On Earth

and Good will to all men

Fliss couldn't have been more pleased than she was with this giant bottle of Peri Peri sauce.
And I know a lot of the world never sees a brussel sprout (quite rightly). But these will be wonderful after a little cooking and then loads of butter, chopped chestnuts and chopped crispy bacon. (and then we will not see them again until next Christmas)

Not quite a white Christmas, the snow from last week is finally melting. If you ever hear me wishing for a white Christmas again, remind me of what it's like when you can't get to the shops to buy food.

I've started on the final border

and think it will take at least another 8 days of quilting to finish it.
Meanwhile we've had another of our successful trips to TK Max. This mirror still needs fitting to the wall but as it's huge (49" wide by 74"high) it will take a little time whilst we (or Steph) decide how to approach it.


As you might have heard after the flooding last month, this month the country has ground to a halt due to snow. I love how this tree fern looks covered in snow, it has a vaguely tropical look (even though they grow in New Zealand) and to see the snow on the fronds is odd to say the least. It's a magnificent plant, each of those fronds are about 7 or eight foot long.

Not a lot to see but that background is DONE!

Try as I might, I can't get the mashed potato quilting to show up very well. 'Tis done, and now I get to do the final border, though I should remind myself each border takes far longer than the previous one.

Georgous and Rosie investigating the Ali Baba pot. Georgous has been known to fall in.

And Rosie just pretends it hasn't happened.

Kittens and Christmas Trees

If you've ever had a kitten you'll know it's impossible to have a tree like this, our tree last year. All those treasured baubles would be lost in the kittens attempt to climb and destroy all your efforts.
So this is the compromise. Some very cheap red baubles, a cheapie 'star' at the top and I made very large ribbon bows. A few candy canes and the whole thing was done in an hour. I don't dislike this type of decoration, it just isn't me. It feels like I have someone else's tree in my sitting room. I think it looks a bit like a tree in a Mall.

Of course whilst whilst I was decorating, George (now named Georgous) had to try out it's kitten defying properties.... See him there by the bottom of the candy cane?

Doing the mashed potato

You know all the problems I've had with this grid around the central feathers. I finally got them so I could hammer down with intense quilting alternate diamonds (and the alternates met when I got all the way round). The problem was I had used trunking as my straight line to do this and the resultant diamonds were about 50% too large and out of scale. I hit a wall of procrastination about the solution. Thanks to the wonderful ladies on QISE who gave me 'permission' to make a mistake I decided to ignore the grid and do this mashed potato background. I like it though I am worried it will pull up the quilt differently and I'll have major problems getting it to hang straightly.
We could do with more members on QISE to bring it up to a critical mass, so if you really really care about your work then this is the place for you.
Meanwhile every morning Rosie has taken to getting into this basin in our bathroom and curling up. I have no idea why but it does make me clean the basin daily.

Very cool

Suddenly I can see my work hanging in a gallery. How cool it this? You can do the same at Writeonit.org

Third round of feathers finished

Sorry it's another yellow photo but if I use the flash the texture gets washed out. Trust me, it is off white. Click on the photo to see the detail. (It should fill your screen) I've done a different background in each area to a, add texture and b, to stop me killing myself with boredom (grin).