Looking Back at 2025

I always like to have a little look back at the year and see what we got up to and how I went with my little goals.  You can read about them here.

In some ways, I’m glad to move on from 2025.  There was a rather sad time in the middle of the year when Mick and I both lost our Mums within six weeks of each other and then I had surgery requiring a fairly long recovery.

However, there were also good times to be had.

So, let’s have a look at what I achieved on the stitching front.

After reading my post at the beginning of the year, I had a chuckle at my wish to “try and concentrate on one project on the machine and one by hand at a time rather than jumping all over the place like I usually do”.  Oh my, how I massively failed at that.  2025 seems to have been very much the year of jumping all over the place.  

I actually did very little on the machine.  Most of what I did was handwork that I could take to my stitching days, which I continue to enjoy.

RAINBOW SCRAP CHALLENGE

Considering I wasn’t going to take part in RSC,  I made more of the Split Nine Patch blocks and managed to get them into a quilt top. It was finally quilted and bound this week, being the very last project finished this year - ie. this afternoon.

I also manage to get both the Fishy Business quilt tops made - still to be quilted and bound,

The only other RSC project that is unfinished is the drunkard path blocks from a few years ago.

CHOOKSHED CHALLENGE

This wasn’t as successful as last year.  Some projects were completed, others not.  I ended up switching around projects nearly every month.  It didn’t really work for me.  Having said that, it did prompt me to work on some projects that would have otherwise just sat in the drawer.

Thanks must go to Deana for going to the trouble of arranging this challenge.

MY OTHER GOALS

• Complete 12 UFOs - Nope, just 5.
• Quilt 12 Quilts on Monique - a huge fail - a big fat 0! - Having said that, I have quilted three in the last week on Elly May.  Phew, at least that is better than none.
• Complete 12 Donation items - There were only a few.

There were the three quilts I have just quilted. I made the Wisteria Corner to Corner Rug for Wraps With Love and also quite a few blocks for various group donation quilts.

• Complete 25 Projects - surprisingly, I completed 22.  
• Work at some crafting for 15 minutes a day.  I achieved 281 days, which equates to 76.99%.  I’m happy with that.

I started 26 new projects this year, which is insane, and completed 17 of them.  That does mean that there are quite a few to carry over to 2026, but I reckon that none of them will be carried over to 2027. Fingers crossed…..or just a crazy pipe dream?

The year started well with the completion of the hexy flower quilt top and also making the Design Curtain that hangs over our display cabinet when needed.  A very helpful innovation.

I started a new Leader and Ender project.  It is Bonnie Lass, by Jen Kingwell.  I’m going well with it, and it should make good progress as I work on the sewing machine next year.  I have completed quite a few more blocks than shown here.

I seem to have spent more time doing knitting, crochet and hand work this last year.  As well as the Wisteria Corner to Corner Rug, I completed a “Snowy” version.  This was intended to be donated, before Mick paid claim to it.  I also knitted another two scarves, a pair of socks, a beanie as well as my linen sleeveless top.

Two bags were completed, both using stitcheries that were hanging around.  I’m really pleased with both of them.

There were several other small projects.

The finale for the year was working on the Wensleydale Quilt.  After waiting in the wings for a few years, I stumbled up on the quilt along and jumped in with both feet.  What a fun project to focus on.  I had hoped to have the top completed by the end of the year, but it is currently blocks hanging on my Design Curtain. That will be rectified very soon.  It will be quilted next year.

Of course, a highlight in December was receiving “Elly May”, my new quilting machine.  

I have already quilted three quilts on her.  They are all for donation and have been great to get the feel of her.  

The final silly little challenge I had was to see how many cotton reels I could empty and collect in my pretty jar.  I’m trying hard to use up a lot of the odds and sods that I seem to have amassed.  Not as many as I had hoped, but a few of those had a lot of thread on them.  I will now throw them out and start again for 2026.  

So, what else did we get up to?

The start of the year saw me very busy organising the display of wedding and christening gowns for the church bicentenary.  It was far more successful than I could ever have imagined.

We managed to get away with the caravan five times, which is about what we aim for each year.  

We had two trips to Queensland.  Sadly, they were both called off short, due to the passing of our Mums.

In May we headed firstly to Lightning Ridge and then to Hebel and then St George. 

In June we headed up through Bourke, Cunnamulla, Charleville, Barcaldine and Emerald.

We also had an impromptu trip to Tamworth for a few days in October. The other trips were to Baradine.  Considering all that happened during the year, I’m happy with that.

We did enjoy the time we were away.

We went to Baradine twice for quilting retreats, as well as travelling to Sydney to meet up with Janet when she was briefly visiting Australia. Of course, Zoom sessions continue to be one of my favourite times. Such a wonderful group of women to know.

It was special to have Lou and Tony visit.

We had some fun days out.  Having said that, we didn’t get to even one quilt show this year and only one weekend of open gardens.

Portland Bonfire, Nocturnal at Scenic World at Katoomba, Bathurst Winter Festival, Mr Squiggle in Canberra’s, Birdhouse mural at Lithgow and Convent and Chapel Wool shop at Rylstone are just a few.

We had a couple of day trips to play the tourist in Sydney, which is always fun…..and then nice to retreat to the other side of the mountains.

In October with friends from Queensland.

And again in December.

In addition to all of this, we have just enjoyed spending time at home.  The garden is looking good and Mick is thoroughly enjoying being a part of the Bowling Club.  He has taken on more responsibility this year and takes pride in keeping the greens and grounds looking good.

On the whole, life has been good and we are still enjoying retirement very much.

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.

The First Week of December

The first week of the month has flown by in the blink of an eye.

I haven’t done a great deal of crafting, but that is OK.

Firstly, I finished the secret stitching, which didn’t take long.

Next, I removed all the papers from the Wensleydale Quilt blocks.  It was a good, mindless task to work on at my Wednesday patchwork group.

However, while doing so, I discovered an “Oops”.  Can you see it?  Yes, I had accidentally trimmed one block on the stitching line instead of the cutting line.  Just as well I had made 61 blocks and that this one was not one of my favourites.

For my Friday stitching group I was at a bit of a loss as to what to take along.  My first choice was to start my oatmeal coloured knitted beanie.  I had attempted to make a start the previous week at my Wednesday group, but do you think I could count on the casting on row? Not on your Nellie.  I put it aside for another day.  Well, Friday was the day.  Before I headed off, I cast on, putting stitch counters along the way and then was very careful not to twist the work when I joined in the round.  Then, I knitted the first round of rib, only to discover that I had in fact twisted it.  I put it down in disgust, as I was running out of time before I had to head in to the group.  

In its place, I quickly grabbed a cross stitch bookmark kit that I had bought in Wales back in 2018.  Surely I could at least make a start on that, and it would match my pretty tin.

I stitched the first colour and then started the second, only to discover I had missed a row of the pattern.  Blast!  Don’t you hate that!  I really should learn not to take cross stitch to my stitching days.  I will undo what I have done and start again, but that is a job for another day.  However, now that I have got it out I would like to complete it fairly soon.

After I returned home I picked up my knitting and had another look at it.  Guess what?  I hadn’t twisted my join after all.  It was just the way it was sitting.  Believe me, I was one very happy cookie to see that.  I was ready for a win.

This afternoon, while watching the cricket I made a little bit of a start on the ribbing.  I won’t do much more, as that will be good to work on this coming Wednesday, which will be our last for the year.

Speaking of my stitching groups, my Friday U3A group had their final day on Friday, which was followed by a lovely lunch.  We will catch up for lunch at some stage during January, but don’t return to our usual Fridays until February.  The Wednesday group also had a lovely lunch on Wednesday.  All very social.  We will continue to get together except for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.

One of my December wishes was to extend the length of my linen knitted top.  Well, today I finally bit the bullet to get things started.  Firstly, I stitched up the side splits, before trying it on to see how much more length I want to add.  Well, you know what?  It didn’t look too bad once the splits were stitched up. I can get away with it….just, so I have decided to leave it as it is.  It will be fine for wearing around home and for very casual outings.  I wouldn’t mind knitting another version of the pattern, but a tad longer with no side splits, as it didn’t turn out too bad otherwise. We’ll see.  Good intentions often don’t get to be realised.

In the background, the inside of the house now has the decorations up.  Mick has been really busy at the bowling club, as they had their annual tournament this weekend.  He has been helping prepare the greens and grounds over the last couple of weeks and they received lots of positive comments, which was nice.  The plan for tomorrow is to get the outdoor lights up.  We are running a bit late, but better late than never, as they say.

We have continued to have rather variable weather.  Fortunately, the frost failed to eventuate, but we are glad we covered the veges, just in case.  Since then, we have had a maximum of 36C yesterday, with wind gusts of 85 kph.  Today, was much better, being calmer and cooler.

In the garden, the flowers have moved on from spring with the hydrangeas now flowering.

The fiejoa is just starting to flower, which will attract lots of little birds and hopefully provide a nice crop of fruit in the autumn.

In the vege garden, I picked the first zucchini yesterday.  For tea tonight I made Garlic Zucchini Bites.  Another new to me recipe that sounded rather nice.  The recipe calls for, among other things, zucchini, garlic, parsley, oregano, basil and chives, all of which I have been able to pick from our garden.  The egg is from our mate’s chooks.

They were definitely a success.  The recipe called them an appertiser, but they were nice for an easy Sunday tea.  The dipping sauce was also our homemade tomato sauce.  It was nice to be able to use so much of our own produce in the recipe.

Now, to go back and watch the end of the cricket test in Brisbane.

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.