Happy New Year

A Very Happy and Healthy New Year to you all.

I'd like to share just a few of the Christmas gifts I received this year.

Thank you to Barb for the lovely felted robin and holly wreath, to Karan for the pretty violet hand dyed evenweave, and to Clare for the Christmas print fabric and DMC threads.

Thank you to Julie for the very useful folding mat/bag, and to Robbin for the gorgeous hand-loomed scarf and handy travelling scissors.
And here are just a couple of the things I got from my girls

My Little Cthulhu!!!!!! Isn't he adorable? Look at his little tentacles!
They also made me a calendar. This is the cover.

You might be forgiven for thinking it was both up-lifting and life-affirming.
Until you open it and see January

I'll share the other months throughout the year.
And finally, my round up of 2019. The final total was 73 finishes, 41 books read, and 12 pairs of shoes bought, and the nearest guess was Clare with 74, 47 and 11. I'll get some sort of little prize in the post to you in the next few weeks Clare.
I've reset the counter, so if anyone wants to try and guess at the 2020 total just pop your answer in a comment on this post.

December's Gifted Gorgeousness

Here it is, the last GG post of the year (for more details about the GG blog hop please see Jo's blog)
I've just taken part in the annual Needlecraft Haven Ornament Exchange, which I'm pretty sure counts as Double GG (sounds like a bra size!)
Here is the wonderful ornament and other goodies that I received from Clare

And here is the ornament I sent to Mary

Design from this year's JCS Ornaments Issue. The red and lime are the new DMC Etoile threads. It's the first time I've used them. I wasn't sure at first as they looked as though they wouldn't give very good coverage, but actually they've worked really well and the glimmer from them is lovely and subtle.

Online Advent Calendar Blog Hop Day 1

Hello and welcome to Day 1 of this year's Advent Calendar Blog Hop. For the list of participating blogs please see the Advent Calendar page on Jo's blog.

I thought you might like to see this embroidery that I finished a couple of days ago. The design came as a printed outline on fabric from Anne Brooke (H-Anne Made) here. Such a pretty design and  I love that you can use your own threads and stitches and make it completely unique to you. As you can see I made mine look like a Winter Robin and it's very different from the one on Anne's website

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For the second part of the Advent Blog Hop Jo has asked us to talk about our favourite Christmas film. Well I don't know about anyone else but Christmas doesn't start properly in our house until we've sat down with some Gluhwein and watched Love Actually.
There are so many priceless moments in that film that it is hard to choose a favourite to share with you, but here is Billy Mack singing "Christmas Is All Around"

So if you really love Christmas, come on and let it snow

Gifted Gorgeousness for November - Nothing to See Here

Nope not a thing. No stitched gifts, no exchanges. Nothing. I have been working on a lot of gift pieces, but I can't show any of them yet. Pop over to Jo's blog to learn more about GG, and see how much better everyone else has done this month.
I did make myself this dress using fabric gifted from Minerva, so that is going to have to do.

Sorry, lots more to show after Christmas I promise

Hallowe'en Exchange, Challenge and Temperature SAL Catch Up

You know what it's like. You wait all month for a bloggable stitch, and then three come along at once!
The exchange first. This was the Hallowe'en Exchange on Needlecraft Haven. We had to send a stitched ornament, a trick and a treat.
Here is the lovely gift I received from Mary.

Thankyou Mary, they are all wonderful. I shall be displaying my "Christine's Potions" ornament all year round.
And here is what I sent to Justine.

The ornament is a design from Aliolka , The treat is a Lush Bath Bomb, and the trick is a mint tin filled with creepy crawlies.
The Alioka designs were the chosen designs for the Seasonal Challenge on Needlecraft Haven, so that finish killed two birds with one stone, but I decided to stitch another of the designs as a gift for Eloise

So then, of course, I had to stitch one for Naomi as well, only all the Aliolka designs had that cute little spider, and Naomi does not do spiders. Not even very cute ones, so I combined Aliolka's skull motif with a kitty from a Barbara Ana design and stitched her this one (which you've already seen if you saw the Hallowe'en Blog Hop post)

And finally here is an up to date picture of my Temperature SAL

2019 Trick or Treat Blog Hop

Hello and welcome to my Trick or Treat Blog Hop Post.

Here is some Spooky Stitching

This is a combination of a couple of designs, the cat is part of this design from Barbara Ana Designs whilst the skull is from an Aliolka design

Your letter for the Blog Hop is

Now please go to An Arizona Stitcher for your next letter

Struggling to Come Up With an October GG

It's not that I haven't done any gift related crafting this month, just that none of it is with its intended recipient yet, so I can't show it.
(For a recap of Gifted Gorgeousness see Jo's blog here)
So, having wracked my brains for sometime over what to post I believe that I may well have come up with the most tenuous shoe-horn in the long and proud history of shoe-horning...
I made myself this dress last week.

Pattern is New Look 6632, and the fabric is a mid-weight lurex jersey from The Textile Centre.
How is it gift related I hear you ask. Aha! Since I don't have an overlocker, and sewed this on a regular machine, I used a short piece of vintage seam tape on the inside of each of the shoulder seams to stabilise them.
And the seam tape?
This seam tape?

It was a gift from Julie
Boom! Gifted Gorgeousness!