Usual run up to Christmas busyness. Most of the decorations are up, except for those with battery lights. Remembered to get some yesterday so just need to go through them and replace the old ones now. Am thinking of the winter solstice and having a bit of a feast and lights to celebrate the beginning of the new cycle of rebirth, the coming of the longer days.
Cake is marzipanned. Have got most of the Christmas dinner pre-prepared ready to heat up on the day. Am making stuffing balls from scratch today – a Mary Berry Biker Boots recipe (so named after mis-reading something about her) and will freeze them.
Finished my winter hare with her gift bag. She’s in place of a stocking for me. Absolutely loved making her.
Have modded the template slightly and made a smaller version:
Her little wooly jumper is crocheted from sequinned yarn.
Got two more ready to sew plus new clothes. I was lucky with a couple of charity shop trawls that found me some lovely dresses with sparkly sequinned tulles over ‘satin’ linings. The lining is great for making pantaloons and knickerbockers. One had a feather trim used for the feather hat above. Loads left. Of everything.
Also working out a crochet pattern to make a ballet wrap cardi (sadly using the last of my souki gold dust yarn – discontinued and can’t get old stock for love nor money) and a big flouncy tutu to set it all off.
Something I’ve not been able to get hold of are the wooden and hardboard boxes of easy peelers… they lend themselves to becoming a beautiful beds for winter hares with space around for small pretty packages. It’s become a bit of a mission to find then transform one.
Managed to finish off the baby blanket and hat for the local animal shelter charity shop. The pattern was fab. It was full of bobbles, shells and Biba windows (that’s my name for them cos they very loosely remind me of the Biba logo:
(bloody Foxtrot Oscar autocorrect… Biba to Boba twice now!)
When you’re crocheting biggish projects, a little variety in the stitches keeps it interesting and this pattern had that. The shop wants it after Christmas to put on their FB auction.
Even bought a gorgeous gift bag to sell it in; sets it off beautifully:
Who wouldn’t want to welcome a new baby with a ‘Guess How Much I Love You’ gift bag? Perfect.
My biggest happy moment recently was finding the Dr Marten brogues that Amazon cancelled the night before they were due to be delivered. Not from Amazon, obviously, but the DM shop itself. Not only were they in stock but cheaper and arriving on Monday. Marvellous. Really made up about that.
Challenging myself to make gingerbread and decorate with royal icing in time for the last wild and wooly meeting of the year. It’s just making the time to get down to it. I have the ingredients and adore the spicy smells in the kitchen while it’s being cooked. Delicious, warm and aromatic.
So, apart from the gingerbread, the Mary Berry Biker Boots stuffing and wrapping Monday’s brogues (can hardly wait to do that) pretty much everything that can be prepared early is done.
Looking forward to the solstice then Christmas Day.
No More Mondays 