Phat Quarter Amuse-Bouche Swap

December's Phat Quarter swap's theme was "a tiny visual treat". My piece was for Noodle-bug (go visit her blog) who described herself as a science/maths geek, so I made her a dangly atom, with sequins and a blue felt backing:

I was sent this great piece by Flaming Nora (her blog is here) - she sent me an amazing stumpwork tiny globe hoop - so many tiny intricate stitches, the 3D technique was really effective - I love it!
(Update - here is the blog post where she goes into more detail how she made it)

Here's my progress so far on my Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery Halloween Sampler. I should get my fabric for the Once Upon A Time 2014 sampler soon, so the ween may have to wait...

Thursday Things

• Compliment Jar from The Militant Baker - this website has completely changed the way I see myself
• Felt Chickenfish pattern for those of us obsessed with Foster Dad John's kitten cam
• Funny test answers
• New porcupine species discovered
• And even more porcupineness - this is adorable (Noddy loves it):

And into the New Year...

My only resolution this year was to take better care of myself - eating more fruit and veg, taking occasional exercise etc etc. I am hoping that drinking Ribena counts towards this as today I discovered that the only fresh fruit my local shop sells are lemons... I'm trying to deal with my stress levels with lots of deep breathing, and I have spent most of my non-work time so far asleep.

I have mostly failing to do any crafting this week, although my Halloween sampler now has 1.5 Ls and the start of an O. I bought a lap stand in the Hobbycraft sale and am hoping that encourages me to finish it soon, although the hour I spent swearing at it while trying to wind the linen on it yesterday isn't particularly encouraging. I am in the middle of designing the first monster embroidery pattern at the moment.

Speaking of embroidery patterns, here is Anna Marie's version of my Festive Wanderers pattern!

She used glittery felt and velvety fabric. I love the sequined baubles on the tree.  This pattern is available on my Craftsy pattern shop for free.

Also free is UK postage for my monsters until the end of January (Folksy and Etsy) - perfect if you were wondering what to put on your walls now you've taken your decorations down, or want to stock up on Christmas monsters for the end of the year.

Post-Christmas Chocolate Dilemma

I hope you had a lovely Christmas. Mine was fun and quite hectic, involving lots of different people to visit and huge amounts of food. I received lots of presents featuring zombies, cats and fake fur, and a HUGE amount of chocolate. I'm now feeling extremely unhealthy and am aiming to start eating fruit and veg to get my eczema and energy levels under control, but there's still so much chocolate...

A hugely exciting thing happened on Christmas Day - Christmas Bob was featured on Mr X Stitch! I may have squeeeed extremely loudly for quite a while...

In the run-up to Christmas I decided to actually make some things from my Crafty Creatives Christmas box, rather than getting excited about the contents then leaving it all in a giant pile in my craft room like previous boxes... I made some lip scrub (fun and messy), then made up some felt baubles just using what was in the box. This really challenged me as I would never usually use brown embroidery thread on any colour felt other than brown!

There were some gorgeous heavy Christmas tree beads in the box along with some wreath rings and tiny bells, which I made into a mobile to hang from the lounge light fitting, along with the usual baubles:

Luckily I am short enough not to get it tangled in my hair and set the bells off, others have not been so lucky...

Finally, here is a Ethel Christmas hoop commission I did for Anna Marie - photo by her as it is SOOO much better than the awful ones I took before I posted it off:

See you in 2014 (eeek)!

Happy Christmas!

Wishing you all a happy festive season! I will be back blogging next week - I have spent the last few days feeding a reindeer and making Christmas decorations, and will spend the next few days eating too much and watching bad films.

Thursday Things - Christmas Craft Special

Christmas crafty things I've found and will have no time to do:

• Styrofoam blossom bauble
• Gold painted ornaments from abeautifulmess
• Felt snow globe ornament from bugsandfishes (tons of Christmas tutorials on her blog here)
• Deer and fox ornaments from cutesycrafts
• Snowflake patterns (I love the mobile!)

Wordless Wednesday