Goodbye 2008

I think this year has had more than its fair share of tragedy. Two of our fellow bloggers suffered the nightmare none of us could come out the other end unchanged forever.

On a lighter but still not wonderful note, 2008 has been a year of minor injuries for me which has been reflected in the amount of quilting achieved.

On the plus side I have lost a considerable amount of weight without trying, just by making the simple change of forcing myself to eat two slices of toast every morning. I do mean forcing, I find it very hard to swallow first thing. The miracle is it's working. I haven't cut down in any way I've noticed or even tried, so it's a winning formula. My clothes were falling off quite literally, so I bought a new pair of jeans two sizes down yesterday and they happily are falling down as well, yeah! Still some way to go but it's in the right direction.

I try not to write anything political but let just say world events over the last few days have had me yelling at the radio and television.

On the negative more couples amongst my friends have split up this year than I've even known before.

So 2008 goodbye, I won't be missing you very much.

Merry Christmas

I was going to leave wishing you all Merry Christmas until tomorrow morning but then I realised all the bloggers in Australia and New Zealand would already be in bed, so...
MERRY CHRISTMAS! This is the wonderful cake Steph made for us (already cut into) and the table laid ready for tomorrow (well nearly).
I'm excited. My niece has come over to England with her three children and husband. It seems ages since we had excited little children at Christmas, it brings out the child in me, I've even been tracking Santa's progress.

Finally!!

I've been in the sewing room, not stitching but cutting fabric out at least. Remember the jigsaw quilt I designed a few weeks ago? Well these will be the squares but I can't go any further with this until my DH fixes the printer as I need to have a picture of the design so I can follow the placement of the puzzles bites (I don't know what else to call them). But there is a deadline, the baby is due in February.
I know you're all waiting to see the next border on the feathered star quilt, so am I?!?

Big Fat Momma Angel

Made a few years ago (from a pattern? perhaps the first one or two then I went off on my own) She was in a glass clip frame but the glass has broken so maybe she'll be a Christmas pot holder now, ahh. She was just fused and the 'stitching' done with Pigma pen, though I do see I hand quilted just round the outside of the motif.

Christmas is coming

I've toned things down a bit this year but still our tree is fab.
Sinclair ignores the whole process if there is a fire to lie in front.


Things go much more quickly when Fliss is around to help. Half way there.The little lights have disappeared under the flash. But we're pleased with the effect.

Design excercises and chocolate

Before I throw these out, I thought I'd share.
These wraps were quite useful in terms of playing with colour proportions. Just take a photo, painting or whatever and wrap threads around a card using the same proportions of the colours. It doesn't matter what the subject is very much, just something where the colours appeal.
And these might be good for some people though not for me. I knew what the effect would be before cutting out the shapes. I know other women who can visualise predictively but if you can't this is an exercise in positive/negative shapes.

And paper cutting, same thing applies.

More

I think the one on the right was torn rather than cut, less predictable but more of the same really.


And then later to reward myself for more decluttering I had a go at making chocolates. I poured some melted chocolate round these tiny cake cases. Froze them to chill them quickly, added some jersey cream with champagne and then poured more chocolate over the top to seal them. It was worth a try but the cream and chocolate was just too rich.
Anyone have any ideas as to what to do with the rest of the pound of melted chocolate?

Out of the chaos...

there shall come order. Or so it is hoped.
These are my old Ikea Billy bookcases. They have served me well for 16 years. At one time they lived in the sitting room and were mahogany coloured, they got painted and moved up to the landing until now when some of the shelves are sagging in the middle, and the quantity of books is pulling them apart from the sides. These are 90% quilt books and magazines.
And here are their lovely replacements. Also Ikea, their shelves are 5cm deeper so all the oversize books can fit inside rather than gathering dust on the top where because they are so high, they never got a glance.
I love these doors to keep everything dust free. I shall velcro some blue toile de jouy behind the glass to hide a multitude of sins.
And Ikea being the king of storage solutions, do these fold up fabric boxes which fit perfectly (I know there are gaps but these enable you to pull them out easily).


On our way home from the cottage, we popped in to the Bristol Ikea. What a different experience from their flag ship shop in Wembley. Friendly helpful staff and no queueing! I found these lovely fabrics. Too heavy for quilting but lovely for some cushions. These reds look quite 'brick' in the photos but they are a deep cherry. And the blue in the stripe fabric marries the blue toile de jouy perfectly.
We also bought two more Billy bookcases in white to go on the landing. I'm going to 'steal' the doors from the ones in DH's office (they don't close properly on his anyway as lever arch files are about 1/2" too deep)
My new mantra, 'less stuff, and what I have MUST have a place!'