Merry Christmas...

Image

Presents wrapped, mince pies made, work finished (until Thursday), and my advent candle is on the home stretch...all that is left to do tonight is enjoy the broadcast of Carols from Kings.

London is forecasting a mild though wet Christmas Day...off to church in the morning, followed by a non-traditional (vegan) lunch with friends.

Wishing you all a lovely and peaceful Christmas...

A Handmade Christmas (part two)...

I'm spending Christmas Day with friends who have two little girls (3 years and 18 months old) - so I spent some time this weekend making little Christmas gifts for them both...I've discovered that clothing is a much safer option, as I am never sure what they already have toy wise...

I'm sure I've posted about this technique before, but here is a quick re-cap.

I printed out their initials using a large, simple font - something without too much detail is ideal.

I then traced their initials onto vlisofix/bondaweb (double-sided fusible interfacing) - making sure to mirror-reverse their initials during the tracing stage.

Iron the vlisofix onto the wrong side if your fabric...

...and then cut around each letter.

Remove the paper backing, position them on the shirt where you wish, and then iron to secure.

Using a toning embroidery thread, use a blanket stitch and work around each of the letters.

And the finished product, ready to wrap and place under the tree.

I managed to retain my industrious-ness and finally spent some time this afternoon making a new bed valance and pillow covers to go with the the new bed quilt that I purchased back in January (shameful I know!)...but at least I managed to complete them within the calendar year (just). Now I just need to decide on what I'd like to do for bedside lamps and the bedroom mini-makeover will be complete.

Handmade Christmas...

You may remember that last year I was very industrious in making Christmas ornaments for a group of old-school friends. Well, I'm afraid I was a bit of a failure this year and had to resort to purchasing...a combination of delayed inspiration of what to make, and then running out of time to actually make anything.

However, I have still kept some elements of a handmade Christmas alive this year. Earlier in the year I gave my friend C some knitting lessons, so I decided that it would be nice to make her a scarf for her gift.

I toyed with the idea of a chunky wool ribbed scarf, but when I was browsing ideas on Ravelry, I was swayed by the idea of a pretty lace-knit version. I'm popping the finished product in the post on Monday, and I hope she likes it...

Advent candles...

Last month, my friend C and I went to the Spirit of Christmas Fair at Kensington. It was a fabulous event, and I will definitely go again next year. While we were there, we stopped by the Suzie Watson Designs stand and C gifted me this lovely hand-painted advent candle.

The candles are decorated so prettily, with handpainted hearts, stars and christmas ivy. As I was away in Australia for a few days, I have been a little late in getting the Christmas tree decorated. Whilst I was fighting jet lag on Friday night, I decided to tackle the tree and get up to date with burning my candle.

There are some lovely things on the website, but I think an advent candle is going to become an annual tradition for me.

As is my custom, I have continued with my favourite blue and silver theme this year. A new addition to the tree is this lovely little wedgewood teapot which was a gift from my mother last Christmas...and given that I was just on Sydney recently, there are also now a lovely little selection of gifts under the tree...

Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare and flooding...

This past weekend I joined my friend K for a weekend in Warwickshire - she wanted to see a band perform in Leamington Spa on Saturday evening, and I plumped for a visit to Stratford on the way back to London on Sunday.

The Midlands had been subject to some heavy rain and flooding, so we were fortunate that Sunday featured a lovely sunny morning.

Stratford-upon-Avon is predominantly known as the birthplace of Shakespeare - but also is the place of his death...both events occuring on 23 April.

We started off with visiting the place of his birth - the building in the above two photographs where the young Shakespeare lived with his family, and his father manufactured gloves.

Stratford is full of these lovely half-timbered buildings...

After finishing our visit to his birthplace, we then wandered through the town to Trinity Church to see his grave...

The church is positioned by the side of the river Avon - which had been quite obviously affected by the flooding which has been having a significant impact in the South West and Wales.

It was a lovely way to spend the day - I can't believe it has taken me so many years to finally visit.

In other news, the predicted temperature for my arrival in Sydney this weekend is for 40 degrees - that should be interesting....

Hillhead, Hampshire...

My friend C recently moved to a small village in Sussex - and I went down for a visit the weekend before last. After the heroic effort on Saturday afternoon of making 250 mince pies (for a charity event), we crossed the border into Hampshire on Sunday for lunch.

Before the traditional pub roast with beautiful water views we took a stroll along the beachfront - beautiful sky and absolutely no wind meant a lovely walk, even though we are now well and truly into November.

Hillhead is a pebble beach as are many on the south coast of England. It was a lovely weekend, and I hope to get some more photos of Sussex on my next trip - my brief glimpse of Arundel has me already looking forward to a return visit...

Heather...

This beautiful young woman grew up, married, became a mother of three, a grandmother of eight and a great-grandmother of ten.

Through necessity as well as interest she was skilled in sewing, knitting, crocheting and embroidery - something she passed on to both my mother and myself.

My grandmother passed away this week - aged 98 years. I am flying back to Australia next week for a few days to attend her funeral and celebrate her long and fully lived life with my family. I will be giving her eulogy and already I'm discovering new stories about her as my cousins share their favourite memories - what a gift she has been to all of our lives...

Photography...and the New York Public Library,,,

I often find myself in a little bit of a quandary when it comes to taking photographs - while I am making an effort to improve the quality of my photography, I'm also hindered by the fact that I am often too embarrassed to whip out the camera in many situations and start clicking away (or even to ask permission to do so). Hence, other than Central Park, the other place I made a concerted effort with my camera on my recent holiday was the New York Public Library.

This beautiful building was only a 2 minute walk from my hotel and I had read so many reports of the beauty of this building. I certainly wasn't disappointed. Walking in the entrance you are welcomed with a soaring, vaulted ceiling, beautiful proportions and amazing architectural details....not to mention that lovely hushed silence common to all libraries.

Here are my efforts to capture its beauty...and I did ask a lovely security guard for clarification of in which parts of the library photographs were permitted...

...and I think the only photograph I took (looking out of the library at 5th Ave) of the ubiquitous yellow cabs...

Privileged...

Image

Last night I was privileged to be able to see Andrea Bocelli perform at the O2 in London - and it truly was a privilege. I have thought this man to be one of the world's most pre-eminent artists for at least the last ten years. During that time I have often attempted to get to one of his performances, but have either found them sold out, or with ticket prices completely beyond my budget (I can distinctly remember that during one of his world tours that included Australia, the Sydney Opera House was charging in excess of $800 for a single ticket)...

In the quiet few days between Christmas and New Year last year tickets for last night's performance went on sale - and I made the spur of the moment decision that this was going to be my best ever opportunity of witnessing Bocelli perform live...

With such a long lead-time to a concert, I would routinely forget about it - only to be pleasantly surprised when I would flick forward in my diary and see the date pencilled in.

Last night I determined that the wait had been worth it (whether I considered that to be of 11 months or 10 years plus duration) - he is an amazing performer, with a voice that seems to handle both an opera and contemporary repertoire with ease and elegance. I am so delighted that I was finally able to see him perform live...and judging from the audience response, I think the rest of the people at the O2 last night concurred...

Central Park in the autumn...

After a week of procrastination, I have finally managed to upload and edit some photos of New York...I thought I had best do this ASAP before my little holiday feels like a distant memory!

First up - Central Park (pre Hurricane Sandy). I was hoping for a really gorgeous autumn display, but I think I was possibly a few weeks early. There were many lovely golden shades of leaves, but not many trees had started to yet take on the lovely autumnal russet hues. That said, by the time I left New York the park was still closed while they cleared the storm damage - and I imagine that many of these lovely trees were denuded of their leaves in the strong winds...so I am feeling grateful I managed to squeeze in this afternoon walk through the park during my first few days...

It was such a lovely way to spend the afternoon that it has re-inspired me to spend some more time appreciating the changing seasons in London's parks...