Presents

I was annoyed at myself that in my eagerness to wrap my presents for everyone I forgot to take photos of most of them! Here are a couple that I did take and now that Christmas is over I feel able to show them here.

Here's an embroidered cushion I made for my lovely Sister in Law

And here, a cute little mouse I made for my Mister, who wanted a pet mouse but it's not really possible right now so this is the next best solution :)

Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas with family and friends x

Wishing everyone a very Happy Christmas and an exciting New Year!

xxx

(More) Christmas baking

I love Christmas as a great excuse to go a little over the top with the baking, it's the only time you can really justify such great quantities of cakes, cookies and pies. And as someone who loves to bake I tend to grab the opportunity with both hands :)

Here are Diabetic Jam Tarts and Raisin and Cinnamon mini Cupcakes. Delicious!

Gingerbread House

This afternoon we spent creating the now traditional gingerbread house. I have to admit to cheating and buying a house making kit rather than baking my own gingerbread :) I meant to take photos of the construction process but it was all a little hectic, building not really being my strong point but I am pleased with how it turned out. Now I just have the task of shooing away would be house-eaters for as long as possible, I have to admit to being rather precious about my little gingerbread cottages each year and would really rather they weren't eaten at all! :) I predict it will last intact until approximately 30 seconds after my brother arrives in the house on Christmas day!

Home for the holidays

Christmas holiday

Two years ago, on our first Christmas together, my Mister and I took a little christmas holiday to London which was magical. This year we went again and it was wonderful again (although we had no snow this time)

London is wonderful at this time of year, so festive with all the pretty lights and things, but also hectic, so many people! So although it was a lovely, lovely little holiday, we were glad to get home for some calm and quiet and to get ready for Christmas.

Patchwork

The weather here has been terrible lately, perfect for staying inside, watching Christmas films and doing a little hand sewing.

I learned to hand piece patchwork years ago and for a while was prolific with it. I haven't done any in a long time but rifling through (one of) my fabric drawers I was drawn to these red and blue fabrics. I adore a combination of red and blue, so bright and cheerful.

I'm not entirely sure what these will end up as although I have vague ideas of making a tea cosy. I don't really drink tea myself but I adore all the paraphernalia. and I'm hoping that one day I will learn to love tea itself. :)

This gingham patch reminded me of these sweet little Bon Maman jars that I seemed to be amassing a collection of. They're just perfect for storing beads and so pretty too!

Designs

I have been working away on designs the past few weeks for my deadline on Wednesday, It has been effort I must say because my mind appears to have already broken up for Christmas. But anyway, designing is all done now, I now just have the fun of mounting, labelling and displaying my work before finally, term is over and I can start to fully enjoy the festive season. I can't wait!

Winter morning

Here is the view outside my window this morning, beautiful!

And I'm off for a candlelit breakfast date at Barkers this morning. If you ever find yourself in Cardiff you should definately stop there, the atmosphere is lovely and the cake is amazing :)



Brown paper packages tied up with string

I have spent the morning wrapping up my christmas presents which is something I enjoy immensely, it signals that christmas is truly round the corner.

I found this beautiful brown wrapping paper with stripes of gold in Paperchase and decided to pair it with string, partly because I think it looks amazing and partly because most years I spend a lot of money on ribbon for it only to either be discarded or given back to me with a 'could you use this for something?!'

I have long been resigned to the fact that I am the one who cares most about the beautiful wrapping of presents, everyone else is just in a hurry to see what's inside, such is life!



Sweetheart Quilt

I think it must be that fabric I used to line my new bag yesterday, I've come over with a desire for pink; bright as can be, combined with ruby red. I have ideas for a romantic pink and red patchwork quilt maybe a log cabin design, I've been wanting to try that for a while. Luckily I appear to have great quantities of pink and red patchwork fabric to hand, it might be just the thing for a project to work on over the Christmas holidays.

 

I'm all about a mood board these days. Some of these images are mine, combined with others I've picked up across the Internet. Unfortunately I rarely make a note of where I find the images I save so I cannot tell you I'm afraid.

Digital Stitch

Here is a peek at some digitally stitched design work I've been doing of late. I am in love with the digital sewing machine at uni, it's perfect for me because I love stitch but my standards for myself are so high that if anything I stitch out myself is not good enough. With this I can design a pattern and the machine stitches it out for me flawlessly. It's amazing, I really want one but at £1000+ I'm just making the most of the facilities at uni whilst I have access to them.

This particular piece is going to my Sister in law for christmas as my lecturer told me in my last tutorial in no uncertain terms that if I included sequins in my design I would be marked down! Which seems a little unfair, she clearly has a personal grudge against sequins. I, on the other hand adore them, especially around christmas time, you can't beat a bit of sparkle! :)

Leatherette Clutch Bag

Yesterday evening I grew tired of sitting at my computer staring at Photoshop and so I set to working on some of my Christmas presents I have yet to finish. I'm attempting to sew an iphone case for my brother and in my naivety decided leatherette was the way forward. Well I've never worked with it before and I've come to realise it's not as easy as I first thought, you can't pin it, it's tricky to fold over a hem and if you get the sewing wrong the first time that's it! And on something as small and fiddly as a phone case. Not easy! So, before I lost my temper with it and threw it out the window into the river, I decided to put it down and make myself a clutch bag from the remaining material :)

It was the easy-peasiest thing ever, just a simple rectangle of leatherette, hemmed the lining and outer material in together, popped a clasp on it, voila! Roughly an hour later I had myself a cute new clutch. I wanted one a little bigger for the day time that I can fit my purse, a notebook, keys, phone and everything in. I decided to line it with this slightly garish Kaffe Fasset print fabric for a definite contrast and I actually think it works really well.

Christmastime in the city

Cross stitch

This afternoon I had a sudden strange urge for bright colours and something simple and relaxing to do as an escape from design work for a while. I had a lot of embroidery thread left over from my last uni project and some Aida from a Christmas present so I sat happily and stitched out these tiny bright-coloured flowers.

I have a bit of an obsession with the pairing of blue and orange currently. Orange used to be my absolute most hated colour ever but it appears to have grown on me, not quite sure how I let that happen.

It's funny how certain colour combinations become current favourites and sources of inspiration and then it changes. At least that's how it happens for me. I become enamoured for a while with one combination of colours before moving on to another. How fickle I am :o) or perhaps everyone experiences that?

Quiet winter weekend

Super early christmas shopping to avoid the hoards, candlelit breakfast in a cute cafe and then home to curl up with my new cinnamon and orange christmas candle, fairy lights, a cup of coffee and a freshly baked muffin. Perfect saturday in December.

Not sure what I'm going to do with these collages seeings I already have cards sorted. Thinking I might make some little ones to use as gift tags, maybe I'll just put these into little picture frames for decoration. We'll see.