Happy New Year

Where I live it's just 45 minutes to the end of this year, so as I wait for the Sydney firework display to start (on the TV) my mind turned to thought of my goals for 2010. I am actually philosophically opposed to the concept of making resolutions. Of course, I am also philosophically opposed to firework displays, but that doesn't stop me watching and enjoying them - though I always do feel guilty about that, and do spend a few minutes regretting the damage to the environment, the distress of domestic pets, birds and other wildlife, and the animals at Taronga Park zoo, and the waste of public money which could have been put to better use. Anyway - I decided no NY resolutions for 2010.

I do however have some stitching goals:

• finish L&L's Angel of Grace and have it framed for Christmas 2010
• complete another 6 pages of HAED Jolly Old Fellow
• stitch and finish Christmas ornaments for Dylan, Dylan's yet to be born brother or sister, Olivia, Emma, Grace, Thomas, Brittany, Jackson, Matthew, Daniel, Georgia, Alex
• stitch framed Christmas gifts for Gayle, Rohan, Leah, Wendy
• stitch and frame 24 little bead decorated trees

The fireworks will be starting soon. I'm already starting to feel the guilt enveloping me. It won't stop me from enjoying the show, I'm sure ...

Happy New Year!

PS - the fireworks were spectacular

I got the best ever Christmas gift ...

it rained! Lots of rain - lovely soaking rain! And more promised for the rest of this week. The lawn has greened up already, the treeferns (whose upper fronds have been browned and dried by the sun despite frequent watering) now look as if they may survive another year, and the flowers are smiling again. Of course, this being a country of weather extremes, there has already been too much rain causing flooding in some areas (not here), and other parts of the country are on fire. It is very reminiscent of the situation of almost a year ago.

Christmas is over now -and my house has now returned to its non-Christmas state. It looks so uncluttered and dull in comparison - it always takes me a week or so to adjust each year. This year it took just under 4 days to do the transformation - a record time. I always like to have the house back to its natural state by New Years Day. So, now my lounge room stereo corner looks like this:when just a few days ago. it looked like this:

I do love Christmas! Just another 10.5 months, and I'll be getting excited about getting out my Christmas treasures again.

Now that Christmas is over, my Angel of Hope has found a new home in the study, watching over me as I sit at the computer. To accommodate her, we had to do three artwork relocations, but it was worth it - she looks right at home now.

I am keen to start the Angel of Grace, my 2010 Christmas Project - I dug out my lap-frame, and collected the fabric and floss tonight, and right now it's sitting near my stitchin chair waiting for my attention. I may get in the first few stitches tonight.

My final ornament for 2009

and it will probably also be my final 'finish' for 2009. This is a Christmas gift for my niece Melissa for her baby which is due in July 2010. The stocking is adapted from LA's Christmas Caboodle Leaflet 432 from way back in 1986. I replaced the doll in the charted stocking with a teddy bear adapted from Graphworks Mini Motif Designs Christmas Vol 8 Leaflet 36 (1987). I finished this in the nick of time - my family's Christmas gathering is less than 10 hours away.

TUSAL

My jar has made it to the end of the TUSAL year, and I still have some room to spare. I did have to press the contents down quite severely, cause at one stage it looked like the jar wasn't going to make it, and I did have to upgrade to a larger jar mid-way through the year. Since my last photo I've collected lots of white green and red threads and several broken needles from Angel of Hope; blues, reds and white toned threads and more broken needles from Jolly Old Fellow; and lots of Christmas coloured threads from the ornaments I've made. All in all, the TUSAL jar holds the discards from the 89 projects I've worked on this year (2 WIPs and 87 finished projects) and I have really quite enjoyed collecting all this stitching waste. I'm sure my stitching corner has been much cleaner and more organised this year as a result of the TUSAL. I haven't yet decided what to do with the jar contents - it seems so wasteful just to discard them now. It's highly likely that I'm going to continue collecting my threads next year - I've got quite fond of my TUSAL container over the year.

More Santas

This is some of my soft Santa (and one reindeer) collection. This year they ae peeping through the bannisters on the top level landing. The "Merry Christmas" sign was made for me by my sister Wendy about 23 yrs ago. The letters are made from bread dough.

I keep all my nice Santa cards and display them each year. These ones are on the door to a spare bedroom. They're pegged with tiny gold painted pegs to ribbon tied around the door. I have 2 other doors decorated with saved Santa cards, and another 2 doors decorated with cards received this year.

Jolly Old Fellow update

Progress has been very slow - not much stitching happening at all lately. I'm about 2/3 of the way through page 8 now, and I doubt that I'll get much more stitching finished on JOF this month. I did want to get page 8 finished this year, but right now it doesn't look as if that will happen.

Right now I'm stitching a last-minute Christmas ornament for my niece's new baby. It will be a Baby's Prenatal Christmas ornie, as baby isn't expected to arrive until July 2010. And I have started kitting up my 2010 Christmas SAL project - L&L's Angel of Grace. I have the chart and most of the floss, and I have ordered the rest of the floss, which will be here well before Christmas. I still have to decide on the fabric.

Santas again

This is a close-up of my Santa tree, on the landing of the bedroom level. The top of the tree is missing - I just couldn't get it all in the shot. I do particularly love this tree, and I have so many lovely memories of the Santas on it - where I got them from, and when. Some I have had for over 30 years, a very few are new this year. I try to get my Santas in sets of two so I can have the tree sort-of symetrical. On this tree I have Santas that I bought all over Australia, and in USA, Hong Kong, China and New Zealand, and Santas that have been sent to me from UK and Ireland. There are also some I painted or stitched. Beneath the tree is my collection of Christmas tins. I particularly like tins with Santa on them, and especially older tins and tiny tins.