WICOPALYPSE Report - final for 2012

There was not much stitchig done in my house in the past month.  In the first few weeks I did some stitching on my niece's wedding sampler, and I have now all but finished the floral heart.  I hope to do the final stitches on the heart tonight (and if I do,i t will be my first stitching since mid December!).

Here's the current state of play with the Wedding Sampler:

In 2012, my major stitching finish was my HAED Jolly Old Fellow.  I totally credit the WIPOCALYPSE for giving me the motivation to keep working on my Santa and actually finish him.  My original plan was to stitch 10 chart pages in 2012, and at that rate it would have been at least 2014 before Jolly Old Fellow was finished.  It was a great delight for me to have him finished and hanging on my loungeroom wall this past Christmas.  He has now moved to my spare bedroom, where he will spend the year along with 9 of my other Santa cross sttich pieces that hang there waiting for their turn to come out for next Christmas. 

My only other stitching in 2012 was Christmas ornaments.  Not unusual for me - I always stitch quite a number of Christmas ornaments each year, as gifts for visiting children (and some adults) at Christmas time.  I stitched and finished 36 Christmas ornaments in 2012.

Since Christmas I have been busy returning my house to its usual (non-Christmas) state.  I always like to start the New Year with a freshly cleaned and decorated house.  It takes me a few days to adjust to the 'plain-ness' of my non-Christmas house.



Happy New Year to all.

Merry Christmas!

Going upstairs now ...

From the front door, looking up the stairwell to the top landing.  The Santa at bottom left is the frst Santa I ever had framed - way back in 1992.

and a view from the door of the top landing decorated for Christmas.

 

A more detailed pic of the top of the stairs, featuring my Santa ornaments (hanging on the linen press door)

A close up of Santa.  He came hoe with me frommy US trip in 1994.  I found him in Los Angeles.

This lovely old mask was a birthday gift many years ago.  HE is one of my (many) favourites.

A close=up of my Santa tree.

and this is a wider pic of the Santa tree.

 

Some of my favourite Santa cards.

 

The last of the Angel Room pics

This is a wider view of my Angels, and it includes a rather poor pic of my L&L Angel of Love.

This pic shows L&L's Angel of Love and Angel of Grace.

Here are my cloth Peace Angels sitting in the rungs of the balustrade.

 

and just in case you missed it before, another view of the same display.

My Angel Room

At Christmas, this is my favourite room of the house.  At other times of the year it's the sittng room, and it looks very different to this.

This is my largest angel.  Like many of my angels, she's been rescued.  I found her very dirty, missing one wing and with the other one broken, and with very tangled hair.  She had been strung up to be a hanging angel in a local church for quite a few Christmases, and I bought her at the church's garage sale two years ago.  I made her a new set of wings, cleaned her up as best I could, and now she stands guard over my 1970s Christmas tree in the sitting room.

These are my doll angels.  Most of them didn't start life as angels, but it's amazing what adding a pair of wings will do! 

This is a better pic of my 1970s Christmas tree, which has also been rescued.  A friend retrieved it from the rubbish skip when a work colleague threw it out as he was moving house.  This tree had been their family Christmas tree since the early 1970s, but with the children grown up and his wife passed on to a better life, it was no longer needed in the household.  So I have taken it into mine and given it a new life.

 



 





Angels galore - there are angel candle-holders, angel bells, musical angels, glasss angels, tiny angels, and all sorts of angels here.  Some I have had since the early 1970s, and a few joined the group this year.



more angels

and yet more angels.  On the wall, next to L&L's Angel of Hope, is my Angel Tree.  It's made of wood and dowelling, and has around 200 angels on it this year.  The tiny wooden ones on the top branches are ones I have had since the 1970s.  On the tin trunks under the tree are my standing angels and some of my favourite angels.

 

The last of the kitchen pics

This terracotta Santa is one of my absolute favourites.  This year he's on top of the kitchen wall cupboards, guarded by two angels.

And these three Santa terracotta candle-holders are on an adjacent wall cupboard.

This wreath came into existence when I was cleaning out my craft room.  I found a large cane wreath, a box of vintage baubles, and a bag of cut-up (plastic) greenery.  I added a little glue, and hey presto - a wreath!  It's hanging over the door into the kitchen from the dining room.

This Santa was a Christmas gift from my niece Aislinn, also a cross-stitcher, in 2008.  Since then he has hung each Christmas on my kitchen wall, above the wall oven.

And my final kitchen pic.  It's actually the first of the sitting room pics, as the tree is in the sitting room  - my sitting room is adjacent to the kitchen.  It's my 1970s Christmas tree, which was rescued from the rubbish skip when its former owner was moving house.

I'll be back with more sitting room (or Angel Room as it is called at Christmas) photos next time.

More of my Christmas kitchen

I spent last night in the kitchen making a huge batch of gingerbread, supervised by Miss Maddie.

While it might look as if she's sleeping on the job, let me assure you that it's all an act.  When I tried to leave the room for two seconds to fetch some cellophane bags she was awake and barking loudly, letting me know I was breaking her rule that at all times she has to have a human (preferably me) available within clear sight.

Here's a pic of some of my gingerbread babies:

They're all packed up now in cellophane bags, and waiting for my sister to pick them up.  She ordered 17 bags of ten gingerbread babies to give to work colleagues - that's why I was in the kitchen all evening!

And here's a pic of that kitchen corner without the gingerbread.  The Christmas cake under the dome is a family tradition.  My brother-in-law makes them each year using his Irish mother's recipe.  It is super yummy, dark and full of fruit, and given the chance will last all year (mine never has!)

Here's a pic of the windowsill which houses my collection of salt and pepper pots.

and a close-up of the salt and peppers:

I'll be back again with more kitchen pics later.

Moving into the kitchen now

At Christmas, my kitchen holds two of my favourite collections - my Christmas fridge magnets, and my Christmas salt & pepper sets. 

My fridge magnets:

 On top of the fridge are a couple of teapots and biscuit barrels.

And here is par of an accidental collection of gingerbread people and my very favourite Christas cutting board.

That's all I have time for right now.  I'll come back later with more kitchen pics.

The last of the Dining Room Christmas pics

This wall of the dining room is one of my favourite places at Christmas.  It houses my Santa Advent tree.  Everyday i turn over one of the stars to show a Santa, and when all the Santas are there on the tree I know it's Christmas Eve - and my favourite time of the year is coming to an end!  My Jim Shore Santas also live on the buffet at this time of the year.  On the wall above is an incredibly detailed Santa I started stitching in 1992 and finally finished in 1997.  Had I known about evenweave fabric at the time I started it, ny labour would have been less, as I stitched it on 18 count Aida, and it is chock-full of fractionals and blended threads.  The two Santa masks on the wall came home from a trip to San Francisco in 1994.

This is a wider view, so you can see my ugliest Santa standing to the right of the buffet.  I stil love him despite his fearsome look!  On the other side of the buffet you can just see (if you click on the pic and see the large version!) the top of one of my favourite Santas - a painted post I found in Carmel in California on my 1994 trip to USA.



 

 

 And here's a close-up of the Santa Advent tree.  This pic was obviously taken on December 5.

Christmas Dining Room, Part 2

The first picture is the close-up shot of the vntage display case from an earlier pic.  The case itself is just beautifully made, with brass detailing at all the wood junctions.

And here are most of my nesting Santas, sitting under the two Marilyn Gandre cross stitched Santas.  I added a number of rows to the Sata's great book chart to make it the same length as the Santa's Workshop so they would hang well together. 

 

 The final pic for today is a close-up of one of my old plastic Santa and reindeers (from the 1950s) flying over the wall-clock.

My Christmas Dining Room - Part 1

No dining happens here in December - the Christmas decorations take precedence.  Fortunately, the weather is hot here over Christmas, so we eat outside if we have guests, and usually balance a plate on our knees in front of the telly downstairs if we're eating alone.

This year I have displayed my small collection of Nativities on the dining room table:

 

 

 and here is a wider view of the table, also showing my L&L Oh Christmas Tree and L&L Santa of the Forest, and the display cabinet that currently houses some of my vintage Christmas collection (mostly Santas and angels).  Peeking round the table leg near the window s one of my two large 1950s Santa money boxes.

Here is a clearer pic of the display cabinet.

These are my vintage Santa dolls.

and the final pic for tonight - Vermillion's Nine Santa Sampler guarded by a few much-loved Santas.

Entering the house ...

These are my favourite pressed metal Santa faces,  I have 3 near the front door, nd the other three opposite on the stairwell wall.  They've been all over the house over the years, but they do seem right at home in  their present spots.

 

 

 Sorry this pic is so dark - black tin on black slate. It's in the entry foyer, to welcome visitors to the house.

 

 

 and one of my favourite cross stitches - Christmas Gentlemen - along with some Christmas brooches and a wooden 12 Days of Christmas set.

 

 

 These Santas welcome you to the dining room - to the left of the front door as you step into my house.

 

 and here we have my gourd Santas, protected by a 1950s Santa doll.  On the wall is a little display case of small vintage Santas, elves, and angels.  I'll probably have a better pic to put in later.