Goodbye 2010

Goodbye 2010
You've been a hard year.
Next year will be better, it will, it promises.

More Christmas presents:)

Firstly, I finished off 3 pentagon balls for my nieces. They are pinks, blues and purples but each one is different.

I embroidered each ball with their initial

Recently when the Australian dollar was awesome I bought up some patterns from Above All Fabric. I had intended to just buy Frida but I ended up buying Sophie, Julia, Nina and Frida as well ;).

I'm really sorry to the australian sellers I know we all should support you, but I'm not paying $20-28.50 per pattern from you when I can buy the same pattern for $12.95 per pattern even with international postage on top of that its still very much cheaper, I just can't justify the difference in prices.

This is the first Frida I've made and now I love it so much I have to make more!

For my cousins little girl for Christmas I made a Frida dress and a pentagon ball using mums fabrics.

I love those little cap sleeves.

And I love the neckline.

I love the contrasting band of colour along the bottom.

I love the gorgeous little elasticised pockets and the ties under the arms.

Actually I love everything about this dress.

And the Last pentagon ball, for my cousins bub.

I tagged it explaining how the fabrics came form mums stash, made in memory of mum, for them.

This one is mostly white, orange and yellow.

All of the little kids, (mums great grandchildren) got a ball each, the older 3 teenage boys didn't of course because at their age, I really don't think they have any interest in them:) I am still making them hoodies and board shorts each. I wont see them until mid January, so I still have some time to finish those thank goodness!
Just enough time to show you my Christmas presents from my husband. A couple more Jamie books to add to my collection.

And, a gorgeous sewing box, I totally love it!

Inside it has a little tray as well as pouch and pin cushion and lot's of space for other things.

He also bought me a 1 yr mail subscription to SewHip magazine, which I totally totally love because now we don't have to deal with the crappy newsagent lady who tells us off every single time we pick up the magazine! We've never been late picking it up, we've always gotten it within a day of it being delivered to them but she lectures us and tells us off and tut tuts and looks down her nose at us about all the other people that put magazines on hold and never come to pick them up. She even laughed one time when they forgot to hold the magazine as expected and we couldn't get it.
So a Christmas sewing update and then to sleep finally! 3 hoodies and shorts to go for the boys, and something nice for my cousin, who's been ace and doesn't mind waiting until I finish all the hoodies ;)

Today I made a few tiny additions to the tiny spikey christmas tree.

I made some crocheted snowflakes using 5ply acrylic (same as the star) using this simple snowflake pattern by Sarah London.
I think they turned out pretty cute, and they took all of a few minutes to make.

I've got lot's of partly finished presents still on the go...days are running out! But last night I finally finished off a Christmas present, A pair of boxer shorts for my 14 yr old nephew.

They are elastic waisted, but also have ties (made from the fabric) threaded through the casing to tighten them up a bit more.

I used Simplicity 5314