Merry Christmas...

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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...