And......... relax!

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

I hope that your Christmas celebrations were everything you hoped they would be.

We spent they day at my mum's with my brother and sister. My hubby and I cooked most of the dinner, it was the first time we'd done it as we dont have the space to host here, and was quite a surprising success.

Needless to say we've spent today and yesterday vegging out on the sofa, feeling sorry for ourselves after massively over indulging. Will we ever learn???

I've just spent a happy hour or so on Amazon, surfing around looking at knitting books. One of the children in my class gave me a £15 Amazon voucher for Christmas (how super generous?!?!?) so I thought I'd treat myself.

I found this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1579653340/ref=ox_ya_os_product





and then this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1861086709/ref=ox_ya_os_product



and also this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1844009459/ref=ox_ya_os_product





As much as I love the ease of internet shopping and hate all the battles getting into the carparks and then the shops, as soon as I've chosen the stuff I want to buy, I want it instantly and can't bear the wait til the items arrive through the post.

I can't wait to get started on knitting some snuggly lovely baby items.

What are your knitting plans for the new year?

xxx

Snowflake scrumminess

I think I've finally learnt something about my crochet and knitting habits. I need small projects (preferably with a lot of repetition) or I get bored/lose concentration/get distracted. My attention span is shamefully short for a fully grown adult.

So my Christmas projects have been perfect.

I planned to make an advent stocking garland using a pattern from the Jean Greenhow Christmas Special booklet which of course means making 24 of them. I'm getting there. 6 down 18 to go.

But as I mentioned before, I got distracted by this snowflake tutorial and then distracted from making them by this tutorial. Seriously, shamefully short! But I highly recommend both patterns. I dont have a lot of crochet experience and have to youtube each stitch at the beginning of each project because I can never remember the difference between a HDC, a DC or US and UK terminology. So for me to be able to follow a pattern, it needs to be pretty simple and have clear photos. Both these tutorials fulfill these criteria! :)

So I set about making enough of each so that I could make a snowflake garland for our living room window.  We have a fab window, it's 4.5, wide and looks out across the valley. Sounds fab eh? but half of it is overlooked by the neighbours so half the curtains are shut permanently. Anyway, I wanted a snowflake garland to span the whole window.

I ended up with 10 of Matt's snowflakes and 10 of Lucy's small snowflakes, topped off with 5 of Lucy's full sized snowflakes and worked out that I needed about 18 cm or a chain of 30 between each flake and set about collating them.

 

 

I cant get a photo of the whole window, silly Christmas tree is in the way, but you get the idea.

Have a fantastic Christmas everyone. We're off to my mum's for the day then with the inlaws on the 29th.

Christmas Crazy

As a primary school teacher this time of year is great fun but SO exhausting. There are parties and films, music coming from classrooms at all times of the day, glitter in places from where it will never return and smiles on the childrens faces that make it all worthwhile.

But the children are overly tired, the staff are overly tired, the children are overly excited, the staff are overly stressed.

I feel like I have carol concerts and parties coming out of my ears. Sweets, outfits, cards, glitter, Christmas films the list is endless. I feel like I bumble from one day to the next with no time to think about tomorrow.

I havent finished my secret Santa present yet. I dont know what I'm going to wear to the staff 'do' on Thursday because hardly anything fits anymore. I havent bought presents for my Teaching Assistants or job share partner yet. I havent bought presents for the children or written their Christmas cards yet.
I feel like I'm drowning. :( And I'm exhausted.

I'm sure this isn't what Christmas is meant to be about.

Handmade Monday

Oh I am LOVING my Christmas projects.

As much as I'm really excited to get them made and finished off, I'm glad they are taking a while so I can enjoy the whole process of making them.

Is that kind of crazy???

If you've visited before you may have seen that I had the amazing idea of making a garland of 24 little stockings to make into an advent calendar. Needless to say it wasn't ready before Advent started. It probably wont be finished before Christmas but hey, I'm having fun.

The stocking count is currently at 5.5.

In my last post on Wednesday I said that I'd been distracted by making the gorgeous little crocheted snowflakes from the tutorial on According to Matt. They only take about 5 minutes to make up and mine still need to be blocked and starched but they are so much fun and SO gorgeous. I have 10 of them so far.

But that was before I found this pattern for cocheted snowflakes on Attic 24. So my garland is now going to consist of a mixture of 3 different snowflakes. But I like that. I think it will look great.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's a slow process for me. I dont get a lot of crafting time during a normal week and this week I've had a streaming cold. I spent Tuesday and Wednesday in bed (which did mean that I got all my Christmas presents ordered online so it wasn't all bad) but it really takes me a while to get anything finished off.

Oh, and in other news, him indoors, otherwise known as Scrooge, has finally shown an interest in the Christmas tree (it's only been there a week!!!). He asked if there was any chocolate on it.
There wasn't and therefore the interest soon ended. But there hasn't been chocolate on the Christmas tree in any of the 6 years we've lived together so who knows what he was thinking of.

I'm hooking up with Handmade Monday again, and Make Something Monday when the link is up.
I hope the last week of school productions, carol services and shopping go swimmingly for everyone. xxx

WIP Wednesday #32

So Christmas is in full flow now. Life is crazy.

Cupcake decorating with the Guides, Carol service rehearsals, Christmas bazaars, ordering presents, time off work ill, decorating trees, School discos, staff nights out, (I'm due my 3rd Christmas dinner next week) etc etc etc

And as usual, I've managed to find myself half way through SEVERAL projects. Only a few of which face any realistic chances of actually getting finished anywhere near this side of Christmas.

But I'm enjoying them so does it really matter? Who will even notice? I know him indoors would rather I didnt finish some of my decoration projects. He'd be glad if there were no more woolen or felt decorations. But that doesn't stop me. :)

The stocking advent calendar is making SLOW progress:

I've been distracted by this AMAZING tutorial for gorgeous itsy bitsy snowflakes. They are SO quick and easy to put together. I've decided that our front window needs a garland of them all the way across it with the snowflakes hanging down at different lengths from the garland.

But these are the cupcakes I made with my guide unit on Monday at Stanley's Store. I've mentioned this aladin's cave of wonder before as Sarah has stocked some of my bracelets and earrings. Arent they fab? The Guides LOVED it. It was their Christmas treat.

 

 

 

 

 

I've been busy busy. But pop over to Tami's ,  Kristine's or Ginny's to see some other WIPs.