Scrappy hearts!

These are turning out relatively quickly and are a rather fun last-ditch attempt to use up some stash before my Year of Scraps ends.  I like them especially because
a) they use up whites as well, and
b) they use up HSTs.  Ohhh how nice to use up HSTs!  I have stacks, due to my dreadful inability to sew them without also sewing up the little corners before I cut them off and saving them.

I'm being utterly undiscriminating with the scraps I put in, so there's bits of absolutely everything in 'em, and hopefully the white background will maintain some order.  It's really very refreshing, and they don't look too awful so far, do they?  Once I get enough for a quilt top I think I may sash them and turn them into something for Siblings Together or Soy Amado.  

TOO MUCH FUN ALREADY, MUST GO TO BED.

Playing around with some of my winnings from the Simply Solids raffle & scrap bins!

I'M A WINNER

And the winner of our raffle tonight was @themagpiecat! We raised £40 for @hdssg Yay!!!

A photo posted by Justine & Lisa (@simplysolids) on Dec 12, 2014 at 1:12pm PST

I had a bloody ace time this evening at the Simply Solids launch for Priory Square, by Katy Jones - bought lots of gorgeous new fabric and had a lovely rootle in the new scraps bin, too.  I do love scraps, for all I'm trying to reduce my stash...

Plus, there was a raffle, and I only went and won it, didn't I?  How's that for Christmas cheer!

Aaand finished.

My last bit of Christmas crafting done - a pair of stockings for my brother-in-law and his wife, commissioned by my lovely Mother-in-law, who has always been my best customer, bless her!

I forget where I found the pattern but you can find variations of it all over the internet, such as this one from Diary of a Quilter.  And now it is time for me to pack away the Christmas fabric 'till next year, and maybe get on with some Christmas Eating.

Craft Fairs! All done now, though... oops.

Egads I am the worst.  MOVING ON...

So, me and some more organised and confident mates have set up a little group doing craft fairs about the place.  It seemed like a marvellous "last-push" idea for my aim of reducing my stash!  And then of course, as previously mentioned, lovely Alison generously offered to give me a large bundle of Christmas-themed fabric to use, so it's not been so great on the stash-reductions... but at least I didn't buy anything new?

We did one stall at the village lights switch-on, and another craft market in town, and I must say we didn't do too badly.  I had some Christmassy aprons based mostly on the Seasalt & Stitches pattern with a few tweaks - I lined the bibs, shortened the straps etc - some wheat bags, lavender bags, gift bags and the like.

It all looked terribly festive, even if it was blinkin' cold.  In January I'm hoping to get back onto some quilting, and we'll see if I can sell some crib blankets I've been putting together.  I have a few specifically Christmassy bits left over which I'm listing on my Facebook and will probably take into the Emporium on Wednesday if they have room for them.

Tree's up!

Thursday was a smashing Crafternoon with Alison (there's a truly gorgeous photo of me in the link, be warned), whose stash of Christmas fabrics appears to have been dented Not One Whit by the enormous quantity of stuff she'd given to me!  We did some lovely hand-stitching and ate fab soup and pigs in blankets, which are frankly my favourite part of Christmas.  And at the end of it I had these lovely little ornaments.  Hurrah!