I will never understand blogger that's for sure. I've just logged on to do this post and things have changed again and so far it's not promising as one picture has already disappeared.

This is the stocking I made for Ellie, it's different on either side.

Here she is wearing it.

We did have her to stay for the night on Friday and she was as good as gold. She had her last bottle at 9.30pm and slept right through until her father woke her and us at 7.30am  ringing to say he was coming to collect her. As you can imagine I wasn't overly joyed at been woken up but Ellie just smiled. On Christmas Eve we all went on The Santa Special, here's Ellie with her mum and dad (and Dave the Clown).

We had a lovely christmas, time spent with family and friends. I hope you had a good one.

Elfing Around

Last week I started on my preperations for Xmas. I know I've left it rather late but never mind at least I'm trying. (mmm isn't she trying....(NLW))

So far I have managed to make three stockings and believe me that was trying enough. Years ago I made some for the children, when they were considerably younger. I had a lovely pattern, very easy and worked every time, so I kept it. Do you think I can find it? No of course not! Anyway  I wasn't going to let this beat me - oh no  (many a word said in jest) so I drew around one of the stockings and made my own pattern. That was easy enough, but I didn't have any instructions never mind, that wasn't going to stop me, I mean how difficult can it be to make a stocking? Well let me tell you if you're not having a good day it can be b....y difficult. Everything was going fine, I put the first one together so easy and I was proud of myself my homemade pattern had worked. Or so I thought, oh no it hadn't , when I held up the stocking  the loop was on the very top edge which would be the bottom edge of the cuff when the cuff is folded over. That's no good so I picked it out of the seam and sewed it back on in the right place on the outside of the stocking.

Amy's stocking was completed.

Now for stocking number two which is for Nicki. You'd expect this one to be perfect wouldn't you, everyone learns from their mistakes, don't they? No not in my case, yet again it was the hanging loop that was the wrong. So for a second time I unpicked the loop from the seam and sewed it back on - on the outside.

Now it was time for number three and Steph's stocking. By now I had learnt my lesson I didn't even attempt to insert the hanging loop.I made the stocking and attatched the loop on the outside without even considering inserting it. At last job done and three stockings made, I've just got one more to make but it's a little bit more special.

One thing I did manage to do and found very easy was to make a paper flower. It's just there on the tree in amongst all the other decorations. If I make another eleven of those I can stick them altogether and have a flower ball.

I thought I'd share this picture with you, It's our own little elf who had a date with santa later in the day. Don't you think she looks the part?

Sleeping Beauty

I've finished my wreath and it's now hanging up.



Something else that's finished is my little felted wall hanging. You can't see on the picture but I put some Angelina fibres in with the wool tops and when the light catches them they have a nice little sparkle - nothing too bright.

 Friday evening we got to babysit this little girl. She is very cute and cuddly but not very entertaining, all she does is sleep.

This is her 'I'm sleeping leave me alone' pose, which she is very good at.

This is her 'ok you didn't get the message now go away' pose.

Next Friday we may have her for the whole night (yippee) she's bound to be awake at some point then.

Having Fun

As we were having a quiet day in the shop today Dawn and I thought we might like to do something a little different. We decided to have a go at making a Poinsettia wreath using the pages from an old book to make the flowers and leaves. This isn't our idea, it came from here .

First we drew our flowers and leaves.

Then the fun bit we painted the flowers, leaves and berries.

Here's Dawn enjoying herself in the bright sunshine.

These are Dawn's flowers.

These are mine. The highlights or little white spots were added using a tippex pen.

I cut mine out this evening and now all I need to do is glue them onto a wreath.

This was fun to do, it didn't take long or cost much and could easily be done by children, not sure what that says about us, except that maybe we like the simple things in life now and again.

Holes

Yesterday we had a meeting of Spectrum and I was able to ask Gina for advice on colours. As you know I wasn't at all sure about the purple thread I had chosen. Gina was convinced that it was actually the right colour and I needed to work some more knots to be able to get a true picture. She was right.

This is a sample I made using four other colours none of which looked right. Although I enjoyed making it as the thread is beautiful to work with.

Anyway I have now managed to work my way around one of the big splodges. I wish you could see this in real life the colours are so much better than they appear on here.

Here's a close up, but the colours don't look much better. I must have worked thousands of knots and there's probably thousands more to do. Guess what I'm off to do now!