'Twas The Night Before Christmas....

.....when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

in the hope that St Nicolas soon would be there...

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Festive Makes From Hope & Gloria Sewing Enthusiasts!

Well done to all of the lovely, talented and creative children who came along to Hope & Gloria Sewing Clubs half term.

As always, you were full of enthusiasm and should be very proud of the wonderful Christmas Stockings you created.

Looking forward to seeing you all again after Christmas but in the meantime here's a gallery of some of your festive makes.

Merry Christmas!

Super Stockings!

There's nothing like a last minute panic....

Just a couple of days ago whilst sorting through the gifts I'd bought for the boys' Christmas stockings I discovered that something essential was missing - the stockings!

Five years ago one of my major pre-Christmas craft projects was to make the boys their own personalised applique and embroidery felt stockings. They were made with lots of love over the course of December and since then they have made a star appearance each Christmas Eve to be filled with fun presents by Santa.

Not this year. Although I remember putting them away in a safe place when I was packing up to move, unfortunately I have no idea what or where that safe place was. They will turn up that is for sure, but just no this side of Christmas. A wise friend told me to give the boys pillow cases to use this year instead of stockings, but I couldn't quite bring myself to do so and two nights ago I cut out three stocking shapes from my felt supply and this is what happened....

There was no time to embellish or personalise this year, but I think the "Elf" style is cute, simple and effective. Whether my teenage boys appreciate my endeavours is another matter, but it makes me happy!

I also finished off another stocking which used the same motif as the Robin Heart that I made earlier in the month. I love the retro look of it - maybe I'll place it by the fireside next to the boys' just to see what happens.

Christmas stockings have been a major feature of the last few weeks for the Hope & Gloria Team and me - we have been making tonnes of adorable festive stockings in our sewing clubs and my next post will be a gallery of the wonderful creations made by our talented sewing club members.

Happy Christmas!

Christmas Countdown!

I was really quite shocked to find that the last time I posted on here was back at Halloween! It has been a very eventful few weeks - a house move and the busiest half term ever at Hope & Gloria Sewing Clubs have meant that the blog has been on the backburner.

This is not to say that the crafting hasn't continued (although at a much slower pace than usual), and now that the boys have finished school and our school clubs are taking a break until the new year/term, I can finally attempt to finish off a few of those sewing and knitting projects that have been on my to do list for many months. Hopefully, they will be finished in time for the big day - but watch this space....

I am really happy to have finished my vintage inspired robin heart decoration. I keep a special notebook full of sewing project ideas and whenever a new idea springs to mind I add it to the growing list.

This hanging heart decoration has been on my stitching to do list since November 2015 - I began making him in November 2016 and yesterday I completed it when I stitched on the ribbon and button.

If you have read my blog before, you will know that I am a huge fan of robins and I am happy to report that we have a couple of them in the garden in our new home - the perfect inspiration to prompt me to get around to making this decoration. I hope it evokes vintage Christmas Cards of days gone by featuring a fat cheerful robin. It is now hanging on a door handle adding festive cheer to our family room.

Christmas festivities have already begun with the Richardsons' - we had my family visiting for lunch last weekend and after watching Kirsty Allsop's Handmade Christmas programme I decided it would be fun to have a go at making our own crackers. As we were pushed for time I invested in cracker-making kits from Hobbycraft - I have to say they were a great introduction to making your own, and Theo and I had a lot of fun assembling them.

We used raffia instead of the silver ties supplied with the kit and we added name tags so that the crackers handily doubled up as place cards. There's no reason why this idea could not be put to use with shop bought crackers if you don't have time to make them.

Here they are in situ on our festive table on Saturday......

It really is lovely to add handmade touches to family gatherings - they are always appreciated and everyone seems to love a personal touch. Next year I'll try to begin sourcing materials for crackers a bit earlier so that they can be truly unique. Let's see if I manage it...!

Looking forward to sharing further Christmassy crafts with you over the next few days.