Talking turkey.

In our house Christmas doesn't mean turkey and sprouts. For a start, I absolutely loathe turkey, loathe it with a passion! I like bread sauce and stuffing, and the veg, but not the traditional centrepiece. We've experimented with different things, but this year we're going for what we know as a shopping tea, and no-one has to cook. A shopping tea is basically a buffet with all the things we like to eat - cheese, dips, raw vegetables, olives and so on. Odd, but we like it!

We've got our mini trees up and decorated, and fairy lights strewn round. I have one Christmas present left to finish, then I'm going to have a holiday of making what I like, cuddling with and walking dog Fig, and listening to audiobooks. Bliss!

Gareth will be doing his usual tour of friends in Leicester, but back here for Christmas food. Then off to his new house, which he finally moved into yesterday, after the usual traumatic this week, next week, sometime, never practised by solicitors. Come the after-Christmas, a trip to Ikea is planned, but he has kettle, cooker, fridge, bed, chair and tv. All the essentials.

My Christmas work shops are over; they were honestly a real flop. I'm not sufficiently well known to draw people. So I have to decide whether to give up now, or to do some things to try and make a name for myself. But I really don't want to waste time on self-publicising when I could be making new things.

I was quite pleased with some of the wreath stuff I planned for people. The top photo is a mini-wreath, about 3 inches across. The middle one is bigger; I'm using it as a candle jazzer-upper rather than hanging on the door.

The final one never got finished because the planned robin was way out of scale, and I ran out of time.

 I couldn't hang it up because it's only tacked together. I was pleased with the snow effect, and had fun with the snowman:

Caroline insisted he had a hat! The Santa to hang down was also fun.

I think I'll finish it for next year, though I've been thinking of shepherds in the field with the star ...

We had planned to yarn bomb the tree outside the shop, with lots of baubles etc. Unfortunately the weather has been appalling, with torrential rain and high winds. Maybe it will calm down enough to get it done. 

It's lovely to see so many friends popping in to the shop to wish us happy Christmas. Tomorrow we have some of Rhiannon's fudge. It's mince pie fudge, with home-made mincemeat marinaded in sherry. If you get a chance, come in and have a piece!

No excuses - just

nothing much to say! And since the blog is called 'the crochet year', I can't really talk about knitting. Julie showed me a new book by Louisa Harding and I couldn't resist!

But I'm still crocheting, don't worry. We had a Crochet-along at the shop on Saturday to work on Christmas wreaths. Mine was 'The Holly and the Ivy'.

I really enjoyed the workshop. Apart from how to do the basic wreath cover, we played with:

pine cones - great fun, if rather fiddly. I think Sandie is so interested in the technique that she's planning on a scarf using it.

Then 'the holly bears a blossom,

As white as lily flower ...

Three slightly different ones; I wanted to get a cupped effect. They are all short of their green stamen things in the centre.

And of course, 'The holly bears a berry,

As red as any blood':

These were a nightmare to sort out, but they are a lovely holly-berry red.

Of course, for Christmas you have to have bells. This one looked more like a doll's bonnet:

But these are OK.

I want them in groups of three, 'open' like this; Caroline has promised to try and get some bells to go inside; the ones we had in the shop were too big or too small.

And you have to have mistletoe depending from the wreath, of course:

You can't see the assembled wreath because I gave my covered frame to one of the other ladies, so I have to make another cover.

I have this idea for a sort of picture wreath - snowy, with trees in the background, a house, a snowman, and maybe Santa's sleigh driving across the top. Any one want to comment?

A little shop news to report. Julie and Caroline went to a presentation day with Theo Paphitis, to get their small business award:



And the big reveal finally took place last Sunday, after Caroline presented the cheque to Anne at a dinner-dance for the Felix Fund:



We raised £2,550 pounds by making and selling poppies. That's an awful lot of poppies!
So here's to:
Avril, poppy-maker extraordinaire,
Caroline the creative,
Jules the willing leaf-maker,
Maureen, late joining but prolific, and
Doreen, who cheerfully sewed leaves and pins onto poppies by the hundred.
We had a little help from Sandie, but basically the six of us made all this money. Wow!