Doing Santa's Laundry

Merry Christmas! With all of the prep and celebration for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, it's been like living in a snow globe these past couple of days, but in a very good way. And now that Santa's rounds are complete, it's time to freshen up his suit.

Time to catch my breath a bit, so I picked up Good Day, Syre Christmas and have been enjoying some very relaxing cross stitch by the light of the tree with my eggnog nearby.

Freshly fallen snow and icicles have been added to his house.

And the laundry is starting to be hung on the line.

May you find time to relax and soak in the joys of the season with some quiet time as well....M

Not Everything Was Christmassy

We aim to have a variety of seasonal items on the Holly Bazaar tables so I made a few additional runners and potholders that didn't say Christmas.

The check of browns and oranges that I used for the border seemed like a suitable fit for a collection of leaf blocks that I had made. The hint of green that runs throughout gives it a nice autumn feel.

It's called Hello Autumn,

and someone had fun designing the selvage for it.

A mottled brown binding finshed things off nicely.

I love the acorn panto that Roberta quilted it with. It's a little tough to see at first, but these gorgeous little acorns are scattered in amongst a frilly leaf pattern.

And then there was this pretty yellow braid all trimmed up with a soft green. This one really felt like spring to me. Unfortunately, the lighting on this photo is not great but you will have to take my word for it, it was very pretty and light.

You can get a better sense of its true colours in this photo. The green and white Spring Chicken check that I used for the backing and binding had a fun selvage, too.

My niece Julia crocheted these beautiful cotton dishcloths that we sold in pairs. The stitch that she used is so interesting - it looks more like knitting than crochet to me. Almost too pretty for washing dishes...

And she also crocheted a bundle of these chunky star tree decos hung from a bit of twine. So, at the end of the day there was a very healthy bag of goodies to drop off for the gals at the craft table....M

A Few Bits from the Holly Bazaar

Though it seems like the Holly Bazaar was ages ago, its just been a few weeks but prep for it kept me even busier this year because I was asked to co-convene it. I was patting myself on the back for having started my sewing early because something would have had to give if I had left it all to the last minute.

This is one of the holiday-themed runners that I made. It's a Kim Deihl pattern called Double Dipped and was lots of fun to make; I particularly like the little red pin dot background with all of those Christmas prints. 

Roberta quilted it with a swoon-worthy holly and berry panto.

It looked great as a runner, but the blocks could have been a little bit smaller if it were for my table. That said, someone bought it so it obviously works for their table. 

It has a lovely argyle feel to it and is scrappy to boot; the pattern would make up into a beautiful throw.

I got all five Christmas stockings finished...

And remember these placemats that I'd found on 'the chair'? (I made a set last year from remnant HSTs.)

With so many prints in the HSTs I opted for a subtle red check for the binding so that it didn't compete for attention.

And they are quilted in the same beautiful holly and berry panto that Roberta used for the runner above. It would be great to use the reverse side of them sometimes so that you could enjoy that quilting to the fullest.

I really debated giving these away but fear not, my partner in crime came to the rescue. When they proved to also be a favourite of The Official Cookie Tester's, he bought them. They never made it to the craft table 😉.

There were still plenty of Christmassy HSTs left to play with so I whipped up a pair of cute potholders  - love that candy cane binding - and managed to give them to the cause. I can't keep everything!....M

Where Does The Time Go?

Boy oh boy! I'm looking at the date of my last post and cannot believe how busy things have been since then. It's been a month - time to get caught up. Let's start with yesterday. I had a few batches of cookies that I wanted to finish up, so on went the carols and I spent the day in the kitchen. 

You know what it's like when there's one or two recipes that you miss if they aren't on the plate... Some have already been gifted!

And this was after we baked all day a few weeks ago at our annual Christmas Cookie Bakeoff.

We did the math and figured out that this was the 30th time that we had held the bakeoff, which is pretty amazing (it would have been 31, except for Covid). 

Julia graciously hosted us again this year and was in her element decorating our wares.

Needless to say, the gals all have the routine down pat and everything went like clockwork. By the end of day we had parceled up 1,530 cookies - just under 128 dozen.

Before all of the holiday baking, cleaning and decorating began, there was the Holly Bazaar. It too was a great success. We welcomed so many visitors to our little church - I think more than ever - and there was plenty of seasonal cheer to go around. I'll share more on that next time, and I promise that it won't take me a month to post it! 

Hope that if you celebrate Christmas that your holiday prep is well under way....M