Happy Thursday!  A batch of Grey's chess tarts are out of the oven.  We're both waiting impatiently while they cool down enough to eat!

A second batch after tweaking his recipe. Almost there.  We can't find his Mum's recipe, so it's a matter of tweak and taste.  I'm not much help at all (apart from eating and telling him how delicious they are) as I've never eaten them before the first batch he made last week.  According to Grey, these aren't quite right, either.

To be continued......

There's a few Halloween projects that are close to finishing.  I'm stitching these in "stolen moments".  That way, I'll still be able to work on the BAP and have it finished for next Christmas.

The snowman has THREE snowballs, not two....a bit of unpicking and I'm back on track.  How I missed that, I don't know, as I had the pattern in front of me when I was stitching it.

Back to knitting vanilla fingerless mitts using Shibui sock yarn.  If there's enough I'll make them full mitts.  It had been maturing in stash since at least 2010.  Probably because it's  buttery soft 100% merino and would wear really quickly.  

Traced the fusible webbing for Father Christmas by Connie Tesene and Mary Tendall from Country Threads in the book Fast, Fun and Fabulous Quilts.

I was going to stop at the tracing, but decided housework could wait another hour or so and kept going.  All the pieces are ready to cut out. 

Wishing you a Happy New Year and hope yoir 2023 is wonderful.

 

 

Christmas Woodpecker is an FFO.  It's backed with a scrap from one of the to be cut up piles.  

All the floss I was gifted is bobbinated and is in the orphan floss box.   

Stitching Snow by Glory Bee from the 2004 JCS magazine on 18 count aida.

I filled the crafty note book and replaced it recently with this journal from the Dollar Tree.  I like this one because the dates are blank.  I've kept crafty diaries for years, filling them with mad scribblings, transfer anything I want to keep into permanent notebooks.  

The Father Christmas project ran into a bit of a problem.  I was excited on Thursday to receive an Amazon package of what I thought was a bolt of fusible webbing.  I'd ordered fusible interfacing instead.  Oops!

This is one of those projects that I just pick up every so often and stitch on it.

It's a bit of fun to have a crafty word of the year.  Next year's word is SANTA....because there is not one handmade Santa in the house!  There's cross stitch, quilt and doll patterns in the stash....so plenty of inspiration.

This will be my cross stitch BAP (big arse project) for next year.  It's close enough to a Santa.  Everything is ready to go, apart from zigzagging the fabric.

Grey and I work at different hospitals in The Big Smoke and he drops me off about an hour earlier than my shift starts.  For the first few shifts I was twiddling my thumbs, then had an aha! moment.  A vanilla sock is the perfect project.  It's small, portable and easy to pick up and put down.  I've made enough of them to be familiar enough with the pattern to know where I'm at when I pick it up again.

                                           

There's a bit of bobbinating going on.  I was gifted these a few months ago and forgot all about them until I was having a rummage in The Den of Crafting Iniquity.  The green, white and black will be tucked away as they are for now.  I enjoy bobbinating.  Any excuse to pet floss.  

I'm about halfway through.  I ran out of bobbins, so ordered 200 from Amazon.  I won't run out for a while!

Early morning stitching on Christmas Woodpecker by Punochka from this year's JCS Christmas special.  

Piliated and downy woodpeckers are regular visitors in the yard and I love watching them.

This book arrived on Thursday from Thrift Books.  Melissa posted about a copy she found here.  When I saw the lovely designs, I couldn't resist getting a copy.  I started quilting in the 90s and still love country style quilts.

I had a quick flip through it when it arrived in the mail and am looking forward to sitting down with a cup of tea and having a proper read of it.

This cutie was calling the loudest.  The pattern is Father Christmas by Connie Tesene and Mary Tendall of Country Threads.  

These are the fabrics.  The red is darker.  The faces and hands will be homespun lightly dyed with tan.  The white fabric will probably be green.  There's plenty of time to think about it, as I have no fusible webbing.  A bolt is coming from Amazon, but won't arrive until Friday.  So, it will be next week before that part is started.  That will give me enough time to figure out the sashing and border colors.

There's a nice contrast.  

A bit of sock knitting during a work break over the weekend.  It's not a very glamorous photo, but wanted to get a progress record.  I started at the heel flap and that section is close to being finished.  The yarn is Regia 4 ply. 

 Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Love and Joy by Wendy (JCS Christmas special 2022) was stitched on a scrap of tea dyed 14 count aida with mystery floss from stash.  It's slightly different than the original, as I miscounted when stitching the stems, so the leaves were left off.  They just didn't look right.

The border and backing fabric is from the scrap stash.  I went through the whole quilt fabric stash, but couldn't find anything that was quite right.  Luckily, there was this piece from the 90's.  It's from the first quilt I made, which is the only reason I know how old it is!

This is from an older JCS magazine.  The pattern is by Val's Stuff.  

It was glued to the top of a round cardboard box from the Dollar Tree, which was painted white.  A generous dribble of glue was added and a container of the tiniest seed beads were poured over the top.  Then it sat for a few months...BEB calls that maturing lol

To make sure the beads don't fall off, gloss modge podge was dabbed over the beads.  Some of the stickers started to peel a bit, so it was modge podge to the rescue again!

He has some signs of neglect, but seems to have settled in.  We think he is less than a year old.  

Melissa's Summer Stamp design was stitched on a scrap of 14 count aida that I'd cram jar dyed.

So was her Watermelon Stamp.  I had to leave off the border on both, as being stitched on scraps, there wasn't enough room for them.

They were both finished in the middle of summer. 

I save any usable scraps and when there's enough, mix up concoctions of leftover over dues and see what I come up with.  It's getting to be a bit of a pile, so I need to get stitching!

This is where I'm at with sewing the 2 inch scrap squares together.  898 pairs and a few 4 patches have been pressed open, 600 pairs of squares are ready to press open, 289 pairs ready to be pressed and a small pile left to sew!  The vague plan is a few different four patch quilts when they're all pressed.

Grey surprised me with this Dr Who clock, which is made from a record to celebrate finishing my orientation/training for the job I started at the beginning of October.  I love it!  

I'm beyond thrilled at getting the job.  I've been trying for two years since I became qualified.  It's a few minutes up the road from where Grey works and we will be on the same shift, which is great!

This is my favorite quote from the show.  I have an idea for turning it into a cross stitch design.  I'll keep you posted!