Secret Santa!

The Broke and the Bookish

So, this year I decided to take part in an online secret santa - for book lovers!

I like Christmas in some ways, but I can also be a bit of a scrooge. I love to give presents, but receiving them is a little more difficult; I expect a lot of people feel the same way. My way of tackling this is to give lots to charity to make up - it really does make you feel good!

I do love planning presents for Christmas, and the idea of doing one for a fellow book-lover somewhere out there really appealed, so I signed up for The Broke and The Bookish’s Secret Santa which has kindly been organised by the amazing Jamie. It's been going for quite a long time and is pretty popular so I was quite lucky to be involved.  We just answer a few questions about our bookish preferences and a bit about ourselves, and then it all goes off into the depths of the internet. So, if all goes well, I'll be getting a present from some stranger come Christmas.

I have sent mine and I really hope that he/she (no letting anything go!) likes my presents - it was great fun to put together. I forget to take a picture of the individual presents but here it is as a

conglomerate of things I was about to send.

I've really enjoyed the book exchange and the mystical nature of TBTBSanta, and I've never done anything like it. I might have gone a bit overboard (I took out three other books before I finished), but I really really hope I haven't underdone it. It's so nerve-wracking when you haven't done something before; I just hope that my receiver is happy. It's his/her first time too so they probably don't know what to expect either. 

Anyway, hello to my Secret Santa Person if you manage to find my blog! I really hope you enjoyed your pressies :)

Thank you so much to Jamie and TBTB :D

Wordless Wednesday, 24th June: Welcome Home

Craft Catch-Up

We haven't been doing any writing about craft on the blog for... about a year?!? Seems unlikely, but there we are! So, here is a very quick catch-up of some of the things we've been doing. There were quite a few more, but we didn't take photos of everything....

Hanging for friends' wedding (made on Tilly with some hand stitching)

T and H's 10 year anniversary was last September (!) so this was their celebration quilt.

 

Scarf for H's Christmas present (modelled by J).

The leftover wool which was made into socks for T's Christmas (no photo).

 

Decoupaged tea-light holders for Christmas presents.

Sock monkey for Little M's birthday.

Two different latch-hook kits (here's one) - an autumnal tree and a puppy.

Leaving presents for staff I had lived and worked with for 8 months or so - painted and then fired at a local-to-there pottery shop. (PS. Yes, those are shoes. And yes, she does like shoes.)

A gardening book for cousin B's birthday.

 

 

Decoupaged tray for J's birthday - a new in tray.

And that's all we took pictures of! Fairly sure that there must have been a lot more bits and bobs throughout the year (plus lots of cards etc) but this is everything we have evidence of.

What crafts have all you readers been up to?

Mother's Day

Mother, I love you so.

Said the child. I love you more than I know.

She laid her head on her mother's arm, 

And the love between them kept them warm.

                        -Stevie Smith

A herringbone cushion for Cornhill Terrace

I have always wanted to be a great seamstress but feel my careless attitude to measuring has always resulted in inexact sewing. This often doesn't live up to my expectations for a usable product and the whole un-malleableness  of fabric in comparison to paper or wool makes it hard for me to find my haphazard trial and error approach ok. However I did make our curtains and bed spreads nearly 2 decades ago and am approaching the task of replacing them as they are both faded and chewed or torn by all our animals ! These are big projects and I'm struggling to find the fabrics I want that suit our dark small roomed cottage but yet are bright and bold.

I'm not very good at completing these big craft tasks ( so watch this space) but I have completed a cushion for L's birthday, and have squashed it into my hand luggage and squeazy-jetted it up to Edinburgh. I started it at Millie Moons in Wells last year with my friend Kate, but had just never found the time to finish it off, but here it is complete! The sewing is a bit squint, as ever, but the cushion itself is great and I really like the choice of pink spots to complement the blue and greens of the patches. The patchwork pieces were from a 'jelly roll' of precut pieces and the herringbone pattern was really very quick to do. 

Emergency Revision Kit

T is doing some very important exams, and H has her last big essay before her masters thesis coming up, so we thought that some revision rations were in order! We know they have been skimping on nice tea and good chocolate, so we collected together the following things:

Sadly, the box is not home made, but we are going to take the next one apart so we can work out how it is constructed - it shouldn't be too hard.

Along with some other bits and bobs, we hope this revision parcel will make things a little more bearable! Happy revising! A and E xx