Festive

  

I allowed myself a whole day to work on Be'elzebub and eventually completed one block that pleased me. I had forgotten how to join freehand cut curves so that took a little while to figure out. I added some fancy stitches and trim and was rather pleased with the effect. The finished blocks are likely to be curveaceously joined to another section. I ordered a lot of cotton rickrack from a shop in North Carolina that should dye nicely and I was thrilled that the cotton sateen that I dyed still retained its shine after being boil-washed. I started to piece a batch of half-square triangles that may become wonky blocks or maybe quarter squares but they are now buried under Christmas wrapping paper. 

I have not yet managed to put firm dates into my quilting diary so I have a lot of emailing  and quilt teacher applications to do after the holidays are over. I was surprised when I realised that the IQA Chicago Festival in June does not run any classes so if I really want to attend that show I will have to investigate doing some other tuition in the area that could help to pay for my air-fare and accommodation.

It felt like a long week with school concerts and parties. My class was very excitable and really not in work mode but they enjoyed making festive bread and hand shaken butter. It barely seemed to become light as it rained almost non-stop all week. Roads were flooded and my children's school carol service was cancelled. That was a shame since Fenella reported that Fergus sang a super solo in "Walking in the Air" that he had omitted to mention. 

Freya and Sam put on their Christmas jumpers and had fun decorating a gingerbread house with caramel windows and a curly-wurly fence. I don't suppose it will taste as good as it looks but that is probably not the point. The same goes for the gigantic gingerbread people that were blinged with every type of icing and sugar confection available to cake decorators.

More Christmas decorations were added to our family room and Bluecat seemed to enjoy knocking over the Nativity scene with a swish of her tail every time she walked past it. I expect she is looking forward to stealing cream and smoked salmon.

Fenella and I enjoyed the razzmatazz of the Strictly Come Dancing Final and could not decide which of the dancers deserved to win as they were all so good.

It felt as though the parcel wrapping and food shopping would never end. I wasted a lot of time calling Amazon and the useless courier company, Yodel, tracking down a package that had taken over 3 weeks to arrive. Needless to say, I now have two packages the same and one lot will have to be returned, hopefully avoiding the aforementioned offending delivery company. 

All that remains is to do last, last minute shopping, have a cooking frenzy, rearrange the summerhouse furniture and do the ironing. I think I will start by pouring a small sherry...