Another Finish For the Year and Post Christmas Happenings

We had a lovely day on Christmas Day, spending time with family and friends. The weather was perfect, being sunny and with the temperature in the mid 20s C.  We may have got a little sunburnt, as it was nice to sit in the sun, without being hot enough to look for the shade.

Boxing Day was a nice, relaxing recovery day, with the Test Cricket on the tele. I have a new tradition, this being the third year, if you can call that a tradition, of starting a jigsaw on Boxing Day.  Another one found at the church fete.  When I had a good look at it I realised that it wasn’t going to be a quick easy one, with all that quilt section in the middle.

This is how much I achieved on Boxing Day and I haven’t done much more as yet.  As you can see, all the easy bits are done and now I have to concentrate.

In the meantime, yesterday was another coolish day.  Check out our morning temperature.  Brrrr.  Tomorrow morning isn’t forecast to be much warmer.

What that did mean was that it was rather pleasant to sit on the back verandah and knit. I now have a completed beanie.  I love the way it turned out.  This was a great introduction to knitting cables.  The pattern chart was easy to follow, I just had to sit quietly so that I wasn’t distracted.  

I had read a comment that it was a largish size, as there was only the one size in the pattern, due to the design.  After blocking, it is definitely too large for me, but Mick has happily claimed it.  My plan was to knit him one the same in blue, but I will now knit another pattern for him in the blue and will find another pattern for me and find some more neutral coloured wool.  A good excuse to knit something else. 

What else have I been working on?  Well, I set up the design curtain and laid out the Wensleydale Quilt blocks.  They have been sitting there for a couple of days and I have tweaked it a bit, when walking past.  I think it will have to do, or I will start to overthink it, which I don’t want to do.  Next, to get it sewn together into a flimsy.

I have found some suitable backing fabric to quilt another couple of quilts, so hope to get to those fairly soon as well.

The other main job for today was to put Christmas away.   We were expecting this to happen a little later than today, as it is normally a job for after the cricket match has finished, but it was all over in two days!  And the Poms won!  Not the plan at all, so we go the decorations down a little earlier than scheduled.  Mick packed up all the lights outside, while I packed away all the inside decorations.  It takes a while to get it all out and then away, but it does look nice for those few weeks.  As usual, everything seems a little bare at the moment.

And that about sums up what we have been up to since Christmas.  I had grand plans for these few days between Christmas and New Year, but as usual, they will not all get done.  However, that doesn’t matter.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas.

May you have a wonderful day, be it hectic or quiet.

Oh My! Santa Came Early!

Where to start?

A couple of months ago Mick suggested something that could be a final special gift from Mum.  It wasn’t something I had thought of, but having had a little think, why not?

A bit of work was required before anything could happen.

This has been the usual state of my sewing room for the best part of twelve months.  Not good and not conducive to any actual sewing or quilting taking place.  ie. Not one single quilt has been quilted in 2025.

I’ve already shared some photos of the start of my clean up here.

Then there was more cleaning out.  It’s a very long time since it has looked like this.

But there’s more:

Or, rather less.

Yes, it was time to farewell Monique.  I haven’t been using her and I suppose I am too much of a perfectionist and wasn’t all that happy with what I was doing and didn’t have the confidence to do any free motion quilting.  Having said that, she was the perfect entry level machine to give me the basics of long arm quilting and served me well in that respect.

So, what was to fill that space?

Meet “Elly May”.  Her name was inspired by her model name of Elite and a very slight nod to Mum’s name.

She is another Grace Q’Nique.  This time with a 21 inch throat, a new frame and is computer driven.  She has so much potential.

The automated quilting is a very steep learning curve and I have been watching lots of YouTube tutorials, which have been invaluable.

I feel so very blessed to be able to be the owner of such a beauty and look forward to having lots of fun with her.

Hopefully, that pile of unquilted flimsies will all be completed quilts by the end of 2026, if not before.  That would be so good.

Here is my very first bit of quilting on her.  I have done a bit more since then and will share that separately.

It’s Starting to Look and Feel Like Christmas

Only two days until the man in the red suit visits all the good boys and girls……and grown ups too, if they still believe.  We certainly do.

This year our decorations are fairly similar to the last couple of years, with just a couple of variations.  Our twiggy Christmas tree has normally sat on my Granny’s trousseau box, but during the year be bought a lovely leadlight bow fronted china cabinet and relocated the box.  Where to put the tree?  In the end, we just moved it fairly close and popped it on a stool, covered by a table centre that I received one year in the Secret Santa Christmas Swap arranged by Chooky.  Perfect.

There are just two new decorations on it this year.  Firstly, a little Bilby that I bought when we visited Charleville earlier in the year.

The second is the cute felt Christmas tree which Lou sent to me for our annual swap.  There are many decorations on this tree made by Lou.  Probably enough to have their own tree, as we have been doing this annual swap since 2009.

While I’m at it, this is the one I sent to Lou this year.  We both seem to have thought of the theme of trees.

This is what our dining area looks like this year, minus the trousseau box.

The other change this year is the addition of the little tree that Mick made for Mum to showcase her handmade decoration collection while living in residential aged care.  It now fits nicely atop the china cabinet, which holds many of her items.

Here is a bit of a closer look.  If you pop over to this post, you can see how they were all displayed in her room.

Now to the sitting area.  The mantle piece is pretty much the same as usual.

The lounge room is also pretty much the same, featuring our large tree with more special decorations collected over the years.  Some I can date back to our first Christmas together, while others have been collected on some of our travels.

I made the light hearted comment to Mick that we have done well not to buy any additional decorations this year (other than the Bilby)………I shouldn’t have……

When Mick put up our outside lights, one of the strings of the icicles that go around the gutters didn’t work!  Blast!  Fortunately, we were able to source some just the same as the other existing ones……….Then when he went to hook up the star over the garage door it didn’t work either!  What?!  Obviously, nine years is the use by date for those two strings.  No worries, off to Bunnings again to get another replacement.  So much for no buying decorations.  I should have shut my mouth.

Anyway, the outside, including our tree in the lounge room, all look good from the street.  “Skippy” and “Mervyn and Muriel the Mooses” all took up their usual positions. 

The bottom end of our street is looking very festive. When we moved here it was the top end that was all lit up, but times have changed, kids have grown up and it now seems that all us oldies down the bottom of the street have been the ones to put the lights up.

On Sunday night we hosted the neighbourhood Christmas party in our back yard.  It has become quite the tradition we all look forward to.  One of our neighbours is a very talented crafty person and she gifted us a resin angel that she just whipped up that day.  Isn’t she gorgeous.  We now have to find a special place to hang her where she will show up nicely.

My December Wishes

December, the final month of the year.  I can’t quite believe it.

On the stitching front I don’t have a great deal planned.  

The main priority is to remove all the foundation papers from the Wensleydale Quilt blocks and get them stitched together into a flimsy.  I’m rather looking forward to playing with this one.

I have a little secret stitching to still complete, but that won’t take too long.

The blue and cream linen top needs to have its extension created, so I can actually wear it, once the weather finally decides to become summery.  I do hope it works out.

On the non stitching front, who knows?

We do have to get our Christmas decorations up very soon.  They should be up by now, but we have both been a bit otherwise occupied.

We would like to sneak in a couple of Christmassy outings.  If they happen they do, but if they don’t it doesn’t matter.

I bought a few Christmas themed novels at the recent Lifeline Book Fair, so would like to read at least one.

While I’m at it, check out their beautiful Christmas tree.  This was used for Santa photos, which would be so much nicer than some of the ones you see.

Christmas Day will be rather low key.  It will be a very different day, being the first one in 60 years without seeing my Mum.  Obviously, Mick will miss his Mum too.

In that rather strange few days between Christmas and New Year Mick will be glued to the tele, watching the Boxing Day Test of cricket.

I will keep up my new tradition of completing a jigsaw puzzle.  I came across another quilt themed one earlier in the year, so it has been placed at the top of the queue.

Oh, and I am receiving a nice Christmas gift.  I’m a tad excited.  More on that as the time arrives.

Cricket, Jigsaw and Left Overs

We enjoyed a lovely Christmas Day with family, friends and too much food.

Our perfect way to spend Boxing Day is for Mick to watch the Boxing Day Test Cricket, me to work on a jigsaw and to eat left overs.

Mick was quite settled in front of the tele, enjoying seeing the nineteen year old opening batter, on debut, take on the best bowler in the world.

I pulled out the jigsaw that I purchased at Vinnies in Braidwood and made a start on it……and finished it.  It seems that my binge reading style carries over to jigsaws.  I was rather relieved to see that there were no missing pieces.  

My Mum, who is not in the least bit sporty used to spend her summer watching the cricket and tennis on the tele and doing large jigsaws.  I can see the attraction.  I have all her trays that she used to lay our her jigsaw pieces and it is quite a trip down memory lane as I continue to use them for the same purpose.

Today has also been a rather quiet day at home.  Mick had planned to go fishing with his brother, but the weather was really stormy early on and has continued to be rather blustery, so not conducive to fishing.  Therefore, he is enjoying another day in front of the cricket.

Me.  Well, the other thing I was looking forward to was making up the kit for the patchwork basket that I bought last time I was at Baradine.

I have pieced the patchwork and that is as far as I will go today.  Fingers crossed there is no wind early in the morning and I will have a go at spray basting the layers together to quilt.  Not something I have ever attempted before.  Wish me luck.

Merry Christmas

It is Christmas Eve and we have just about done all the preparation that we can in readiness for tomorrow.

Our day will consist of Mum, my brother and his family here for a cooked lunch before Mick and I then visit some good friends in the evening.

I just realised I hadn’t taken any photos of our decorations this year.  They are much the same as usual with just a few changes in the entry hall.

My little collection of kitsch nativity scenes has found a new home on the china cabinet, together with my wise men and shepherd.

Our outdoor lights are up, but I haven’t taken a photo.  There seems to be quite a few less around this year, however, our street is still putting on a great show, with most houses joining in.

I have received a new decoration from Lou.

It is front and centre on my twiggy tree that features my collection of very special hand made decorations.

I can now share the one I sent to her.

I’m not sure if this one has been received as yet, so won’t mention the recipient.  They were both fun to make.

So, on that note, I will wish you all Merry Christmas.