Christmas is everywhere now. From watching Christmas films on TV, to the christmas lights being turned on in town along with the town tree, the mall is busy with shoppers and the Santa Grotto is up, to accompanying DH to his modelling club christmas do at a pub. Our lights are on outside the house, and today we went to buy our tree and found a christmas fair in progress along with a live reindeer and reindeer baby. We'll get the tree into its stand tomorrow so it doesn't die, but then I am off on Monday to Salzburg so the decorations will have to wait until I get back on Friday. We took our son out to dinner tonight and the restaurant was all decorated and there were already some Christmas parties in progress on some tables. I've sent a few cards, done the family christmas shopping (luckily only small) and ordered presents for others to give to me (books, a paper guillotine and an eyelet setting tool). So things are in progress.
I prioritised finishing the unicorn quilt this week, so it is all quilted, trimmed, washed, and bound. My son has seen it and feels confident that his girlfriend is going to love it. I used the rainbow fabric for the binding which I think lifts the dark border.
With the unicorn quilt off the worktable, I have moved on to continue piecing the blocks for the Gail Pan embroidery BOM. Block one was a bit of an adventure, trying to get the recalculated blocks to work out. Then I appliqued the two hexie blocks. It looks good, very busy. I've cut pieces for the second block but haven't assembled it yet.
I've started my
Christmas cross stitch sampler which is from
CrossStitcher magazine. There has already been a bit of unpicking but it's starting to take shape. I have a ticket to the online Jingle Ball stitching event this weekend, so I've been getting some stitching done while listening to some of their sessions. I didn't sign up for any classes but am enjoying the chat rooms with other stitchers, and some of the live sessions with designers. DS decided to come and visit us this weekend, which is lovely, but has meant that I'm not going to get as much time in the event as originally planned since the event is on American time (so UK afternoon and evenings).
Small dollshouse kits this week was a mixed bag of book kits, most of them ancient. Some large Mini Mundas book covers that I inherited from a friend who had already cut the wooden inners and done a starting paint job, some other orangey covers that may have been Mini Mundas as well, an Art of Mini freebie kit for a cookbook, and a couple of printed covers that I inserted some pages into.
I had to move all the weaving stuff down into the dollshouse room so that DS could have his room back for the night. So I haven't felt like warping up for another project yet because I knew I had to move it all.
I'm visiting Salzburg to see what the christmas market is like, but it's not going to be snowy - the weather looks similar to the UK: up to 11C, some rain and overcast days. But hopefully it will still be fun. I was briefly in Salzburg back in 1982 as a backpacker so it will be nice to go back and see it properly. That's my last trip for this year.
