December...ing

 Hello, I hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas and have managed to do the whole thing stress free.  I never really understand why people get themselves all whipped up into a frenzy at Christmas time as there really is no need. I can understand people feeling lonely or missing loved ones but not the need for a perfect meal, gift or experience.  It is after all what we make it, so if other people do not appreciate your efforts then  that is their problem so let's just all be happy with what we have and what we can do.  That said we had a lovely christmas day, my oldest son came over and my mum. So with me, husband and youngest son that was the five of us, we cooked a chicken for the meat eaters and I did a Veg Wellington that was fabulous details below.  Here we go...

Cooking The Veg Wellington, recipe from the Happy Pear guys on youtube.  If you have not looked at their videos beofre please do check them out especially if you are thinking of eating more plant based recipes in the new year. It is such a good one and formed part of their two euro dinner ( that is per person not two euros for the whole thing).  Now I know with inflated costs it would cost more than that now but it was still really good value, we had enough left to have it for lunch again today.  I did not get an  image as I was busy enjoying the day and I did have rather a lot of cooking to do so got sidetracked but I will make it again in future so I promise to take a pic next time.   I also did their spicy cabbage recipe, again so tasty! I will only cook cabbage that way in future, it has chilli, ginger, sesame oil and a little maple syrup.  That dish even got my younger veg adverse son eating it as it is so good. 

For desert I made Christmas pin wheel pastries with mincemeat in (the sweet kind) again no image due to Christmas day busyness. 

I also made cranberry cookies with walnuts and almonds twice this last week, green and blacks chocolate drizzled over the top.  My food photography is somewhat lacking but here is a peak...

I know the decoration also leaves something to be desired but they taste lovely so who cares, I find it very tricky to drizzle with a spoon. 

Dressmaking Of course there is always plenty of this, the latest makes were both dresses and one is the style arc Patricia Rose dress.  I was sent the larger pattern so I have sized it way down with tracing paper, origami and lots of faffing.  It worked but the dress is a loose fitting dress with no closures and now it is complete I have also added darts at the back as I do like a more structured look.  Here it was just after it was finished.

I also made a vogue dress in a blue soft washed chambray...

Sewing more hexies on my ongoing piece of handstitching, my thing with this now is that I have come to the realisation that I do not want a full sized bed quilt in all these colours, much as I love colour.  I feel that I would rather have a more definite pattern and carefully selected fabrics for such a large piece.  The main reason I am thinking about this is that I made a quilt some years ago called lone star and spent a lot of hours on it. The fabric were manily offcuts from the market near where I worked and part way through I knew they were  a bit dark and I didn't love them, still I carried on and completed it, quilted it etc.  A lot of hours and I had it a while, I was pleased to have finished but never really loved it.  That said I don't want to be in that situation again, so I am thinking maybe a large cushion cover to be used out on my bench in the summer and also continueing with the colourful hexies for scrap busting but using them in my handbags?   Here is the  piece so far...

Let me know your thoughts, but I have seen so many pretty designs for quilts and there are such a lot of hours that go into these that maybe it would be best to invest my time in one that I will treasure.

Eating out, with my mum.  As a christmas treat I drove my mum to Wentworth for breakfast and we had a little look around, youngest son came too as he was off work using up hoilday days.  She did take a bit of convincing as she gets stuck in aroutine but she really enjoyed it once she was out and said she would like to do it again so that was nice.

Watching a new series called Yellowstone with Kevin Costner.  I am quite enjoying it although my husband has just informed me there are another four series to go.  I will let you know if I still like it after all that.

Reading The Magpie Murders, now I have only just started this but I am a good way in and I have to say it feels a bit like Father Brown to me, I like Father Brown so that is not a bad thing.  My husband bought me a set of books for my birthday and I had said that I wanted to try something a little different.

Promising myself that I will do more art in the new year, I don't always do resolutions more intentions so this is my first. A promise to myself that I will set aside some time each week to do some art and also learn a little more about it, a new technique or style to try, anything as long as I sit down and create something with pencils or paint.  I love to sew and I am really enjoying working at it as my day job again but I think this year I have let a few of my others hobbies slide.

Enjoying the lights, decorations and cosiness that is Christmas, I will be sad to see them all come down as I am every year.  So I will be looking for new ways to cosy up the house for January, any suggestions welcome.

That is all for today, enjoy yourselves wherever you are.