All but the parsnips

All our Christmas meal veggies are from the allotment.  Except for the parsnips, which we couldn't be bothered to phaff with.  Happy Christmas!

Recycling a few ideas for a sustainable Christmas desk

That's it! I'm finished.

What I folded last Christmas

 Last Christmas I finally decided that this was the year I was going to implement an idea I had had for a few years.  A year or two previously I had tried it in another cubicle but I was sitting with bah humbugs. This particular year I was with more amenable people.  This was the year of the origami decorations:

Magazine Christmas Trees

I went for coffee one day and when I came back two more had sprang up!

Honestly, of all the things I did this was the most infectious.

Five pointed star - but first you need to fold yourself a regular pentagon.

This is not strictly origami, possibly more kirigami. 3D Snowflake.

Further origami Christmas ornaments: A simple ornament, via the origami resource center.

(oh yeah - we won some very tasty "fruit juice" which was appreciated in the last scrum of the year)

I know what I said...

...but if you are mentioning the-x-word and looking for things to do with little hands before you-know-when-mas then you shouldn't miss this online magazine

I might use my not so little hands for some of the projects....

Some Christmas sewing

I saw just enough of somebody's Handmade Christmas to see them create a stitch and flip stocking before I turned it off thinking "I can do better (and cheaper)" and went off to my fabric compost in its nice colour sorted bags and came up with these babies just in time to be filled for Christmas. One for me and one for him. Can you guess which one is mine?

Piece de resistance

Once again I made a present which I was very proud off and was more than a little reluctant to give away........
I was so pleased with it I decided to give it a post all of its own.

Well, dear reader, let me take you back to a WIPFriday last February (it only seems like yesterday) when I was last seen doing something with velvet samples. The rather splendid devore ones. Also, I can take you a little further back to January of 2007 when I went and looked at Holbein potraits in the Tate. I couldn't get a few of those portraits out of my head and I found myself in March of 2008 rather taken by the idea of velvet sleeves. So, combined with a new love of screenprinting, devore, velvet sleeves and the need to produce my metre piece for my City and Guilds course pretty darn sharpish, I came up with the following piece during a weekend in Wales over the Easter Bank Holiday. Here it is from my summer exhibition:

Whilst this was very grand with its devore details, beaded fringing, machine embroidered organza cuffs, embroidered buttons and rouleaux loops. I couldn't help feeling that it could have been improved on in a kind of less-is-more kind of way. Like, if I, um, didn't do any embroidery or surface embellishment or other pootling about. My mother, when visiting my exhibition, pretty much read my mind when she surreptiously tried the wrap on and hinted such a garment without the lacey finishings would be quite the thing for the various social occasions she attends (she has become quite the butterfly).

So one bit of velvet and satin stitching later and she found this left under the Christmas tree for her:

Almost no phaffing about this time. However, I did forget what a slippery old customer velvet is, despite the use of a walking foot and cough, cough, double sided sticky tape in the seam allowances. I also thought I would save time (HAH!) by forgoing the rouleaux loops and covered buttons and do something with some of the funky new asian knot templates I had recently acquired. After 10+ metres of cord, hand sewing and 30 knots (to make 10 pairs of ball buttons and frogging combos) my fingers and eyes would have disagreed with my earlier assessment.

But you would have to admit, the result was really worth it. And my Mum was pretty chuffed too ;-)

Now, how would this look in a nice crisp dupion.......and some good ol' fashioned one step buttonholes?

A Christmas Summary

Whilst Christmas has now been and gone, with presents dispensed and unwrapped it is finally safe to show a few of the presents that I gave. These were the little projects I need to keep under wraps as I didn't wish to spoil the surprises. First up is the little baby jacket I made for my youngest nephew E who joined us in August:

The pattern for this was taken from a new magazine which I received in October/November and is from the same people behind Quilting Arts. It is right up my street and if it becomes a regular publication I may be switching loyalties from its mixed media/quilting cousins. There are plenty of other projects in there which I am itching to try as well. The instructions for drawing up the pattern and making the jacket were reasonably straightforward but did require a bit of intuition and initiative to think "hmmm, I think they mean this" or "I think it would be better done this way". The result, however, was successful as well as warmly received by the recipient's mummy. Oh yes, did I say..... it was done on the overlocker! (I couldn't resist)

Another project (this time overlocker free) was a present for my friend G who had joined the crafting community by taking up crochet this year. I am especially pleased as it means that she has been proven corruptible, it ticks off her other half and I am hopeless at crochet - so she can teach me! I based this neat little roll on the instructions over at this blog. I liked the extra pockets for some scissors (to which I added a little yoyo scissor charm) and dinkier pockets for the darning needles and bodkins which crocheters require for weaving in ends.

To keep Mr.T sweet I decided to make him something he had been hankering after for a little while (here modelled by M):

An Imperial Gate Monkey Cape. Thats why its purple. Don't ask. If you want to know more you would have get up early(ish) of a Sunday morning and go for a cross country cycle ride (none of that namby pampy road riding stuff). It would be fun. You would get gates opened for you.....