WOYWW 395

Sing reign of Fair Maid, with gold upon her chin, 
Open you the East Door, and let the New Year in.

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas - it was a time of happiness tinged with sadness for me, truth be told, but we saw friends and family, ate some gorgeous food and sank a few bevvies too. And now the New Year comes galloping swiftly towards us - it's going to be a time of great change for me and my family. A new home in a new area will be the first challenge - feel the fear and do it anyway :-D

The desk is still a dumping ground!

The only crafting I've done is some crochet...but I've done a lot of craft magazine reading. My hubby and I signed up for Readly, an online mag subscription service. £7.99 a month for all sorts of mags from crafting to photography to lifestyle to tv pages to celeb stuff. It's excellent, we've both enjoyed it very much and seeing that most mags cost about £4 each, you only have to read two and the monthly sub is paid for!

I'm using up some Stylecraft Aran weight yarn for another charity blanket - it's mindless crafting but it increases quite quickly while tv watching/radio listening!

That's it really - I'd like to thank you all again for the support throughout this year. I wish you peace, joy, fun and friendship through the brand new year!

May....
...be a wonderful year for us all.

And lastly, thank you to my wonderful hubby - a new chapter in Wales awaits us both...

See you all next year!! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


WOYWW 394

HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS....

Well, it's the final run up to Christmas - only two more jobs left to do with band and then the coast is clear!  The desk is covered but not in crafting....

You may be wondering who's going to receive that sledgehammer? Well, that would be telling - suffice to say it's not one of the adults :-D

A little alteration took place though not involving fabric:
I found these sticky on bling letters whilst being dragged around The Range by Herself...they're not stuck on very straight but I don't care, they're on the end of the machine so not in my line of vision!

And that's it for today - I'll leave you with some Christmassy shots! My lovely table decoration sent to me by my niece Emma a few years back. It makes me smile each time it resurfaces every December.

And my little Christmas forest with some very precious handmade items that remind me of deskers old and new.

Thank you for being mad enough to have read my blog throughout the year (it's been 12 months of ups and downs, that's for sure), I really appreciate your support and friendship more than I can say. I'd like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and peace, health and happiness for 2017.

By the way - that isn't a sledgehammer for the youngest member of our family but of course, I can't reveal it yet!!  And that banana sign from last week? Of course I knew what it was all about, I just wanted to tease and bamboozle you (it worked, lol!!)  The Bananas in question are small banana-shaped boats in which you sit your toddler before taking to the ice rink at the Winchester Christmas Fair!  It just made me and G laugh ouR socks off, hopefully you did too!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!

WOYWW 393

I BELIEVE IN FATHER CHRISTMAS...
(RIP Greg Lake, listen here)

Gosh I love this song - we play it all the time with band and the main tune is taken by the euphoniums. It's so gorgeous I end up listening to them and not paying attention to where I should be ;-)

Band has been bonkers so not a huge amount of crafting has been done...in fact the desk is bare!
I did buy a couple of fat quarters though, someone wanted a doggy bandana in blue and I had every colour but! Well, it's a good excuse eh?

Funnily enough, there's very little blue Christmassy fabric around this year, mostly Scandi and traditional.  So when I spotted these, I thought I'd replenish my stocks.

But these were looking gorgeous too and it wouldn't have been fair to leave them on the shelf now, would it?!

And that's it craft wise because of the following - dip out now if you're here for the crafty stuff!

I was out playing with the the band a few times:
We were at the Christmas tree fair in the village where I used to live...it was damp. I had to dry my music out when I got home afterwards and then iron it flat again!

And on Sunday, G and I met up with our boys in Winchester for G's birthday lunch. The Christmas market was on and we had a quick mooch but the crowds were too crazy to really shop in earnest:
There were Hogwarts-esque cauldrons of mulled wine..mmmm, the smell was delicious.

This steampunky machine was making spanish churros doughnuts..that kept us entertained for ages.

You could smell this stall way before you arrived there....

...and this lady was doing a grand job building up the mountain of chocolatey goodness.

I fell in love with this window display - I want it all!

I don't normally do kitsch (ask Julia) but oh my goodness, these are so pretty!  I'd love a little twinkling village of the houses :-D

But the most incongruous sight of all was this:


Verily. the mind boggles!!! 

And on that happy note, I shall bid thee adieu. Have a great week!

WOYWW 392

MARY DID YOU KNOW?
listen here.....

It's December, so my favourite carols and Christmas music will feature! This one from Voctave is a recent discovery, but oh my, I do love it. The top soprano is amazing.

So, the desk....
Snowman fabric is being cut up for a couple more dog bandanas, it's going to be teamed with that stripey one. A bright and breezy combo!

There they are, for someone to give out to doggy friends :-D  I do like making these!

And these are the ingredients for my next project for a little something for myself, but I haven't got any further than this!  Watch this space...but some bunting and writing my Christmas cards may have to take precedence.

The Christmassy feeling started last week for me, not only playing with band but this too:
A little room in the primary school where I used to work which my friend asked me to turn into a grotto for their fair...blimey, I spent some hours in here with kids when I was a TA!  Anyway, the first thing was to cover up all the cupboards, resources and general detritus. Luckily I have enough white sheets which get reused for this sort of thing!

And of course you have to change the whiteboard into a festive window - that fabric you gave me from your Mum's worked a treat as some curtains Julia!  I added a window frame and Star of Bethlehem after I took this.

And I made a string of bunting to hang up but also cheated like crazy. The door was easy to cover with a roll of backing paper, staple gun and white sparkly tinsel but the stocking was bought from The Range for £1 - you couldn't make it for that!  It was about 18" tall as well. I couldn't really take an overview of the room, it's too small but apparently the children enjoyed seeing Father Christmas the following night!

Ok, must crack on with my cards if I'm to beat the last overseas posting date. Have a great week everyone!

WOYWW 769

 WE'LL MEET AGAIN.... I'm going to take a break from blogging for a while - please don't worry, all is ok! - think I just need a...