The Holly and the Mistletoe

Happy Christmas Eve - I hope you're all excited and organised because tomorrow is going to be a wonderful day - regardless of whether or not any of us finish the Christmas knitting! As the final pair of socks are now wrapped and under the tree I am feeling very Christmas-blissed out.

I've also now done the veg prep for the morning and stuffed both ends of the chicken; and, in a moment of perfect symmetry, talked to my Mum on the phone while we both had a hand in the sausagemeat stuffing.

From the looks, and colours of my fingers, it also appears that my inner icing queen has been set loose:


Stars. Lots of stars - it's going to be good.

I promised to show pictures of a few pre-christmas presents. I don't have a picture of my favourite surprise to me - a new set of computer speakers which H gave me and did the techie thing that makes them make noise. My old speakers had been bust for a while so it's a really treat to be able to listen to music again.

My favourite surprise to someone else was delivered last weekend when H and I popped down an almost deserted M5 (thank you snow in London) to visit my parents for the weekend.

When I finished my Christmas tree skirt and posted pictures, a little mamma sent and e-mail wondering whether the pattern would be too complicated for her, and what would she need. I promised that it was completely do-able; and then hatched my cunning plan.


Well you knew I wasn't just going to hand over the pattern didn't you!

It turns out that you can make a tree skirt start to finish on a wintery Sunday if you completely abandon the housework and buy ready made pie for supper which you then delegate your husband to cook.

And here it is in all it's glory.


The trees are made from leftovers of the mistletoe fabric that made the plain panels on my skirt and the background is the same for two of the three cream and stars panels.

The holly fabric I think is gorgeous - it's a very strong fabric with the black but it works well in the tree skirt and it was chosen for my father who loves holly. The binding is more red, picking up the colours in the berries and adding a few gold swirls. All of the fabric came from Quilter's Den in Warwick but I managed to find enough wadding in my stash, so technically it's stash busting (oh yes!).

I know I could have waited until Christmas for them to open this parcel, but I wanted to be there, so this was a Friday night present. The best part was the complete surprise - I think Mum had half hoped for one for next year or had shelved the idea as something she ought to try to make some day - but they had no idea, even with a big triangular parcel on their knees, what it could possibly be - as Mastercard would have it: Priceless.


It looks pretty good underneath their tree too.


We continued the crafty theme over the weekend:


I made this wreath for our front door - with quite a lot of help from Mum; floristry is not really one of my skills - yet! It does seem to be getting more oval every time I look at it but it's Christmassy, fabulous, and completely screens the letterbox - I'm thinking of adopting it as a permanent solution to junk mail.

And H would love to claim that he made this all by himself:


He did the greenery and Mum did the pretty bits - a perfect combination.