Christmas Is Getting Closer!!

It's a scary-but-true fact ... Christmas is creeping up on us at an alarmingly rapid pace - EEK! Despite joining in the "Simply Christmas" fun with the lovely Kerryanne, I am nowhere NEAR being organised for Christmas. I DO have a couple of gifties bought and put away, but I get the feeling it will be a mad panic at the eleventh hour ... AGAIN!! ... to get ready.

Having said that ... I decided to shout myself an early Christmas gift yesterday ... sort of! :0) Now, anyone who's been popping into my blog for regular visits for a while now, will know we renovated our kitchen last year - and it's been WONDERFUL!! I cleaned out a lot of the odd crockery and cutlery, tossed out the Tupperware containers with no lids and the lids with no containers, I even bought some bright new red-patterned tea-towels to brighten and colour co-ordinate the room. HOWEVER ... one kitchen essential that DIDN'T get replaced was my oven mitt ...

Don't know if you can see it in the photo, but the left end is all frayed and has a hole in it and it generally looks tacky and icky ... but it's just been one of those things I've not been able to find a replacement for. So ... I decided to MAKE myself one (OK, yes, I WAS in fact procrastinating about doing something else!!). So, I scrabbled through my red and green fabrics (the cupboards and splashback are white, the walls are a soft apple green and I've introduced lots of red accessories to the kitchen), scrounged up a piece of backing fabric and wadding big enough, found a bit of giant rick-rack and played. The result? See for yourself ...

Ta da! Nice and fresh and pretty ... MUCH nicer to look at than the old one! :0) So, of course, I had to give it a test run, right? So I baked some banana muffins and used the new oven mitt to lift them out of the oven. Test successful, though perhaps if I make another one I'll use two layers of wadding, as the heat does seep through a bit quicker than the old oven mitt.

Mmmmm ... YUMMO! Delicious afternoon tea AND a new oven mitt! All in all, a productive afternoon! :0)

It wasn't until I was editing the photos to get them ready for this post that I realised how Christmassy my new oven mitt looks with it's red and green stripes. Hmmm ... since the kitchen AND lounge room are both decorated in the red and green combination ... it must be Christmas here all year round! Tee! Hee! Hee! Maybe not ... but in keeping with that Christmas-is-coming theme, I popped into my home-away-from-home, the Quilter's Angel, on my way home from work the other day to pick up a couple of bits and bobs and catch up with the lovely Marion and Steph. And while I was there, look what Marion very kindly donated towards our OPAM prize pool ...

Christmas fabric fat eighths!! Just perfect for those little Christmas projects! Don't you LOVE those cute snowmen?!! And although it's a bit hard to see, the second fabric has Christmas gifties on it.

THANKS HEAPS MARION!!!

 Peg and I sure have been blessed to receive some lovely prize donations for OPAM this year, which have been so much fun to pass on to encourage you gals to keep creating. Crafters really are a generous bunch, aren't they!! :0)

And now ... I'm off to stitch down the binding on Tiffy's 21st birthday quilt. I picked it up from the gorgeous Rosalie this week and sewed the binding on last night, so this afternoon and tonight will see me plying needle and thread to get it finished for the big event next weekend - I promise I'll share a photo when it's all finished and a photo of Tiffy with her quilt after the party. Then ... it's on to making the sample and tutorial for the Christmas project that I'll soon be sharing on Kerryanne's blog for "Simply Christmas". Stay tuned and I'll let you know when it's posted. In the meantime, I seem to have an odd little tune stuck in my head ...

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, Everywhere I go ...."
Tee! Hee! Hee! Til next time

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

OOPS!

I mean ...

BEAR HUGS!
CHEERS!
KRIS