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!

Look at this. Seriously, if this doesn't charm the pants off you then you're probably just dead inside.

It came upon a midnight (well... about 7.30pm) clear

So my awesome friend Alison from Stitches of Time gave me a MASSIVE box of Christmas fabric today, and I've been pondering what to do with it every moment since.  I'm planning a few drawstring gift bags, maybe a few stockings, but then I came across the suggestion of Christmas aprons and thought, YES.

I have spent the last hour trawling the internet for a good free pattern and Lo!  LO.  Here is EXACTLY the apron I want to make: Elephant in my Handbag: Christmas Apron Tutorial.

...it's the weekend now (and as per, I am horribly behind in all my bloggery) but I shall see if I can't rustle up a few of these in time for the Craft Fair on the 6th December.  Craft Fair?  Oh, yes.  See, told you I was horribly behind.  :)

Eye pillow and two lavender bags, commission.