A New Year

Making Me Smile - 52/52

Well, this is it folks, the last of my 52 Making Me Smile posts!

This week it's my family that's making me smile. This is the clan - mum and dad, my wee bro, his lovely wife and beautiful daughters and of course my two men. Here we are in all our differences of personality, temperaments and talents, sharing our Christmas Eve tradition of eating together. (Usually we go to our favourite Chinese restaurant but we were too late to book this year so this is us squeezed in at my mum and dad's.) I love this crazy, busy family night when all the prep is done and the kids are full of excitement (read hyper) and we just share being together.

As the year of Making Me Smile posts comes to a close it seems I was correct in my predictions that the things that would feature most on these posts would be family, food and fabric. There were a few other f's thrown in the mix too like friends and flowers and that about sums up the things that made me smile through 2013.

My life is very blessed but the days are mostly very ordinary and there's nothing grand or terribly exciting in the smile inducers of my weeks (or at least the ones I could photograph). Don't go getting the wrong idea either and thinking there's always something to smile about round here. A couple of times there were no posts because, lets face it, some weeks smiles are a bit elusive, but you know, I have much to be thankful for and I'm glad that I spent this year looking for snippets of that.

Thank you for indulging my little personal project for 2013!

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Last finish of 2013

Just squeezing this quilt to a finish on time to pass it on to my cousin at our family Boxing Day gathering.  Her adorable little son was born about 5 weeks ago and this quilt is now ready to keep him cosy!

The fabrics are from several different collections and have pretty woodland critter theme which is in keeping with the soft autumnal/woodland theme I was briefed on by my aunt (baby's granny).  I am hoping that her idea of soft autumnal and mine will be similar.

You can see the designs a little better on this in-progress pic.

I opted for a plus quilt design for two reasons. 1) I've been wanting to make one for ages and 2) though I know my cousin would love a quilt, I don't think they will want fussy or old fashioned and this is a great design for avoiding that.

I can't often splash out on special fabric for the back of my quilts but when I saw this fanfare flannel I really couldn't resist.  It's the perfect soft gold colour and with the wee foxes I really couldn't have asked for a more perfect backing!  It's so snuggly!!

To keep the quilt nice and soft I simply quilted either side of the vertical seams.  The squares are only 3.25" finished so the quilting is still quite close together.

It has been ready to bind for a week or so but between carol services and concerts and other Christmas events  we've been busier at nights than normal so I was beginning to panic that I wasn't going to find some "sitting on my bum" time to get it across the finish line. So, I am relieved to finally get the binding and label stitched down so that it's ready to deliver.  And, it marks my last sewing finish of 2013!

Finally, just thought I'd share our family gingerbread house with you.  This is the first we have ever decorated (bought in Ikea - no domestic goddess here). The three of us set ourselves up on Sunday afternoon to get creative with the royal icing and dolly mixtures.  To our surprise hubby took quite well to this task (not known for his creative patience) and we had a great afternoon's messing and burning our fingers on hot sugar glue!  I think we may have founded a new Christmas family tradition!


Fa la la la la la la la la!

Merry Christmas!

Giveaway Winner!

Thank you to everyone who entered the giveaway for my little novelty pack.

Your Christmas carol and song favourites were certainly diverse and I even got to hear one or two that I've never heard before including one Welsh and one Austrian carol.  I am glad I asked the question!

Anyway, cutting to the chase, all 30 entry numbers were placed in the Santa bowl

and number 7 was drawn.

Margaret, you are number 7.  Congratulations on winning! I will contact you shortly for a postal address.

Sorry that you couldn't all win, but thanks for entering into the spirit of the thing.

Festive or fiasco?

Thought you might like to see my Christmas cake decorating efforts, you know for a laugh.

I can't decide whether it's passable or whether it just looks like my cake has a festive disease!?! The inspiration for this cake was MUCH more elegant, trust me!

If nothing else my family has had a laugh at my measly Christmas cake. As DS tried to tactfully say, it's not how it looks that matters.

It smells amazing, just looks peculiar.

 

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Happy Blogiversary ... to you!

Today it is 3 years since I took a notion to create my blog - you know at the calmest, least busy period of the year ;-)  So, you know what that means, don't you?

Yep, goodies!

This year I've gone all novelty for the giveaway -

Three US fat quarters of Geekly Chic - cassettes in blue, glasses in yellow and records in grey - and 2m each of cream and white grosgrain tape measure ribbon.

Even if novelty fabrics aren't normally your thing, they are useful additions to your stash for use in Bees or, in this case, for those retro pressies (particularly for men).  And, they could be free and sent direct to you.

So, there you have it, a little blogiversary giveaway.  To be able to win you need to leave me a comment and I'd like to know what your favourite festive song (carol, secular or silly) is, just out of curiosity.  I can only accept one comment per person, so in case of duplicate entries only your first will be valid.  Please include an email address if you are a no-reply blogger or I will have to redraw.

Giveaway is open internationally and entries close 15.00 GMT Saturday 21 December 2013.

Just so you know, my favourite Carol is 'O Holy Night'  - the music and lyrics are so beautiful and evocative.  For sillies we love 'I want a hippopotamus for Christmas' by Gayla Peevey.  It's just nonsense really and think it's a favourite just because it was played by our local radio station for a few years when DS was little and it stuck.  If you don't know it, you should google it.

Right, get commenting peeps!