That BIG gift.

I know many of you are waiting to know just what that great big gift of mine could be, and why it should need sooooo much space in my room.

This is just a half of it!

It is very heavy, Santa had to help me move it.

Counting all the pieces and checking them twice, before he begins construction.

 Uh oh! 

There is one piece missing.

Never mind, he built it anyway!

What you see here is 60 inches of Grace Pinnacle quilting frame.

 That's fine with me, I can practice to my hearts content on smaller pieces.

 By the time I am ready for an upgrade to the larger frame, the missing part will have been here for a looooooong time! LOL

 Here are just a few of the spares! I'll need to find somewhere safe to put them, until we are ready for them.

So staying with the 60 inch version, rather than the 120 means there is still a little room left on that wall and things pretty much remained as they were, however, once it grows......

I see a massive learning curve in my near future.

So, now that cat is out of it's bag, what else did Santa deliver?

Tony has made a habit of purchasing me a lovely Christmas flower arrangement for our table. This year my floral gift came in the form of a bouquet of Christmas lilies. They smell divine.

 When we purchased my little scooter I immediately called it 'The Bumblebee' due to it's lovely yellow colour.

 So a pair of bumblebee stickers came along amid my gifts.

Love it!

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I know I took loads more pictures of lots of lovely crafty gifts before I put them all away, but do you think I can find them?

My pen pal Maxine in Australia sent along three lovely little kits for ornaments and wall hangers.

And the lovely Janice sent along a cute wee cheese board and knife.

Some poppy napkins and pins.

And the 2015 Homespun calender.

Which of course will go up here in my room.

Thank you Janice. :-)

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I have spread out on the floor behind me, a project that has been awaiting my attentions for a long, long time.

It's been in and out of it's box several times.

It's time it got finished.

Watch this space.

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Soon I'll be announcing the name of this room of mine, but I'll wait just a little longer, in case anyone else wants to add their two pennies worth. 

You can do that on this post.

And maybe even get some goodies from me for your efforts.

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Back to work...

Where to start?

With the most important gift of all, of course!

Shez was my SSCS giver.

Remember this beautiful ornament that she made for me?

It is hanging on my tree in my sitting room.

Shez didn't stop there with the hand made lovliness.

 Look, I got a whole plethora of goodies.

 I adore this hand stitched wall hanger. 

 And another cute wee snowman.

Also in the package were a fat quarter of Christmas fabric and two patterns. 

Thank you Shez for taking part in Chookys SSCS and thank you for my lovely gifts.

Thank you also to Chooky for all that she does, not just for the SSCS but all through the year, with beautiful encouraging and inspirational posts and ideas, about everything, not just stitching but blogging and life in general. Love you Chooky. xx

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The SSCSwapper who received gifts from me, was Maria. I already had a lovely thank you email from her and she made a lovely blog post here.

Thank you Maria for taking part in the SSCS, I'm so glad you like your gifts. xx

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I have lots more to show and much more to tell, but I'll save that for other days.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and that the SSCS ladies all enjoyed taking part as much as Maria, Shez and myself did.

Preparing for Christmas.

I've picked up plenty of extra shifts over the next few weeks as one of my colleagues has to take time off work following an operation on her knee and another has taken some time off over the holidays. So I'll not have much time to cram in the last minute things and shopping, before the big day.

Now that my SSCS package has arrived, (well it arrived a while ago, but life got in the way) I thought I would show the ornament part of the gift. I sent one of my button ball ornaments to Maria. She blogged about it here. I was delighted to read all of the lovely comments she received about it.

I made and sent one more button ball then started on a third...........

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I don't think the recipients of these next two items will be reading my blog over the next few days, so it should be safe to show them here. I made two pairs of pot holders for two special people.

 This is the first time I have tackled binding a round item. There is one little tuck, but I'm sure I'll be forgiven.

The square ones were much easier! LOL

There is a quilted gift bag stashed under the tree and a second one will be appearing later today. I'll try to get a photo of them later in the week.

I may have lots of extra shifts, but I also made sure to take a few odd days off too. Today is one of those days. So, time to sew and pop into town to find a new dress. Something light and summery.

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In other news, my giant Christmas gift has arrived, it was smuggled in and wrapped while I was at work one day. It is so big that it comes in two boxes. One for each tree. LOL  Well, one for the blue tree and one to sit on the sitting room floor, cause it's too big to tuck in anywhere.

I should take photos

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Time to hang out some laundry, then play with my sewing machine and Christmas fabrics.

Yay! At last we have internet!

So now I get to bore you with pictures of our new home! Hehe.

I think all of the furniture is now settled with the exception of a large bookcase which arrived after I had installed this tree!

There is more than enough room in this massive hallway to accommodate a much larger tree. LOL

But this one will do just fine, and after Christmas I'll move the book case and hang some more pictures. For now I've put up only Christmas pictures.

 Of course, if you know me at all, then you will know that there must be two trees.

My red and gold tree is in the sitting room this year.

 It is sporting my wonderful new SSCS ornament.

Thank you again to Shez and Elf Chooky.

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We have already sat out here several times to eat meals, it is a lovely spot to rest, out of the sun, but still nice and warm.

While I was outside I snapped a quick pic of the window of my room. You can see my sewing machines in there!

Those bushes will be getting the chop soon, at least one of them will get the heave ho!

They block quite a bit of light.

The wee bed in the foreground will also be cleared and I'll fill it with lilies and maybe some roses.

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Here is a question for you....

What shall I call this room?

1) My play room.

2) The sewing room.

3) The craft room.

4) The Studio.

Leave me a comment. I might even manage to rustle up a wee prize and pick a name out of a hat!

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How are your Christmas plans and Christmas stitching coming along? 

All set?

LOL

We're in!

I've popped into work, to use their internet as we are not yet hooked up at the new place.

Thanks to our wonderful friends and family and lots of hard work we had everything moved in to the new place by Friday night. In fact by bed time, we were peetty much sorted.

I took a few photos, just to give you a taste.

This of course is the most important seat in the house.

 In the same room is an almost entirely bare wall, Santa tells me I may not even be able to leave the shelf unit there!

something big is on the way.

 Another very important seat, this wee spot is all set up for cross stitching.

Look at all the sun pouring in from the dining room.

lovely.

 Speaking of the dining room.

I know I'm home and settled, because the cuckoo clock is out of his box and back on the wall.

 

Time to go home, if you want me, I will be in the pink room.