Merry Christmas!

Are thoughts of Sugar Plums dancing in your head? My head is full of Christmas's past, the children when they were little, and my own Christmas's as a child.

My Christmas Tree represents all those things, I have decorations from when I was child, from when I first got married and spent a year in the UK....

My mother in law no longer puts up a big Christmas tree, so several years ago she gave me some of her most precious decorations...

Beautiful Angel...

Cute Pixie, and Robins...

Funny little Christmas elf?

A more recent acquisition...a glass Santa...I like to buy a special decoration every year, as a memento.

But of course being Christmas Eve, we have to think about tomorrow, I have done my food shopping, so today will be focussed on arranging the house for my extended family to visit, some food preparation and of course the final gift wrapping...then off to an early family Christmas Eve mass for some reflection on the true meaning of Christmas.

I would like wish everyone has a happy and safe Christmas and lots of sewing after that :)

Bits and Pieces

Gosh...I am a bit over being busy all the time! I have had only had bits and pieces of time to do sewing this month....but the good news is I start 5 weeks of holidays next Thursday...whoop whoop whoop...break out the bubbly :)

So this month...my 15 Minutes Play swap quilt  was finished and mailed to Terry...

...who also happened to be my swap partner to make me something. She made me this lovely little mini quilt with retro fabrics from when she first moved to Oz in the 70's, plus she had researched me and saw I liked text fabrics and sent me a lovely little collection, plus some thread and invisible ink pen! I felt very spoilt when I opened my parcel! Check out her blog @ Terry's New Thread

I did some air travel with hubby this month, when you live in Darwin every other capital city is Australia is a minimum 4 hours away, so I was able to finish these fun little hearts which are part of the Lynette Anderson Scandinavian Christmas I started earlier this year...this project is going to a real slow boiler...but not everything has to be finished a weekend...right? Who does that anyway??

And I also did my pink scrap baskets...

Not sure how the pink scrap quilt will end up, I think it is good to let a quilt evolve sometimes, and let the creative genie out of the bottle!

Seven sleeps to go 'til the big day, we are having a nice family Christmas at my place...there will be 14 for lunch. We will be missing my younger brother and his family, as they live in Brisbane, but we were all together last year, so we can't be greedy and be together every year!

Off to write more lists...can you drink champagne and plan at the same time...might be a bit early for champers, perhaps I will eat chocolate santas and write lists!

Farmers Wife Blocks 17-24

Hanging in there with the Farmer's Wife Quilt-a-Long! Albeit very slowly....it has been so hot here in Darwin I haven't been doing much sewing, the room my machine is in does not have aircon :( But my lounge room does :) So I have been spending my evenings fiddling around with choosing fabrics, tracing templates, and cutting little pieces...in the air conditioning...it's quite therapeutic!

I have eight blocks for show and tell today (whoop whoop!)

(17) Cats and Mice

(18) Century of Progress....didn't like this one...I had to do it twice!!

(19) Checkerboard

(20) Churn dash

(21) Contrary Wife

(22) Corn & Beans

(23) Country Farm....my favourite

(24) Country Path...2nd favourite

Here's all the blocks together....

I am pretty happy with how this is looking...but I really need use more blue and green....

And I love this stack o'blocks photo...not as great as this stack though!

Note: gleaming brand new iron in background....it's black and gold...so classy!

I think I might stop at 30 blocks....what do you think?