December 2025

 Hi.  Hope you had a great Christmas, and wish you all the very best for 2026

Chertsey Ladies made angel and bell tree decorations in December (instructions here)

In November we had made vinyl pouches (see the blue ones below).  But I found that if the poppers / snaps weren't 100% perfect we had to pull against the vinyl to open the pouch and that was a definite weak point.   The yellow versions are the next evolution: a fabric band at the top of the vinyl rather than just bias binding, so the popper goes through fabric not just vinyl

I got a lovely dove kit for Christmas (thank you Plum)

And a Christmassy dish set that probably thought it was for foods but was perfect for the threads, sequins and beads etc for the dove!!!

A lot of Christmas Pudding Gingers were made and distributed

And of course one joined the other Gingers on my tree

We had a lovely evening making Christingles - 12 people, 6kg sweets and 56 minutes to make 106 Christingles!

   

This jumper was bought 18 months ago, with a black Peace sign knitted into it.  Removing the sign was more complicated than it should have been, and left a lot of dropped stitches so I ironed stabiliser on and tried to match the colours thinking some EPP might cover the mess.  I still don't like it!  It was threatened with textile recycling bin but Tara has taken it to give it some love - lets see what she does with it!!!

We had a lovely Studio session making candle and foliage centre pieces, thank you Lucy

Jackie send me a photo of her and the 3 older grandchildren last summer: with the help of ChatGPT I managed to create a recognisable likeness in embroidery so I made her this.  

I had a go at making a wedding image for her youngest who got married just before Christmas, but this doesn't look like them at all

So I gave up and sent them this instead with Ginger bride and groom

I've done some work on the Mandelightful quilt.  Each line takes about 20 minutes, and there are 134 lines left to go (please don't tell me how many hours that equals!!!)

So far I've done the section below the snips (on the right)!  It'll take a while!

I have also hand quilted this brick i-Spy quilt

And now we are in 2026!

Gorgeous Boy has been using his quilt and has been growing!

2024 December

 Happy New Year

I hope you had a lovely Christmas

My December in pictures looks like this:  Lisa and I are working on a quilt for Niki and George in the confident belief their flat will sell and they can buy a house..  It will mostly be white and yellow, and bee themed, but we are incorporating a few letters too:  Growing gradually it will eventually spell New Hive

The Chertsey ladies brought in finished fabric bowls for Show and Tell

And spent a session making macrame santas

and Christmas trees

I was commissioned to make an apron for the florist at Windsor Baptist Church

and a ginger with a colostomy bag!

We had loads of volunteers to help make Christingles the night before Christmas Eve

and they all got a "thank you" ginger

For Christmas I received this gorgeous duck - thank you Stephanie

And from the family  and friends I received lots of crafty things - I was sure I took a photo but apparently not🙅

The great niblings came to visit.  Master S had a great time with Brian playing computer games while Miss L and Miss N did some needle felting

 

I have actually managed some sewing this month - not for me but for Chertsey Museum for their "St Peter's Hospital Untold Stories" project.  Museum staff have carried out hours of recorded interviews, and commissioned me to lead some family learning sessions and help people decorate squares of fabric with their own images inspired by their hospital story.

I've then been joining them together for a wall hanging to go on show at the museum.  Not finished yet, but close.