some of our Christmas decorations

As promised the other day, here are a few photos of some of our Christmas decorations. This is not them all by any means but they're enough to be going on with for now! :oD

Oh and I made them all - except for the 2 most fabulous looking snowmen on top of the piano beside the gold on blue "Merry Christmas" cross stitch. Joanna is responsible for the creator of those ones.

Mary Berry and me

Well, not really Mary Berry and me but more Mary's cake and me. Her Christmas cake to be precise.

I don't usually make Christmas cake as Douglas is the only one who eats it and by the time he gets to the end of it, he's heartily sick of Christmas cake. But this year I decided that I would make one and put a piece in each of the hampers we make for the Grannies and Douglas could have some as well.

I saw the Mary Berry Christmas cake mix in the supermarket a few weeks ago and thought I'd just use that. I bought it yesterday (it had been reduced to half price - score!!) and I made it today. Here's what was in the bag:

All I had to add was 4 eggs and this: (I actually needed just less than one block of butter not 2 as shown here.)

A lot of mixing later - I got Douglas to help stir it as it was quite heavy going with all that fruit in there - and this is how it looked as he dolloped it into the baking tin:

All flattened out and ready to bake:

4½ hours later:

After it had cooled down:

And wrapped up waiting to get decorated.

>

I'll definitely be making Christmas cakes with Mary's help again. It saved so much faffing about! Let's just hope it tastes good.

Jo's dress

I've started cutting out the pattern for Joanna's new dress.

We're doing view C but with the sleeves of B. All that means is I'm not adding in the 7 godets in to make it more flouncy. The hem measures 300cm as it is so there's no need to add 7 more pieces to add to that. (That's the excuse I'm using and I'm sticking to it! Laziness doesn't come into it at all!! :oD)

Here are the bits all cut out and ready to be sewn.

I've sewn the front and side fronts together and the zip is in the back but I didn't take photos - maybe tomorrow.

I'll also need to take photos of the house now that we've got most of the decorations up - again, maybe tomorrow. I keep finding wee piles of things still left to hang! Maybe the thought that I'll be taking photos will spur me on to get them all up!

from the sewing room window 12 December

a few finishes

I finished a few things this week. First of all a snowman to hang on our wall. I found the tutorial here.

It's meant to be a mug rug but I decided I wanted to add a smile to mine which doesn't leave a lot of room for a mug. But that's okay. I think he'll look fab hanging on the wall.

The next thing I made was a dress for myself. Apologies for the fuzzy photo!

I love it and will most definitely make it again. The pattern is Burda 8379.

Each time I make something for myself and put it on the dummy, I think I need to make her more my shape. My boobular area is more shapely than hers. Her stomach is flatter than mine but my bum isn't as big as hers so that's something to be pleased about. I think! :oD

Today I played around with another shape for oven gloves.

Well, I suppose this is more of a pot lid holder or a get-the-beans-out-of-the-microwave glove. Here's the back.

And my hand tucked in it to show the size - a 7" circle.

Douglas tried it on but his hand didn't fit in the pocket. I think, if I want him to get the beans out of the microwave, I'll need to make it with an 8" or 9" circle.

And lastly - what does a wee doggy do when her mum is upstairs sewing (again)? She finds a patch of sunlight and has a snooze. Rosie's not daft! :o)

wind

Well, what a day we've had today. Hurricane force winds have been blowing in the central belt of Scotland and, boy, it's been scary. Thankfully, Douglas cancelled his journey to Glasgow today because, if he'd gone, I doubt he'd be home yet.

The Forth Road Bridge was closed to all traffic - it might still be closed - so, instead of a 25 - 30 minute journey home from Edinburgh, people are taking 4.5 hours. OMG!!

At one point, the police were actually advising people not to travel at all. There have been a definite lack of trains passing by at the back of our garden. One I did see this afternoon was going so slowly, the people would have been quicker walking!!

The wind is easing now although it is still really noisy out there. I'm really hoping it's gone by bedtime or I'll be sleeping with my head *under* the pillow!

Of course, tomorrow's a new day and what can we expect then? Let's see what the trafficscotland site says:

An area of sleet and snow is expected to move southeastwards across Scotland, and has the potential to leave a covering of 2-4 cm in places. There is currently more than average uncertainty in the timing and extent of snow, and this warning is likely to be updated.

Ahhhh, the joys of living in Scotland.

hot chocolate ... yum

I haven't done much decorating of the house yet - I'm thinking this weekend for the tree - but I did get the Christmas mugs out today. Here are the ones we had our hot chocolate in at lunchtime. Don't they look fab?

Mine is the one on the right with the marshmallows *and* the peppermint cane in it.

And, just in case I lose the bit of paper with the "recipe" on it, here's the mix I use for the hot chocolate.

1½ cups of instant skimmed milk powder
1½ cups of granulated sugar
¾ cup cocoa powder
¾ cup coffee whitener

Sieve all the ingredients to get rid of any lumps and store in a jar. Use 3 tbsps of the mix in a mug. No need to add sugar or milk because they're in the mix already. :o)

from the sewing room window - 5 December

No, it's not snow ... it's ice!

all change!

Joanna asked me to help her change the background and header on her blog today which we did. I love the way her blog looks now.

Naturally, I had to give my own blog a bit of a do-over too. I can't remember when I last changed it around so it was due for a bit of a tidy up. It's so easy to change things around in blogger these days - no need to go searching in the HTML to change bits here and there. I must say, I do like how it's turned out. :o)

And now, because I told Joanna a blog post looks much better with a photo on it, here's one for today.

This is what our back garden looked like a year ago.

We don't have any snow here today although some parts of Scotland have had some heavy falls and, apparently, there were white-out conditions in Dunfermline this morning which is only about 15 miles away from us. Let's hope we don't wake up tomorrow morning to find the back garden looking like that photo!!

Christmas singing's all done - and some photos

The choir I sing in held it's second (and last) Christmas concert this evening. It went really well. The fact that the first Christmas concert we did (last Sunday) also went really well means we have an astounded musical director, an "to be honest, I'm amazed" accompanist and a very happy choir. It really does feel good to know that we did a good job. Go us!!

Just to finish the week off, I'm going to post some photos just because I can!

First, a photo of another frilly flirty half pinny that I made earlier in the week.

Then a photo of some zips I ordered from zipit on etsy.

They came all the way from the US in 4 days - some UK firms could should learn from this! - and they only cost me $15.75 for 10 x 8" and 10 x 14" zips. That's £10.09 in my money. My local shop sells 8" zips for £1.60 and 14" zips for £2.20 so, if I'd bought the zips in there, I'd have had to spend £38. And their zips aren't as good quailty as the zipit zips are nor do they stock these amazing colours. No wonder I'm so pleased. Great zips, fantastic price, speedy delivery and wonderful customer service. I will most certainly be buying from zipit again.

And finally, a photo of Rosie. I'd told her I was only going downstairs for my camera and that she didn't need to come down with me. She didn't come all the way down - only down 3 steps and then wasn't quite sure how to turn and go back up when I arrived with said camera! :oD