As you may remember last year I was a bit disappointed with the look of my tree, it had lots of mass-produced shop bought baubles and very little that was unique so I have worked very hard this year and am proud to say that this year every single thing on it is either hand-made or a special ornie bought at places  like Disneyland, visits or craft fairs so all have lovely memories attached to them.Here is the lovely tree with some close up pics of some of my special things.

I have also made some new baubles for the mantelpiece to go with the tree skirt I made last year and moved the other set to the hallway where they co-ordinate with the little trees and hanging from last year.

I had a lovely time last weekend with my very good friend Kerry, we went to the Xmas Fair and special event at Tatton Hall, where we go each June for a re-enactment event. That takes place at the Tudor Old Hall but we had never visited the later manor house so went for a lovely day out. The craft fair was very nice, I bought some ornies (surprise!) and this very cute little Xmas cake shaped like an Xmas pud.It goes very well with my knitted Xmas pud that I bought from the WI craft stall a couple of weeks ago.

The manor house was gorgeous, the theme was a Venetian Christmas and they had the whole house decorated with trees, displays and baubles, it was heaven for an ornie addict like me.No pics were allowed as usual in historic properties so you will just have to imagine the loveliness, there were lots of ornies based round peacock feathers in purples and turquoises.

 We walked around listening to the chamber orchestras they had playing imagining ourselves to be guests at a Downton Abbey style house party and bought some lovely spiced mead and quince chutney for our forthcoming Xmas buffet this week.I also bought a couple more packets of beautiful paper napkins, one Xmas themed (which now makes about 5 sets of Xmas napkins!) As well as the Xmas fabric addiction I have a slight napkin addition – especially Xmas ones, well at least they do get used up!

 I have ordered a gourmet smoked cheese hamper from a friend, Martin,  who has his own business  supplying fine foods so we are looking forward to some very nice food this week. We are having pretend Xmas dinner on Tues and my brother and partner round on Weds for a buffet. Ellie is home for the holidays and today we have been making gingerbread – very festive!

The winner of my blogaversary giveaway was Thimbleanna  – I am posting her ornies tomorrow, they may just make it to the USA in time for Xmas but at least they will keep till next year if not!

I do hope that all your preparation for the festive season is going well.

See you all soon and thank you very much for visiting.

Hello there

I am at the moment lying on my sofa all cuddled up next to the radiator sipping mulled wine while writing this post. I am revelling in being very warm and toasty as I have been out all day in the very, very wet and cold – having a lovely time but in very inclement weather! I really need some new boots as my winter ones seem to have a leak so will be shopping for new waterproof ones later this week.

I have been out for most of the day at Honley, one of our local villages, where our  WI group had a stall to raise funds . Here we are looking a little bit cold (I am in the middle in my superwarm coat!) and here is our lovely stall – you may recognise some of my Xmas stuff on the table there. We did very well despite the weather so thank to everyone who came and bought from us.

After that I went to one of the local Honley churches where they were having a Christmas tree festival. I have never been to one of these before but it is a fab idea, especially for Christmas decoration addicts like me. The idea is that local groups decorate trees in any way they like and there were about 40 different trees in this beautiful church, complete with a Santa’s grotto, cafe and arts and crafts for the kids. It was a wonderful display and a great fundraiser at £1 entrance – well worth it. I only got a few useable pics as the light was poor but it looked amazing.

Then I went on to the Festival of Light in town with lots of wonderful light displays and entertainment and some very welcome mulled cider and wine.Camera had run out of battery by this time so here is one of the Facebook pics.

All in all a very festive day. I am having a very festive lead up to Xmas this year as am visiting two more Christmas fairs over the next two weekends. I do love this time of year, I adore all the decorations everywhere and can’t wait to put all mine up next week.

I am still making lots of stuff – some for selling at work and some in preparation for next year. I would like to do more Craft Fairs next year so thought if I start now I will have enough stock for more and might even get around to selling some on Etsy or Folksy as well.I have also started on the new Scandinavian style ones but have not had chance to take pics yet.

Well I hope that you have a very lovely week ahead and don’t forget to go and comment on my blogaversay post if you want to enter the giveaway for ornies.

Thanks for visiting

Hello there, hope you are all well and happy and in fine Xmas crafting mode!

Ellie and I have had a lovely week, she came home on Weds and we hit the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching show where more wonderful fabric was acquired plus some fab buttons, more of that later.

Today we have been at my second Xmas Craft Fair at Oakwell Hall -a beautiful 17th century house and country park near me. Pics of the hall can be found in my posts here and here, today I was in the barn selling my wares and we had a lovely day.

We sold lots of the hearts and some stockings and baubles. not many gift bags (which sold really well last year which was why I made more this year) but had a really nice time chatting to people and it was very nice spreading the Xmas ornie love.

One gentleman was very kind, he bought one of my baubles saying he always bought something special every year for his tree and  he said how lucky I was to be able to be creative which I heartily agree with.

I think anyone can do it given the space to and I think like most things it increases with practise. Most of what I do is unplanned, I spread all my fabrics and ribbon around me and just combine things until I am happy with the result.

Here are some pics of my stall, apologies the light was not very good.

Now for the fabric – I have been looking at lots of home mags and ornies in the shops and have noticed the Scandinavian style ornies are very popular so am going to extend my range for next year. I do mainly make very traditional ornies in traditional red, green and gold but have previously made silver, blue and purple as commissions but I do really like the simpler style ornies – I just really struggle with the idea of minimalism! It is the medieval re-enactor in me where everything has to be OTT but I am hoping I can restrain myself here.

I have bought beautiful red, white and silver prints with Xmas motifs on.

And snowflake fabric to back red felt hearts which I will decorate with snowflake buttons – complete with coordinating ribbon.

I have also stayed true to my roots and bought this additional Makower fabric to go with the stocking prints I already have.

And some lovely ribbons!

Then there are the buttons. I have been to button heaven – most of these were from the Stitch Witch’s stand  and they are gorgeous, they are made by Dress It Up and can be found under the Accessories link on her website – just look at all this Xmas buttoness!

My button box is looking fab (and very full – note to self need more button storage!)

Thankfully did not sell all the stock as need some of the hearts as my Xmas ornie for special friends this year (if you are one of them please act surprised when I give it to you!) Also have a WI craft fair next weekend and have promised to take some to work so still have supplies to do that as am now severely running out of time – can we just put Xmas back a week to give me a little more stitching time?

No seriously want it just where it is – we are off to Disneyland Paris for Xmas and we are getting very excited now as it is less than a month and we have been looking at the programme of events there (a lot of princess things for Ellie) and booking our festive dining and we are really looking forward to seeing Mickey and the gang (and Santa of course!).

So will return next week with more craft fair updates – in the meantime hope that you have a very lovely time and thanks for visiting.

Hello, hope that you are all well and happy.

I have been busy taking pics of all the things that I have made for the Craft Fair the weekend after next so thought that I would share them all with you. Have probably about 60 things to sell in total which I think is a good amount and all apart from the baubles are my very own designs so I am even more pleased with those!

First up come the patchwork hearts – have about 20 of these and I love them, any that don’t sell are going on the tree!

Then the little stockings – similar to the hearts but these are not patchwork – same fabric in different colourways back and front.

Next we have gift bags – three varieties of these, firstly the nine patch version

The fronts are all the same, the backs all different fabrics.

Then some bags using a Makower label fabric that I have had in my stash for quite a while.

And lastly this bag set that uses fabric that I have carbon dated (ie. looked back at my blog!) to being in my stash for 4 years! And there is still more where this came from.

Then there are my old faves the baubles – designs taken from Sue Schofield’s, ‘Decorations to Dazzle’ ,available from Springwood House Designs. Buy this book – have fun and impress your friends just as I have been doing for the last four years. And she is such a lovely woman and has all sorts of other ideas as well as baubles, she is a Christmas ornie genius!

We have one with some cute reindeer buttons on.

And some made with the angel fabric that Kerry gave me last week.These have little gold cross charms on the sides you can’t see in the pic.

And a set of gold ones – again partly from fabric donated by Kerry – stitching friends are the best kinds aren’t they? Love these as I have been able to use up cute snowflake buttons bought in May at the Malvern Quilt Show.

The really good thing is that if none of this sells I will just have a very pretty house and tree this year!

If though all goes according to plan and the stock whizzes off the table I still have all the stuff I have done for me. This year apart from a baby gift and a couple of exchanges all of my cross stitch work has been ornies for me and this is my collection so far.

I did want to do one a month so that I had 12 more for the tree this year, there are only 9 in the bowl but I sent one off to my last exchange partner with her autumn exchange, have this week finished another and have a just completed WIP that needs stuffing and backing. So that does make 12 done but only 11 still in the country so will have to get cracking to get that final one done before the tree goes up in 3 weeks!

Here is a pic of the finish for this week.

This may well be one of the smallest ornies ever made – here it is next to my thumb.

I think it is 28 count fabric and it was very quick to stitch – if at times a bit of a challenge to see! Another one of the JBW Designs stockings.

Hope that you are well on your way with all your seasonal preparations. I do love the run up to Christmas, I have been buying nice food and as usual most of my pressies have been bought for ages so I can concentrate on the serious stuff of decorating the house and doing bits of baking with the kids.

We are going to be away for Christmas this year again which will be very exciting as we are going to Disneyland Paris – as regular readers know we are huge Disney fans and this will be our 5th visit to the Paris one (over the last 14 years) and are very much looking forward to spending the time in the Magic Kingdom with Mickey and co – have just been looking at all the lovely shows and parades that are on and getting very excited! We are very lucky people!

Anyway I will leave you with my best wishes for your preparations for the festive season and will see you all again next week with a report on how the Craft Fair went – wish me luck!

Thanks for visiting.

Hello there, I hope that you are all well and happy.

I have had a very nice week of stitchy craftyness finishing off lots of the things I started last week. Have realised I forgot to take pics of all the lovely gift bags that I have stitched before I packed everything in the bag for the Craft Fair (doh!) so I will have to get them out and do a photo shoot when we have some light.

My week has been rounded off with an excellent weekend with my lovely friend Kerry (from the re-enactment group) who came to stay for the express purpose of having an ornie making weekend and we have had a wonderful time. She arrived with lots of lovely fabric and ribbons for me as she has been decluttering her stash and gave me all sorts of great stuff.

Kerry spent the time designing and making her own set of beautiful tree ornies, 3 of which are pictured below. It was very nice to work with her as our styles are very different, she is a lot more minimalist than I am in terms of what she wanted as her house is very different to mine in terms of colour schemes and decor.

It is not obvious from the pic below but her fabric has a very subtle swirl in it which looks lovely with her tree design. She is very precise in her work and has great attention to detail. The medieval costume she makes is wonderful, she hand beads everything and searches out jewels and embellishments for her headdresses then paints them to get them all to match.

So we have had a very, very nice time drinking tea, crafting, catching up  and watching a film last night (X Men First Class, excellent movie – second time I have seen it but first for Kerry, well worth watching though sadly only 20 seconds of Hugh Jackman in it which I had forgotten!) I also taught Kerry to cross stitch and she made a start on a little ornie  while watching the film. It was a very happy evening, it is lovely to have friends who are into the same things that I am!

The stock for the Craft Fair in 2 weeks time is looking good, was a bit worried that I wouldn’t have time to make enough due to the general busyness of everything else but should have about 50 items in total. I have gift bags, gift stockings (small to hang on the tree for gifts of money), stocking ornies, heart ornies, baubles and pine cones and a few of the patchwork tree kits that I didn’t sell last year (if I can remember where I filed them!).

I have once again take a very organic approach to the design process which consists of getting my stash of fabric out and just seeing what I like, what goes with what and then going with the flow. I find that works better for me than planning everything in advance as then I end up with some really good combinations of fabrics.I also find that buying fabric over the years means that you have the joy of ‘rediscovering’  it later on at the bottom of the stash. I have finally used up some fabric I have had for at least 4 years in one of my bag sets and am very pleased with the results.

And as always anything that doesn’t sell can be used for the Craft Fair the following week for the Women’s Institute or be kept by me.There were many moments this afternoon when I said, ‘oh this one is too pretty to sell, I need to keep it’ , so if they don’t sell I won’t be too sad.

It was also very useful having Kerry as a second opinion on which fabrics went together and we designed some gorgeous baubles together this afternoon which I will take pics of when it is light ( tis dark at around 3.30 pm round here these days!).I am particularly keen on the top left bauble in this pic below, using some of this year’s Makower ‘Joyful’ fabric obtained from the Malvern Quilt Show earlier in the year.

All in all a lovely week, I do hope that you have been having similar fun in what you have been doing this week and have a very nice week ahead. I have graduation this week which is one of my favourite times of the year when I will be donning the gown and mortar board to celebrate the success of all of my lovely students from last year. It is a very special day for me as well as for them when I hear more about their new jobs and get to meet some of their families as well and I love it!

Also cannot believe that sometime next year I will get to attend Ellie’s graduation ceremony, it does not seem possible that she will be finishing 3 years at Uni next year. She is currently undertaking her third year placement at the National Trust Tudor house in Worcester she worked at last year , The Greyfriars, and finding out more about the last owner who was an avid textile collector. She has access to her archives of research which sounds amazing.

So have a lovely time until next week, thanks as always for visiting.