I don’t need to.  Bonus.

Thanks Katie for such a thoughtful gift.

Thanks also to Chookyblue for making the swap happen once again.  It wouldn’t be Christmas without a mystery overseas parcel. I know that this year it nearly didn’t take place due to life getting in the way, so it is extra special. Thanks a bunch, Chooky.

Merry Christmas

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas.

Although we have only been in this house for two weeks I did manage to find a few Christmas bits and bobs. Come for a stroll with me.

Firstly, we have the entry foyer.

The kitchen.

The dining area.  Joey makes a lovely extra decoration.

The living room.  The wall hanger and the runner are both SSCS gifts from previous years.

This runner was a Christmas gift a couple of years ago.

I was delighted to find my little nativity scenes in a suitcase when we moved.  I thought it held doileys.  What great timing for the find.

Here they are a bit closer up.  I can’t believe I found so many kitsch examples.  I have another one packed away as well.

The little tree was the only one to come out this year.  The table runner was last year’s SSCS gift.  Joey is acting as guard cat under the coffee table.

Here we are a bit closer.  Most of the decorations are hand made gifts.

I’ll share a couple of gifts a little later on.

We had a lovely day with family, too much good food and lovely gifts.  Best of all, we received some nice rain this afternoon to give everything a drink and cool things down.

I hope everyone had a wonderful day as well.

Secret Santa Christmas Swap

I  have been rather remiss in my posts about participating in the Secret Santa Christmas Swap run by Chookyblue.

This is the fifth time I’ve joined in and it has got to the stage that Christmas just wouldn’t be the same without a parcel arriving from somewhere over the sea.

I still can’t disclose where my parcel went to as it hasn’t been shared on the recipient’s blog, but I believe it has arrived safe and sound.  Here is a couple of little peeks.

 

It was fun wrapping everything up to send on its way.

Then the big wait begins. As usual, I seem to get so caught up in making the gift to send off that I forget that I too will receive a parcel from somewhere……..but where?

Well, this year it came from here.

 

Yes, all the way from America……don’t get me started on singing the Joan Armatrading Song.

My swap partner was Katie, who’s blog is new to me.  She has presented her parcel so beautifully.

As usual, I could open the small package now, to reveal the most beautiful Christmas bird ornament. 

I have always taken photos of the ornaments hanging from my pantry door.  I took this one out while we were packing, so that it wouldn’t miss out.  The last ornament to be hung from there.

Now I have to wait patiently (I’m not very patient) for Christmas to open the rest of the parcel.  I can’t wait.

Thanks to Katie for making such a delightful ornament.  I’m going to enjoy exploring her blog now.

It’s All Happening

After seven months on the market our house has finally sold!!!

After six months we changed agents and went to auction, which brought things to a head.  We accepted an offer a few days before the auction.

Contracts exchanged on 19 November and settlement is on 19 December, so a relatively short time.  Add to that, the local removalists were fully booked except for Thursday and Friday last week.  Therefore, we had a mad pack of anything that was in or on furniture, so the removalists could do their stuff.  They did a marvellous job.

We are still packing the last bits and pieces before doing the big clean.  One week to go.  All good.

So, we are now living in town, in a small three bedroom house that we have owned for a while as an investment.  Timing worked out just right to enable us to do a bit of a renovation before moving in, without affecting any tenants.  We have lots of stuff packed away till we move into the house we are going to build, but we will be nice and cosy in the mean time.  I will even have a nice, light filled sewing corner.  I will share more with you once I get organised.

I have so much that I want to share from the last few months.  Blogging has taken a back seat to life for a little while, but that will all change once things settle down a little.  I will be doing a big catch up.