December News

Well.  That was a much longer absence than I planned on!  I have been a very busy elf around here as you can imagine.  I can't believe the big day is almost here and I still have presents to make!!  Will it ever be any different?  I highly doubt it!

Without further delay, lets get started on what I've been up to since the big blankety ta-da.
My crochet hooks were kept busy with a few more gifts:  I made a snuggly scarf for My Favourite Boy in nice chunky yarn:

Next I stitched up some fingerless gloves for My Favourite Girl:

I am hoping to make a matching hat so I see some furious hooking in my future!

I also crocheted a few kitchen things for my piano teacher.  She is very patient with me so I wanted to do something a bit more involved than a coffee card:

I managed to cross stitch two ornaments and finish off a third I had stitched last year:

This is stitched over two on 40 count linen.  It is a free design that can be found HERE.  Lots of lovely freebies to see there.

I made five or six of these because they were so fast.  I just stitched a face onto evenweave and used the fabric covered button tools to attach the fabric to a shank button.  Afterwards I glued the button to one of those plastic snowflakes from the dollar store.  Nice and easy and I used a few as package embellishments.

Last year I had an idea for a quick stitched ornament for the times you want to give something stitched, but don't want to take two weeks to do it.  I used metallic thread for the letters on my own dyed fabric.  It was quick to stitch, but I can hardly call it a quick finish when I take a year to make it into an ornament now can I?

Of course I pulled out all my decorations and had a grand old time doling out the Christmas cheer.  I have some new crafty additions this year:  first up are more sweater pillows, this time in festive red.

I used more sweater remnants for little hearts to decorate the mantle this year:

I also have some new hoop art courtesy of Bustle and Sew magazine.  I believe these are from last year's issues:

This is part of a larger design but I didn't want to do all the hand stitching for the lettering, so this is my abbreviated version  !    

       
This was originally designed to be a tea cozy, but I wanted something festive to hang in my kitchen.  There was much singing of the Christmas carol as this was being stitched!

So now the cards and parcels have been mailed; gifts have been bought and wrapped and the kids are off school.  We still have baking to look forward to, and a few church choir performances before we can all relax and tuck in to a nice turkey dinner cooked by Mr. Crafty World.  It has been a hectic season thus far, and I am looking forward to a break of tea sipping and cross stitching in my chair watching holiday movies and planning for next year.

I know this is already a really long post, but I wanted to talk about these next gifts as I think it's worth mentioning.  I read in our local paper about an initiative to adopt a senior citizen in long term care for Christmas.  As it happens there are quite a few seniors living there who have no family members to visit them over the holidays, or give them gifts on Christmas day.  This just about broke my heart, because I think getting bypassed for gifts at Christmas would be just as disappointing at 95 as it is at 5.  There are always gift drives for young children at this time of year, and I think that is important too, but these are people who have contributed to our society and are now being forgotten about just because they are old and out of sight.  When I called to inquire about what was involved I felt so sad again, because requests were for things like a tube of red lipstick, or a pretty hairband.  We ended up adopting four senior ladies, and hopefully these little gifts will brighten their day on what can be a very difficult time of year.

Two of our ladies requested costume jewelry; one a hair brush; and the last wanted a stuffed animal to hug and had a fondness for British sweets.  I also added a few chocolates and some lip balm, just to make it more of a surprise.

I wrapped these up as pretty as I could, because sometimes opening a nicely wrapped gift is more fun than seeing what's inside.  I am also aware that this may be the last Christmas for some of these folks in the residence and I think it should be a nice one.
So, if you are considering where to put some of your charitable Christmas contributions, think about putting them here, with a local seniors residence.  The dollar outlay was minimal, yet these were the gifts I enjoyed buying the most.

Thank you so much for reading this far!  Now go and enjoy something festive and have a wonderful Christmas!

Happy Days,
Jenn