Merry Christmas everyone!

On earth

This angel has fallen...... I can't reach...... hope she enjoys it.....

Quilter not a cake decorator

Steph was here yesterday and she attempted to teach me how to decorate a cake simply. I learnt lots about how to get the icing very smooth, how to make it and the marzipan to stick and then we moved onto the roses. The one in the middle was my very first rose. Unfortunately, it was my only rose, no matter how hard I tried I could not repeat the exercise. And this is why I make quilts and she is queen of cake making.

This is what happens when snow comes out of season. Instead of beautiful white virgin snow, the leaves keep coming. Some of them are even falling whilst still green.
The foot prints are from the fox.

Quilt, fabric and Christmas

A lovely bright quilt to be working on in this cold weather. It's a top made by the local quilt group for charity. I'm not sure if it's to raise money for supplies or for a raffle.

I found this lovely fabric at Hancock's of Paducah. I've been looking for birds to appliqué on a reproduction (ish) quilt for ages. It only has these two birds on it but they are the right size. I might amputate their feet to make life easier. It can be found here.

A friend came to stay last week and she came with these fabulous roses. I adore this faded colour.

I hang this along the bottom of the stairs each year. It's so much better than hanging near the bannister rail where it gets in the way.

This year I decided on a more simple look for the mantle piece.
Growing up in Australia I dreamed of a white Christmas, now we have it, and although it's beautiful, perhaps my dream should have had the caveat, the snow should start on Christmas Day and not before.

Lucky find

Six dinner plates, two covered serving dishes, one gravy boat an oval serving plate and (this is the sad part) five side plates.
I love this stuff, it will look so pretty with the Cath Kidston retro things. The whole lot was found for the princely sum of £10. I will have to keep my eye out for one more side plate, or perhaps you will find one for me?

I think this is it.

The poppy is from my brown Chateaux Rococo fabric. Remember how I'd bought 18 yards of this? I lost it until this morning. How can you lose 18yds of fabric? Burying it under all the quilt backing fabric will do it nicely...

I spent the afternoon on the phone looking for more of the stripe from the range. There are two versions of the stripe one is cherry/magenta with sage green, the other sage green with cherry/magenta. I don't know what I've got, so I've had to order both. I can see another of my twisted borders on the horizon.

Now I'm off to cut out some more poppies and leaves.

When I look at the preview of this post it has pages of links to this post? What's going on Blogger? On the other hand I'm very impressed with Blogger's new spam filter for blog comments so far it has picked up all of them (will they give up now they know it doesn't work?) and hasn't put any genuine one in the spam box.

AQS Blog of the Week!

How cool is this? Thank you AQS. See my lovely little badge on the left?

Yesterday Steph and I decorated the house for Christmas. I saw this hanging thing in Cox & Cox I think it's for hanging herbs and flowers to dry but I thought it fabulous for hanging Christmas things above the table. Great table decoration but it doesn't take up any space on the table. Of course it's one thing coming up with great ideas, it's totally another executing them. Steph to the rescue and a very good thing too. It would have killed me getting up and down and tying in all that fishing line. This little effort took as long as decorating the tree. There is a plan to store it with the baubles in tact.

I'm hoping the cats are old enough this year to leave the tree alone. And although it's only a hope, we're shutting the door at night. Fingers crossed.

Liquid Thread resolved.

Before I forget, I have found a UK supplier for Liquid Thread (the UK equivalent of Liquid Stitch). The products seem to be the same thing, just different packaging. The good news is Liquid Stitch has a longer finer nozzle. If you get some be very careful to cut it really near the top so the hole is tiny. I can get a very small machine needle down the hole but not a large one. The shop is here I have never bought anything from them so I can't comment on their service etc. I was amused to see the appliqué squeakers on the same page, it took me just a little while to work out what you would use them for.

I never did find the quilter who I first saw using this. I did get lots of suggestions as to who it might be and most are doing it a similar way to this. I put a bead of the slightly watered down Liquid Thread along the outside of each rose. I then placed another silicon sheet over the top and pressed it quite hot, Steam escaped round the edges, so if I were doing it again, I would do smaller pieces.
 Wait for it to cool before removing the silicon top and bottom. You can buy expensive nice white sheets of silicon from quilt shops or more cheaply as cooking silicon sheets and black.  Cheap suits me just fine.

I love these roses with their photographic quality. Thank you Lois, who very kindly gave me the fabric.

Now before you look at this next photo, imagine a blue bow where the stems cross, green leaves and the stems curving.

An alternative centre is this rose. I think the colour of the stem has too little contrast with the background fabric, but I can create something different.

Meanwhile Christmas is coming.

I got this great wreath at TK Max, the postman will be relieved not to cut his fingers on the silver trailing one from last year.

And we've had an early snowfall. The tree fern became a giant white octopus when viewed from above.

The foot prints aren't the cats, they come from the wanderings of the fox.

Too cold to sit under the pergola.
These photos were taken earlier in the week and the snow has mostly melted. The temperature is still below freezing and there is no end in sight to the cold. No problem for me, I like a cold bedroom.

People sleeping rough on the streets are having a very hard time of it. If you can possibly make a donation to the Salvation Army this year, it is needed more than ever. I know that in addition to their normal Christmas appeal (which due to the economy is much needed) they are helping the people on the streets in this very cold year.