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2020. Certainly a year that will not be forgotten in a hurry.

Here in Victoria, Australia we are having a lovely December. After our total lock down we have experienced 60 days without community transmission. That has been a wonderful achievement and well worth all those stay at home days.

With our new found freedom and a lot of sunny weather a lot of time has been spent outside. The garden is loving the attention. But the other side is that very little sewing has been done. There are a few bits to share. Even when I did have a ...

 Here is my 2020 Goal list of quilt.  I updated in red.  It was not a good quilting year for me.

ow sleeves I started 2 years ago.  (February)

When I was young, on December 24th we had a special Christmas eve dinner and then we would open our Christmas presents under the Christmas tree. If we were visiting my grandmother at her house in Colorado, we did the same. The only difference was that she had live candles on her tree and no… Continue reading Merry Christmas!

My hope that I will create cute and charming crafted items springs eternal at this time of year, Covid or no Covid. Over the years I have learned that simpler is better, I should double any time estimate for creation, … Continue reading →

With my free cut file download, you’ll be making these layered snowflake ornaments in no time at all! All you’ll need is 3 colours of cardstock (thicker is better for stability), a thin ribbon, scissors, and double sided tape – and your Cricut cutting machine, of course! Assembly is simple for this cute project. Enjoyable for kids to assemble too!

Watch the Assembly Tutorial

Download the Snowflake Template

I’ve ...

Maybe early, maybe late – depending on which Christmas you are aiming for. These stockings had no deadline, so I am saying early.

This is a set of four stockings made from a panel, from a long time ago. I can’t remember the manufacturer.

The design was lovely and only needed some outline stitching.

My machine has a setting that gives a hand stitched look to the outlining.

I am happy to now store these away with the rest of the Christmas goodies to wait their turn until December.

I am also keeping my Christmas theme going with completing felt ...

Australia Day. It is a lovely time to have a long weekend and celebrate our nation.

January always ends up being a very busy time in the garden.

I love seeing these happy sunflowers.

We have been keeping up with berry picking.

And jam making.

Fresh corn is being picked also.

Apricots have been harvested. Lots of these have been preserved or jammed.

Some sewing bits and pieces have been done in between all of this. Some little Christmas decorations were finished. These are a pattern from many years ago from BHG.

These extra snowmen are from Trish Harriman of ...

Have I ever mentioned that I really don't like January?  It's like the month that never ends!

I've kept myself quite busy designing some new cross stitch patterns. 

First is another set of ornament design in the Crazy Ornaments series:

Time to get back into sewing and blogging for 2020. Decorations are packed away for another year. And I have scared the daylights out of myself by collecting together all the projects needing a finish.

I have returned to working on Dancing Chickens and Flying Pigs. I looked back at my posts and realised I have not touched it since March last year. That was around the time the building started here. Lots was put aside around then. So here are blocks 3 and 4.

Glad to be back to it and seeing progress.

This is the centre of a ...

Geez, I'm struggling. This bout of depression is really sticking to me, but I'm determined to just wait it out until it gets out. In the meantime, I have managed two minutes in the studio, some babysitting, and some pinning. Yes, I know, but there's been quite a bit of waiting in doctors' offices, so ....

So for 2020 our friendship group is having a similar WIP challenge as a popular quilt magazine.  You list 10 items on your WIPs list and assign a month to it.  Your goal is to at least work on that quilt during that month.  You don't have to finish the quilt - just make some progress.  We also have a second challenge to use a ruler, template or tool that you bought and have never used and to include text somehow. 

Here is my quilt list for 2020.  a

1.  Finish the 9 pillow sleeves I started 2 years ago ...

Even with this being the crappiest year, I have surprised myself on how much I did get done.  I had 13 items on my 2019 Goals list and I was able to finish 8 of them.  (Orange Jamestown Landing, Good Fortune BH Mystery) Black/Tan Idol quilt, Guild mystery, Moda Blockhead, Consignment Blue quilt, Trick or Treat, Material Girl Challenge-curved leaves) 

Cross Stitching has been added to my hobby list which was a blessing to have since I spent a lot of time sitting in a hospital and rehab with my dad.  So without any further ado...

The Quilts...

I finally got into the studio today. I didn't know what to do, except clean house, but what fun is that? So, as we say in French comme ça va (as it goes), I decided to start a new project. New projects generally create messes, so as we also say comme de fait (as it does) I made the already big mess beaucoup plus much bigger. 

This is a quick post to answer a couple of questions and follow up on some requests.

Jenny and Susan asked for close up pics of the trees with the snow hearts. These are the felt ones.

And these are the fabric and felt hearts.

These were made with a free pattern from Bunny Hill designs. They have been remade this year as an ornament. Follow this link to the patterns which are still available. Also go to the blog for a lot of other free patterns.

Susan, you also mentioned the tray of embroideries.

These are a set of ...

December seems to be running away very quickly. I thought I had better write a post before it disappears completely.

Summer has been a long time coming. The weather has been quite mild except for the rare hot day. But of course that is about to change. We have some very hot days coming this week.

Sewing has been happening in bits and pieces. Lots of projects half finished that may have to wait until after Christmas. But there are a few little bits completed.

The one large and three small trees are a Kris Kringle gift at one of ...

I have not been doing much crafting. Or sewing. Or quilting. However, before leaving for Disney I made a couple of decorations for the tree. They are simply strings of large beads on a very thin wire. I added skinny ribbon to hang them on the branches. 

I really like them. They aren't showy like most ornaments, but they are pretty. I hung each one on a branch so that it dangles freely any time the tree moves, which is when the tykes are here. That's been a few days in the last two weeks.

At nap time ...

I thought I'd take a break from Crazy Quilting and do some cross stitch.  I always loved cross stitching and my latest ornament designs have been calling me!

I picked up some Perforated Paper and stitched up one of my Crazy Tree ornaments:

Start with a couple sketches and wind up with a pile of gnome applique designs. I know, it sounds like I left out a few steps, but really, this is how I work. Draw, draw, draw. Edit. Trace. Isolate...

See more sewing and quilting adventures from Jen Eskridge of ReannaLily Designs