Christmas Tree

Here is the real tree we have put up in our sun room. The close up is of an angel which I bough for only €2 in Penny's. I also hung some silver snow flakes on the branches closest to her. Below you can see the full tree, I will need to buy some more red tinsel to fill in some of the spaces.

I have supended two flying birds from the ceiling and attached a string of beads to make it look like they are decorating the tree.  I will also put an angel on top just as soon as I can find her. 

Christmas Table

 I love getting ready for Christmas and setting the table is always my favourite part. In 2008 and 2009 I used a black table cloth and trimmed it with silver.
I used a large glass fish bowl as the center piece, placing a red candle in the center and surrounded it with acorns. Black and silver flowers and silver  foliage on the outside of the bowl really made this display special.

Electric  baubles in black and silver  added a subtle touch of light.

Stack and Whack

To day I did a workshop at the IPS in Galway with one of our members, Mogs McDonnell. We started with 8 x 9inch squares.  If you don't want to use the same fabric twice in two of the blocks, only start with 6 fabrics or cut the 8 fabrics 8 times instead of 6. Place a paper number on top of the pieces so you don't forget which order you are sewing them in. (You can see I lifted one of the blue pieces off so you can see the other fabric underneath)

To make our pattern we used a piece of paper the same size as our squares. We divided the the page in six shapes and used these lines as a guide to cut  our fabric squares all at once. Each piece has a number and you must sew each piece together starting with the last number first. In other words sew 6 to 5 then attach 4 and so on.

As you can see I chose a different colour for each shape. Note if you cut 8 squares and only 6 shapes you will have to use the same fabric twice in two of the squares Can you spot this on mine? I can now chose to make more squares to make this into a bigger quilt, or I can put sashing around each square. This was a very quick and easy way to make a block. It works very well with christmas fabrics and could easily be a table runner.

My twins born 18 years ago weighted in at 2lbs 9oz and 2lbs 10oz. Carl and Millie arrived 3 months early on the 15th of November I hope they injoy their party tomorrow night.

Knitting and Stitching Show RDS

The knitting and stitching show this year seemed to have a lot more in the line of knitting and yarn so who could blame me for purchasing some wool. I love the idea of knitting a pair of slippers  then throwing them into the washing machine at a high tempeture which shrinks and felts them. Another idea I got from a friend is to buy old wool jumpers from charity shops and wash them into felt. You can then cut them up and make mittens or I guess what ever you like. What a great way to recycle in a recession, just think how warm we will all be this winter.

Christmas is coming

Well I guess it's time to get ready for Christmas. Here are some tags I made they can also be hung on the Christmas tree. I have also started to make some cards. These are fun and quick to make. Glitter glue is cheap and really sets the tags of nicely. 

Pumpkin Patch

On a recent visit to the US I came across this pumpkin patch.