Though I happen to love them and am driving my kids nuts with my new 3-cd set and my album of Celtic carols, this is the last Christmas song I will inflict on you this year.

Time to get traditional.

Quiet day here today.  #1 Son is at work, so our big dinner with all the trimmings and gift giving is delayed until this evening.  Pancakes for brunch.

Weather is cooler and they are predicting rain in (usually) sunny Sydney.  I will get some sewing done ~ yay!

Hope you all have a lovely day wherever you are, and that the people you love most are near to you.

One last snowman for Pam.

Not sure when this video was taken, but Eartha still had absolutely terrific legs and ten tons of personality.  Sadly, she died Christmas Day last year.

Tried for the original clip, but could only find one with a remix or one with drag queens.

Snow people for Pam

One more sleep,

Almost Christmas.  So here are The Pogues with Kirsty MacColl ~ Fairytale of New York (1988).  Admittedly not everybody’s cup of tea, but I love it.

Shane has since had his teeth fixed (and further ruined his liver) and Kirsty has passed away, but it’s still the original and best.  I did look for a more palatable version and Billy Bragg ~ God bless his bolshy heart ~ probably came closest, but this is absolutely my favourite.

Enjoy ~ or not.

Some snowmen for you-know-who:

I pinned the rest of my blocks for Simply Abloom into rows last night, sewing and crafting WILL return.

It’s the day before Christmas Eve, so my second-last day of work for the year.  It’s been super busy at work, I’m tired, there has been a lot happen and this year I feel like I really need the break.

The grinch manager has said we will not be allowed to leave early tomorrow, even half an hour.  I guess it doesn’t really make any difference, it just kind of seemed a bit mean to say it. LOL

I have the days between Christmas and New Year off and am really looking forward to some quiet time.  I have my sewing planned, which won’t be terribly spectacular but should give me progress on a couple of lagging projects and we’re fitting in a quick NY trip to Melbourne to spend a couple of nights with friends.

Oh, and here’s Pammy’s snowman, which I forgot to post last time.

Not doing very well with my new camera, but I have at least got the Christmas decorations up. The same old ones with a couple of new additions.  If you squint, you may be able to see them. LOL

Have found that a lit Christmas tree is a very difficult thing to photograph with any kind of success – at least for me.  These are on some normal kind of setting.  I then tried to do it on the “fireworks” setting with the light off.  I’d show you, but it’s not dignified for grown people to wet themselves laughing.

I have still been sewing, spent a day yesterday making the little carrie nation blocks and half way through the flying geese for the next border on my CW quilt.

Just need to do a tiny bit of blanket stitching, with my electric needle, for my Simply Abloom quilt, then I can sash and border.  Though it would be good if I could find my border fabric.  Somewhere I have five metres of this:

It’s an old Robyn Pandolph fabric that I bought for another project, long since abandoned (actually, never started), but I want to work from stash as much as possible and I think it will be fine with the Aviary fabrics for a narrow border and backing and binding.

Perhaps it’s gone on holiday with 2.7 metres of this?

Which I can’t find anywhere and I have something in mind for.

I think it’s a pretty special achievement to have lost misplaced almost eight metres of fabric.  Special as in special needs. *sigh*

It’s almost Christmas and I’m not even close to getting all the “stuff” done.  We’re off to very dear friends’ for a pre-Christmas lunch today.  Don’t you love it when somebody else does the cooking?

Finally, I bought a new camera!  I think I’m even more rubbish with this one than with the old one, but hey, things can only improve *fingers crossed*.

For the first time in months (literally) I have sewn at home and managed to make enough progress on something that I feel I will achieve at least the top over the Christmas break.  Mostly I have just been fiddling about the edges of things at sewing group and workshops.

The blocks in progress above are going to become this quilt, designed by the very clever (and Australian) Bloom.  Obviously, my version will be softer, because the layer cake I had was Aviary by Three Sisters – I so love their beautiful, summery pastels.

At the moment, I am unpicking three of them – simple though they are – because simple though I am, I have stripes running in opposite directions and even though they’re tiny it will drive me nuts.

Have also been working (more than) full time lately.  Drive an hour each way to and from, so leave the house at 6.30 am, start work at 7.30 am, which means I should be leaving the office at 3.30 pm, though usually it’s more like 5.00pm, 6,00pm, 7.00pm… makes it very hard to organise anything.

Which brings me to the office Kris Kringle swap – anyone got any gift ideas for an extremely nice man, who I think may be around 30, not sure of ethnicity, not sure of religion, for $15 or under?  I don’t want to be culturally insensitive, nor do I want to give anything useless and I don’t know him well enough to be sure of his sense of humour.  Why, oh why didn’t I get Maureen?  A bottle of chardy would have been simple and perfect.

Angela’s solution, I feel, is not the answer – though when they were much smaller I remember #1 Son and The Princess laughing their heads off at the thought of being able to do what Angela does.

Snow on blog, and snowman (below) are, as usual, for my very gorgeous, busy and blogless friend Pam – and anyone else who likes snowmen.  It’s been 40C here today, could have used a little snow in Sydney because the air conditioning broke on my car.

Sorry if he featured last year, I tend to collect them as I go along, just for December.

Cheers,

I <3 John Butler/John Butler Trio.  This kind of music lifts my spirits.

Dad starts chemo on Tuesday.

Sewing tomorrow, I’m looking forward to it.  I may or may not work on the designated project.  My brain is a little fried.

I hope normality is resumed for all of us sooner rather than later.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend.

I’ll show you what I’ve done when I get back.

Too tired to find my siggy picture.

Kate =)

• Tomorrow, leave work before 7.30 pm.
• When you get home, tidy your sewing area ~ just enough, don’t be anal about it.
• SEW.

Your soul needs it.

Two borders added to the centre of my version of Charleston Harbour.  Here is where I start to digress, because it needs to be bigger.  Blue and cream Carrie Nation blocks as a whole border next, rather than just top and bottom, though though they won’t work for the corners.  I’m thinking shoofly blocks, but we’ll see.

I’m not making too many changes, just adding a few elements because it makes the quilt a more useable size for this family.  Original pattern is by Leslee Price for Painted Pony ‘n Quilts.

Block 11 for my miniature sampler.  I usually do this in conjunction with my Dear Jane quilt ~ two blocks of this in the morning and a block or two of DJ in the afternoon, but this was the entire effort last Saturday, because I distracted myself with these:

78 x 6.5” hexagons – all different.  I need 10 more, I think, then a trip to Pennant Hills is called for so I can get three different black fabrics for borders.

Of course, before I put the borders on I will need to unbury my dining table/sewing machine – and there will go my excuse for having at least three (maybe five) quilt tops that are done except for borders, which are even measured and cut to length.  My space is tidy when I’m actually sewing, because you can’t sew in a mess.

I bet you all thought I just hated binding.  Nope, borders too.  I can piece until the cows come home, but once it gets to sewing on big strips of fabric, ie the the last half to one hour, my brain is on the next thing.  So, off I go… LOL

L-O-L-A

Well, she doesn’t at all, but her name is Lola and she’s a Maltese-Australian Silky X.  The Princess brought her home after being expressly told that she couldn’t.

My kids aren’t old enough to know the lyrics to the song.  They are definitely of the post-Kinks generation. Hehehe.

She is still teething, nothing is safe.  So far I have sacrificed a slipper and a pair of sandals.  She successfully attacked and protected us from plankton, a care bear, a small rainbow teddy bear, a pink fluffy thing and Gene Simmons.  Which displays both her bravery and the rather eclectic collection of stuffed toys amassed over the years.  Lord knows, we should all be saved from Gene Simmons. LOL

Oliver the cat and Murphy the cocker spaniel are coping, sort of.  Much like me.

She’s cute as a button, but if she doesn’t house train soon something is going to have to happen.