A weft yarn

Felt Folky Santas join the Fat Red Santas

All over the world, people are packing up Christmas and putting it away in boxes. Next year, we'll do it all again; the unpacking, the decorating, the plans, lists, parties, shopping, wrapping, carols, moments of heart stopping beauty and tiredness, all wrapped up in string.  I too am packing up. I generally try and get through to the Epiphany before I pack up, but this year we've got a few things on and it kind of suits me to pull down early.

I worked on my Fat Red Santas on-and-off through 2011, all year. Sometimes I sewed them at night but mostly I sewed them at Piano lessons. God, I love Piano lessons. The teacher is wonderful. I love listening to the children grow in their musicality. It's lovely having music in the house that comes from real instruments. But in all honesty, it is an hour at the end of a long week of working, where I get to sit in the Piano teacher's studio, listen to music and sew. One hour a week and I can embroider and sew 2 felt Christmas ornaments.

 Before I pack these chubby felty guys away, I thought I'd show you the family resemblance. Folky guys were done first, finished in October 2010 and hung on the 'good tree'. This year we had the 'bad tree' and lessons have been learnt. No more Scout trees from Bunnings. Next year we're going to a 'good tree' source. There have been family conversations. Other people's trees were scrutinised. Enquiries have been made. Googling has happened. It has been resolved. Now if only we can remember all of this in 12-months time. Sheesh.

 

Bye guys - see you in December 2012. Play nice.

 

Previous posts

Fat Red Santas - done and done (Nov 2011)

Red felt Santas - October 2011 (October 2011)

Santas - embroidery update (June 2011)

Felt ornaments - Christmas santas (April 2011)

Tapestry Christmas Stockings

As you know, I have three tapestries on frames in various states of progress: The ferry, Tim's christmas stocking, and my cat tapestry. As these projects are going to take me years to finish, I just wanted to grab this moment to show you some tapestries that I have completed. I don't have many visual clues around my house that I have completed any tapestry projects. I gave the flannel flowers to my mother-in-law and these two tapestry Christmas stockings spend most of their life in a box stored away, waiting for a few short weeks to be displayed.  So, I kind of feel it's OK to show you something completed years and years ago.

I gave quite an involved description of the history of these stockings in this old post so I wont bother repeating it here.

I am having the most wonderful week

Merry Christmas to you all and to all a happy 'twelve days of Christmas'. It seems that long-ago tradition determined that the days after Christmas should be ones of festivities and socialising. The weeks leading up to Christmas were meant to be times of quiet reflection and preparation (advent was meant to be like lent). Somehow as a society, we inverted that and made the weeks leading up to Christmas the weeks of celebrations and spreading good cheer. As a family we had 14 Christmas events and I personally, as chief-family introvert, had seven Christmas events to attend in the weeks leading up to Christmas - parties we gave, parties we attended through friends, work colleagues, groups we belong to. It's a fair amount of cheer for anyone, let alone talkative introverts like myself.

This year after Christmas we have been allowed, through extended family circumstances, to have a quiet time at home. Usually, we pack up on Boxing day and head off to socialise for 4-5 days with my wider family. While I miss not seeing my big and funny and boisterous family this year, I have savoured this quiet time here at home. Much organisation and projects and resting has taken place. As you know, this year rocked with achievements so it has been nice to calm the boat for a few days. I was given a set of Frozen Planet DVDs for Christmas and we've really enjoyed orcas, penguins, wind, ice and funnily enough listening to the children say 'that's amazing! It looks just like CGI'.

I have lots and lots of creative posts to share - and gardening posts for those interested in apples and potatoes. Santa was generous to us crafty ones. And nature has been abundant with water to the garden, though parsimonious with the warmth - so a bit of mixed blessing for amateur farmer/gardeners. But lots to tell, once I get around to writing and posting.

For now, take a look at the progress on the cross stitch scissors keep. I'm trying to finish it off so there's room at the inn for some glorious embroidery projects. I'll tell you all about them and the creative cornucopia found around and under Christmas trees. Later. First, more rest to be had.

Previous posts

Cross stitch progress on the scissors keep (June 2011)

Celtic scissors keep - update (May 26, 2011)

My next Celtic scissors keep - new kit (May 13, 2011)

Celtic scissors keep - finished (May 3, 2011)

Beaded Christmas decorations - given with love

School's out for summer. It was actually almost summer today. Almost. It is sooooo tempting, isn't it? Given what we are going through in Canberra at present but....mustn't grumble about the weather. Last week, we had the coldest night of carol singing out on Hawker oval. I'm not grumbling, in case you can't tell. I am just stating a fact. People were huddled under blankets, in woolly jumpers, in bushwalking style fleece jumpers, with beanies on, keen to jump up and play tug-of-war so that we could feel our limbs - that kind of thing. Cold. In Summer. Really cold, songs about snow made sense - cold. I'm a hot weather girl. I like a nice warm day, I love all things coastal, all things like oceans and rivers and pools in Dickson. I wait all year for these things to come and grace our short summer in Canberra, and then for some reason, detours happen and we're back in, well, if not winter, pretty damn close to it. OK. That's all. You get it.

School is out for summer. What's not to love? And my amazingly focussed 9-year-old, managed to make the guide leaders and the much loved Grade 4 teacher some glittery Christmas baubles to thank them for a great year. Tess has really thrived in Guides and in school this year. It is wonderful to end this topsy-turvy year with a feeling of rightness-with-the-world. There were times when we all felt scratched and torn from the year's briars and thickets. When I see what Tess has made and I think of the relationship between these women and my daughter, I am content.

As you know from here, we make the teachers a gift and keep one part of it as a memento of them. This year, Tess also decorated cardboard boxes to house the gifts. We had a pattern from a friend of mine who designed a little green and red Christmas box with poinsettias on top. We adapted it to use our own papers and add our own flourishes. You stamp and cut and glue and emboss with gold paint and then you get this... all the choices of colours, papers and ribbon are Tessy's. We ended up making three different boxes. One for the school teacher, and two for the guide leaders. I only photographed one. I plead busyness.

This is a gift for the Grade 4 teacher who is a maths whiz. And I mean whiz. Maths olympiad type maths whiz. A sane and calm and clear-sighted person who gently and persistently taught the children to excel in something that is not very popular. Maths. She is a plain and decent woman and I wouldn't be at all surprised if a frippery such as this was not her first place of cultural comfort. Perhaps the tartan ribbon and those uncompromising moors of Scotland will evoke her resilient and humble nature. I will certainly hang her decoration on my tree each year with pride.

 These decorations were completely handmade by the Tess. I did nothing.

These bells below, two of which were given to the Guides leaders, were 96% made by Tess. I did a tiny 4% of ribbon and sequin pinning (all statistics are faithfully represented by the 'guessing here' footnote). This distribution of the workload is quite a reversal for me. Usually the children start with me but peter out and I spend a few nights with a glass of wine and some beads finishing off the present.The tide has turned.

We are, with great sadness, saying goodbye to our Guide leaders. Tess is going up to the next level in the new year so not only did we make these, and some decorated boxes, but we also included some handmade chocolates and a Christmas mug from here. I have done a very, very modest amount of volunteer work during my children's life (secretary of the P&F for two years, and school canteen manager and canteen volunteer for three years). And my husband has too (scout leader and community garden convenor for about the same amount of time - thankfully at different periods though). I know how much time these ladies spend throughout the week; designing programs for the 4 terms of 10 weeks of 1 1/2 hour weekly activity session, sending and answering emails, attending weekend camps, filling in forms, going to training, shopping for supplies. It is an amazing amount of work to ask of women who work and raise families and volunteer to turn up, week after week after week to a small hall in Hawker, to guide young girls through life. I have such respect for them. Thank you, Guide leaders. We'll miss your warm smiles and quirky traditions and reassuring presence. Stay well. Love from Tess and Melissa.

 

Previous posts

Beaded Christmas decorations - teacher's presents (Nov 2011)

Christmas stocking

I have put a few hours into Tim's Christmas Stocking in the last week. Unfortunately, I came to a halt because I ran out of the Kreinik metallic thread. As I bought this as a kit with threads and stitching guide, I was a bit surprised to run out of thread. I think if I'd realised that I could run out of thread, I might have put more thought into how I was stitching. It's possible that the way I am stitching is using more thread than if I found a neater, more conservative way of stitching.

It hasn't been super easy to solve this thread supply issue. Canberra doesn't have a big enough population to warrant more than one or two shops that carry embroidery threads. I visited or rang all of the local stores and they did not have this speciality thread in stock.

I looked on-line but as I only needed one spool of thread it seemed excessive to pay high postage costs for the one small spool. So, I sat down with my other tapestry projects and tried to work through all my thread needs to see if I could summon up a large enough order to warrant the postage costs. I spent hours on this! The lengths one has to go to. Eventually I found that The Ferry tapestry probably needed a few more skeins of soft cotton and the cat tapestry needed some more paternayan wool.  Finally, I ordered from the Embroidery Den in Melbourne, which has an extensive range of threads for sale on-line.

After I'd been through all my bags and thread supplies I came across this post on a stitching blog....which told me about excel spreadsheets you can download to keep records of threads in your stash. Naturally enough I downloaded them! It certainly would have made my purchasing much easier if I had an accessible record system. Not sure though - it would probably take hours to record all these details and then keep them up-to-date. Hard to know on balance what is more effective.

 

Previous posts

On the frame - Tim's stocking (April 2011)

Tim's Christmas stocking (April 2011)

Final bit of renovation unpacking

I know I've mentioned the renovation of our house and as I find this tedious enough to live through, I'm not inclined to spend too much time here recording it all for posterity. However, I feel a huge relief that finally - December 2011, I've unpacked the last three rooms with boxes in them.

We had the back of our house knocked off through the depths of winter and lived without a kitchen for six weeks. We had our backyard dug up by large earth moving diggers, so that the electrical wires could be laid underground. Great swathes of Canberra clay soil were exposed for tracking into the house. The courtyard was also dug up to relocate plumbing. Then months later, a deck was built over the broken courtyard. When this was finished, we then packed up our entire house - all the books, craft, furniture, and possessions were removed so that for two days the floors could be redone. And now, finally, December, everything is returned, unpacked and back in place.

I have a few reflections about the process; what we did well, what we learnt, what we wouldn't do again. I wont bother the world with these reflections. But what I will say here, on my crafting-life blog is that I reminded myself of the need to create even while life is chaotic, dirty and disturbing. I also reflected previously on my need to bake cakes at a time when the kitchen was overwhelmingly dysfunctional.

At times, I've felt it was a madness to join a bake-along while renovating a house/kitchen but you know, I've really loved it and at times it helped keep me sane. I have loved focusing on something creative and delicious and sharing it with my family, friends and with you all.

But most of all - I'm glad it's over.

I am not the kind of house proud person who wants to spend her life renovating and redecorating. I now have an improved upon space, a slightly more comfortable, functional house that allows us a greater range of eating, entertaining and study options. In the immortal words of Babe "that'll do Pig".

I'd much rather make progress on my tapestries, embroideries, baking, knitting, quilting and really, really I'd like to try and make some clothes.

There's also the small issue of a vegetable garden .......

 

Christmas gift bags for my tapestry ladies

I am one of ten ladies who meet regularly throughout the year, for tapestry and needlework lessons. On the last lesson of the year, in December, we meet for lunch and then after lunch we go back to Helen's house for stitching and chatter. Last year, everyone exchanged small handmade gifts...gulp....except for me. There had been nothing said that I was aware of, it just seemed to happen somewhat spontaneously. So, I've been thinking over the last few months about a small token to make, that would be on about the scale of the gifts from last year.

Years ago, I attended a paper crafts workshop at the Canberra Craft and Quilt show and we made a small bag out of a white envelope. We then stamped it, attached a paper topper and punched two little holes, through which we threaded a ribbon. It was all very origami, simple and yet each bag could have slightly individual touches.

A couple of days before our tapestry Christmas party, Tess helped me with the prototypes and the assembly line production.

We filled them with chocolates and thankfully it wasn't a super hot day so there was no chance of them melting in the drive over to Helen's house.

It was a lovely day and I felt sorry to say goodbye to them all, until next February. We take a reasonably long break over summer. I hope they will all be well through the Christmas period.

Fat Red Santas - done and done

I finished these during the week. I don't usually have much time during the week to sew at night time. I usually sew or knit on weekend nights, but recently the children have been practicing for piano exams and piano concerts and as the piano is in the same room as the embroidery, I've been providing them with an audience and getting a bit of extra sewing in.

These guys are done. Done and done. I'm rather pleased with the progress on them. Only because it took my three years to finish the first two Santas in the kit! So, taking one year to do these guys looks like a speed record for me.

I have two more Santas in the kit but I wont start on them until next year. I've got lots of other Christmas stuff to consume me in the next few weeks.

How are your Christmas preparations going? My house is starting to fill up with the Christmas boxes. I get my husband to bring up from the garage, about four boxes in October which are full of Christmas crafts. Then another four boxes with decorations and stuff come up in November and the final set of boxes come up in early December. I make it sound systematic...it isn't really like that every year. Some years, things flow smoothly, others it's a mad frenzy at the end.

Previous posts

Red felt Santas - October 2011 (October 2011)

Santas - embroidery update (June 2011)

Felt ornaments - Christmas santas (April 2011)

HCB - English Gingerbread Cake

It is fete season in Canberra. Spring and autumn are the big seasons for schools, preschools, local charities and churches to run fetes. We love them. There are always bargains to check out at the plant stalls, cake stalls, craft stalls, second hand books. Lots of them run really good international food stalls and some are still working in the spirit of the olden times, and offer the children some great activities. Some have lost that joyous part of a fete and are just about shopping....Anyway, on the weekend we went to the Miles Franklin School fete and the Orana school fete (and we don't attend either of those schools and both are outside our local area ...they are just really good).

The reason I introduce this post with a story about fetes is that I always go to the cake stall and try and buy a cake or plate of slices, biscuits that kind of thing. I've even been known to purchase multiple items at the cake stalls. So, get to the point Melissa! I would not buy this cake at a cake stall and yet, I'd be missing out on a piece of heaven.

My cake has an alarming dip in the middle of it. What's going on there? I wonder if it's because I overfilled the pan? And it's really hard for a drab, brown, un-iced cake to compete with the glamourous girls of chocolate icing, sprinkles, cream cheese icing, banana cakes, marble cakes, chocolate cakes with chocolate icing, vanilla cakes with chocolate icing. You get the picture. When you are standing at the cake stall, winsomely choosing your selection, little Miss English Gingerbread Cake is probably not going to catch your eye.

What's not to love about this cake though? I think the ratio is about half sugar/half other ingredients. And that sugar comes in the form of Golden Syrup. Yes. Golden Syrup. 425g of it. I thought at first it was a typo. Don't panic though. Press on and include it and you will be rewarded with a cake that has a remarkably balanced set of flavours. The sweetness of the sugar is balanced with the spicy tang of the other ingredients. It makes up into a beautiful caramelised, treacly, moist cake. The other flavours are the ginger, cinnamon and citrus tang.  The cake includes orange marmalade in the batter and then lemon syrup drizzled over it on completion.

I might not buy this at a school fete...but....that would be my loss entirely.

HCB - Pure Pumpkin Cheesecake

This cheesecake came highly recommended (just check out the comments from my post on the Golden Lemon Almond cake). They were right! This is a delicious cheesecake. Having said that, we are fans of cheesecake and we do eat a fair bit of pumpkin (well at least the adults do). So you might be tempted to think we are easy to please on this front. Well....maybe...but I think objectively this is a really good cheesecake.

The crust is made from gingernut biscuits and toasted pecans, so that adds a lovely flavour. The pumpkin is lightly mixed with cream, cream cheese, eggs and raw sugar, which gives it a golden look and a soft, rich, caramel pumpkin taste. The topping is a deeply amber-coloured caramel - all runny and sweet and gooey. It just all works so well together. Ginger, pecans, creamy soft pumpkin and sweet caramel.

It seems that early on in my brief time in the bake-along, we made some tricky cakes with lots of stages. Well, this one only has three stages and only uses the food processor (not every bowl and appliance in the kitchen). So, on my scale of easy-to-hard, I'd rate it down at the easy end. "Make me again, again" - it is calling to me. We gobbled this down for breakfast, lunch, and afternoon tea.

During this week of pumpkin cheesecake baking we nearly finished our renovation. We recently had our whole house recarpetted, which involved packing everything and moving it out to the garage. Now that is over, we have unpacked all the essential furniture and possessions (first priority: beds, second priority:computers), all that remains is putting back all the books, glassware, bits and pieces, nick nacks and then call it a day. No more renovations for 2011. We still need to paint a few rooms and fix up a few things, but that's pretty much it.

If I get around to it, I'll show you my before and after shots of the kitchen and new deck.

At times, I've felt it was a madness to join a bake-along while renovating a house/kitchen but you know, I've really loved it and at times it helped keep me sane. I have loved focusing on something creative and delicious and sharing it with my family, friends and with you all. I have loved being part of something across the world, but shared. I've loved all the baking skills I've developed and (sheepish) I've acquired a number of fantastic new cake pans (gotta love that!). Certainly there were weeks where I struggled to participate and once I baked but forgot to photograph and then knittybaker told me that I didn't need tons of photos or even any photo..just let us know you've baked. Thanks for easing me in, Knittybaker. It's been a great experience. Thanks also you fellow bakers and readers (and my family who have tried all and loved most of what I do).

We finish up in a few weeks. Only three more cakes to go.

I think I need one of those Christmas wreath pans....as a parting gift to myself maybe....santa baby...I don't need a condominium or diamonds...