Craft actually

Christmas prep and a random confession

Confession first. You may have heard that its really cold in London at the moment. So today I wore my puffy, not very work stylee but very warm coat to work for the first time this season. I was walking to a meeting in the morning between our offices and put my hands in my pockets and pulled out.....two small muslins! Not clean. I tell you it took my straight back to last winter in a giddying rush and I was so grateful to not be there at the moment. The sheer volume of fluids produced by the babe has not altogether disappeared but significantly tailed off. 

A year later and we're totally psyched for a Christmas that we will all be a lot more with it for. We can enjoy Miss S waddling around the place handing us random things and grunting and gesticulating in a very meaningful (to her) but not very communicative (to us) way. I hope she really gets into unwrapping the presents and playing with the paper. Seeing as I haven't really bought her anything that exciting on the basis that she won't remember. 

Tonight I'm having a quiet evening listening to some podcasts and wrapping presents. I feel like I have a very satisfying wrapping paper scheme this year. Gold, pinks, purple and black. Very sumptuous. I'm also happy that about half the presents were handmade either by me or some very very talented Etsy peeps. I'm planning to do a little post to thank them for their lovely wares (no promises as to timing).

In the meantime its back to preparations. Am still toying with the idea of writing some Christmas cards....hmmmm.

Cheers!

 

Happy New Year everyone!

With cheers from my Back Tack present hanging up on the shelves. Laurel my buddy took much better pics of the lovely gifts she sent me than I have managed to. The goodies I sent her are in a flickr set here with all three pressies representing Gold, Frankinsense and Myrrh below.

We celebrated by having a new year eve BBQ with family and friends during the day. Steve and the boys stood outside with beers in hand in the traditional manner but the girls chose not to brave the -2 degree weather and stayed inside in the warmth. Sophie ensured that we were still up to see the new year in even though it was a great wish that we wouldn't be still up at 12. Or 1.30 am for that matter.

New Years not so much resolutions but "to dos" include

- writing about my birth story

- finishing a half knitted cardi (Chunky Buttony) before the end of winter

- finishing a couple of pairs of socks

- sorting out my filing

Nothing too ambitious this year I think.

Happy Christmas from Santa's Elf

 

We're all secretly hoping to be doing a bit of this after we have our Christmas goose too...

 

Hope you're having a joyful day and that Santa has been good to you!

Happy Holidays

Phew we've almost made it! Even more of a whirlwind than usual this year!

Various needy little creatures have been keeping me busy....

 

In between this rather frequent activity we have been out and about ....

- Fabulous Wednesday Night Knitting Christmas party with secret santa and amazing handmade gifts. Sophie was given a gorgeous blanket that was a collaboration between the talented knitters - haven't quite managed to photograph it yet but its been getting lots of use and admiring comments when she's been out in the buggy - thanks chicks. Lucy made some fabulous soaps and you can read more about that and the night over at Ginger Lucy.

- The last couple of days we've been on a road trip to North Wales to attend a fabulous wedding in Ruthin - at a castle no less. The ceremony was half in English and half in Welsh and the Welsh side of the chuch showed off their famous singing voices. We made the 5 hour road trip there without a hitch and the Bean only had a minor spew on my dress and didn't cry in the church so I felt that it all went extremely well. And of course the bride looked gorgeous.

- Apart from these events my festive season party circuit ended today with lunch at our local pub with the antenatal mums and six tiny babies complete with much talk about poo and breast feeding. Although give that most corporate parties in the city were cancelled this year I don't feel like I've missed out on much at all.

- I've snuck in a teeny bit of knitting - Sophie happily volunteed (can you tell by her expression?!) to model a beanie for Harrison - a new arrival for a good friend of mine.

 

The tree is trimmed, a playlist of cheesy tunes created, bubbles are ready in the fridge and Smithy has successfully battled it out at the supermarket for the last brussel sprout to be had in London so we are READY. Bring it ON!  Happy Christmas everyone! xoxo

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Back-Tack is back

I signed up for back-tack 4 on the spur of the moment and we got our matchups this week. I thought it was a little bit crazy to give myself more crafty things to do at the moment but I have such a soft spot for back-tack because BT1 was what got me blogging and also how I met some people that are friends today including my knitting guru Pauline! Plus I couldn't resist the Gold Frankinsense and Myhrr theme - fabulous. My buddy is New Yorker Laurel whose blog is Yarn Therapy.

And here just because is the yarn I was going on about in my earier post - the Noro Cash Island and the green Mirasol Qina (I misspelt it before) the snuggly one.

Secret Christmas knitting revealed

I'm very happy to say the recipients of this years knitting all received their gifts on or before Christmas and not February like last year! I feel a lovely glow of achievement about that.

And ironically after the antipodean contingent saying that we had to Craft Off again this year, I was the only one that actually did. Hmmmm.

 

Tabi socks and Jaywalkers - for Mum and Sooze both modified and both made out of Cherry Tree Hill yarn. My sis wearing her sexy sock and birkenstock combo above right.

We had Christmas day with Steve's Mum Lynn all the way from NZ and sis Nomes and it was very nice to see their Christmas knits have an outing when we went ice skating at Somerset House on Boxing day.

Well I'm off to the to the (yarn) sales at John Lewis and Liberty now! Bye.

Secret Christmas Knitting #5

As noted previously, I decided SCK #4 was a little ambitious and will now become secret birthday knitting 2008 (or 9?). I briefly considered Anina's suggestion to knit 24/7 until Christmas and amused myself with visions of me knitting furiously at my desk and saying to my boss "sorry, can't make that 3:00 meeting - I've got a tight deadline here" but ultimately the thought of no sleep for that long put me off.

So I decided to embark on something I can do relatively quickly and its coming along nicely.

Other good news is that SCK #1, #2 and #3 are now finished (except for a little bit of end-sewing-in).

Secret Christmas Knitting #4

I'm thinking these beads might be a bit big. I've bought some smaller ones and will cast on with those to compare then choose which one to continue. Kidsilk haze.... mmmmm ....soft.

Secret Christmas Knitting #1

After the great Christmas February Craft-off of 2006 I thought we might get a breather this year. I was kind of hoping someone would say, "So how about we all order presents for each other from Amazon"..... But where would be the fun in that hey?!

So I have come up with some good ideas, trying to learn from last years experience and be a little more selective in my choices (note to self: think HATS, think GLOVES think ONE SKEIN WONDER OK!!) and to try and start a wee bit earlier. However I am sure the gauge of this yarn should be sending me LOUD warning bells already. Anyway stay posted....