Christmas Comes But Once A Year...

... and when it does, it brings good cheer!

Festive Signage on Oxford Street, London

Hello everybody! *Long time no post. I'm feeling pretty relaxed and cheery - tucked up watching the telly and eating my turkey 'n' chocs (not at the same time I might add LOL!) ... and I hope that you are all having a lovely time with family and friends too :)

Father Christmas has been most kind again to me this year - he helped guide the hand of my Husband and his wallet towards these pretty lovelies (lucky me :) !).

Cath Kidston Sewing Charms Bracelet

"Make It Sew" Poster (à la cathphrase of Jean-Luc Picard)

I also had the privilege and pleasure to take part in VickiKateMakes's Sew Very Merry Christmas Swap and KraftyKat's Sewists Secret Santa.

For my fellow swapee's I sent out the following items (both were international swaps with US living ladies). I shan't name the ladies who received these packages of sewing-lurve (in case they've not opened them yet - so I don't ruin the surprise hehe!!):

Items I sent out for the 'Sew Very Merry Christmas Swap'

Above, is the bundle of goodies I sent out to the recipient of the swap that VickiKateMakes sorted out for us. 4 lovely pieces of fabric direct from my own stash, a couple of cute sewing / sew-on fabric patches (badges?), a copy of the December 2012 issue of Burda Style Magazine, a me-made wrist pin cushion, and a lollipop for good measure! (This was a direct swap, so we knew each other's names, i.e. person A posts to B, and vice-a-versa.) My return package is as yet to arrive from the US (I'll post a pic when it gets here) - but hey... this way the festive fun lasts a wee bit longer than usual :)

Below, for KraftyKat's "secret" swap we knew the name of who we were posting our mystery and surprise £5 pressies on to... but not who was sending a surprise gift to us (I do luv a surprise!). For this, I decided to make some lovely things to post out: so I sewed up a me-made wrist pin cushion, a pressing ham, and a scissors holder, to this I added a cute sewing-kit in a tin (which I supplemented with some 'Betweens' hand sewing needles), 2 sew-on fabric patches, some sharp thread-snips, and yup another lollipop ;)!

Me-Made Items + a few shop-bought bits I sent out for the Sewists Secret Santa

Here's the lovely purple knit fabric (very thoughtfully pre-washed, yay!), special Chocolate and made-for-me pin cushion... all the way from New Zealand no less.

Oh, and here's a lovely short video-clip I made on my phone of the fab Ebony Steelband that were playing an excellent rendition of the Christmas ditty 'Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer' on Oxford Street, London when I went shopping for sewing supplies earlier this month :)...

(*So sorry about that folks. Things have been extremely sparse sewing time-wise lately, as I've been crazy busy at work *sad face*. That only makes me daydream more about sewing projects - the imaginery future-hope-to-make kine, and the unfinished kind in equal measure *sigh*).