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Seasons Greetings

Seasons Greetings

Because Christmas in Australia falls in summer our family has its traditional Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve. We originally hail from the west where it is not unusual to have temperatures near or above the century. Its no fun turning out a full dinner with all the trimmings in that heat – and then because of the heat no one really wants to eat it! The tradition family started with my mother and I have carried it on. We now live in Canberra which is not quite as hot but I still do the same thing. So this evening we will be sitting down to our dinner and saying thanks for our good fortune. Tomorrow we will be having light foods such as salads and left over Christmas dinner! The biggest problem with this system is the lack of space in the fridge. It will be a small gathering this year as like many families we are dispersed all over the country but Annie and Jessica will dine with us.

Eve is home for Christmas but has a 6AM flight to Brisbane on boxing day as she will be up at Woodford . For those outside OZ. Woodford is a huge event each year with artists musicians and entertainers from all over the globe converging to see the New Year in. Jerry started his holidays last week and has been busy in the shed making fire swords which were immediately used for a show and he decided to make a flute of PVC pipe! The days after Christmas we will be visiting friends, checking out the sales and generally taking some time out for ourselves.

Don’t expect a post from me either on Christmas day or boxing day but I will back on or around the 28/29 th. I doubt there will be a weekly work in progress report either! I think most people are in the same holiday season state. As I read the blogs I notice most are off on holidays or are stating they will be busy with family and friends.

Once back it will be full tilt year for me. It is definitely a year of challenges of one sort or another. Of course there is the Take a stitch Tuesday Challenge which will run the whole year. I have been adding links to everyones site as they sign up so if you are going through link withdrawal there are over 100 sites to visit in that list. Swing by leave comments and introduce yourselves. I know many people are looking forward to this challenge and many others will be reading on. I am still agonising over what stitch to start it off with!

One of the things I am going to do with the Take a stitch Tuesday challenge is to create a visual journal of it. This will be a visual journal that is created as an object in it own right rather than an everyday workhorse type journal. I plan to post more on visual journals and hopefully even get a few tutorials up on how to do various things with mediums etc. I have started to prepare for this but that is as far as its gone.

The other challenge I am going to participate in is Sandie’s UFO and WISP challenge. My top WISP (Work in Slow progress) is a number of quilt blocks I pieced last January. These are diamond blocks inspired by Martha Bingley . I would really like to do an Allison Aller with these as she managed to consistently post the progress of her β€œCrazy for Flowers” crazy quilt. Pam Kellogg is another person who manages to post details on a prolific amount of high quality work. I hope to work through the rest of my pieced blocks using her as my mentor. So modelling myself on these two lets hope the pieced basket gets cleared.

I think these two challenges and the ongoing 6 x 4 lives challenge will be enough to keep me running helter skelter through the year. Nothing new, I know but I think between the two of them it will keep me busy.

One challenge I could do with is a stash reduction challenge. I have not heard of anyone running one this year (and really will not have time for another challenge) but I was wondering if anyone had heard of one or was thinking about running one? Leave a comment if you are in the know.

On another note, regular visitors will know I have had problems with spammers lately. Twice the site was taken off line by my service provider as so much spam was hitting site that it was going to bring the server down. Not nice. Now in order to comment you have to register.
You only have to register once.
You are sent a password in your email.
Logon using that password. Once in the registration window you can change to something you will remember if you like.
In the same window if you choose to you can add your blog, website, flickr account address. It means that whenever you comment it is published along side the comment and readers know who you are and visit your site.
To leave a comment after you have logged in return to the site by clicking view site, go to the post and now when you click on the title you will have the option to comment active.
Comments are still moderated by me. This means that you will not immediately see them published but they will be, as soon as I click that OK button.
Please do register. So far it has been relatively problem free from problems. The only glitch I have had so far is one person whose email account marked my email as spam, which meant she did not get her password.
If you have problems drop me an email.

I know this is a pain and I personally hate password protected sites so it really goes against the grain for me to have to put up this sort of wall but it is better than having the site come down constantly.

I want to thank all my regular readers for their support throughout the year. All those people who left comments, joined challenges and of course my students at joggles.com, thanks for making life online such a pleasure and no matter what faith you follow my best and heartfelt good wishes go out to all.

12 Comments

  1. Cameo Roze this is kathyin montana and I just wanted to say hi and tell you that knowing others have projects in long lines does my heart good as well as knowing you are a part of this site as well

    kathy
  2. I spent most of 2006 on a stash enhancement binge, so I have decided to conduct major stash reduction this year. Well, at least I’m gonna try and put a dent in it!! I don’t know of anyone doing a challenge, though.

    Marty52
  3. Regarding stash reduction …

    I’m part of the challenge, but I don’t have a lot of WISPs and UFOs. My UFOs are primarily things that are stitched and waiting to be made ready for display. So I’m adding what I call PILLs to my UFO and WISP challenge. What are PILLs?

    Projects In Long Lines ! πŸ˜€

    These are projects in a basket apart from the main stash, that are all kitted up and ready to go. They’ve just been waiting patiently for me to get to them!

    I’m seriously considering starting a needlework blog in January so that folks will have easy access to the UFO, WISP and PILL finishes I post to my website. I’ll let you know when it’s up and running.

  4. Your Christmas Eve plan sounds like a good one. We always had friends and ham on Christmas Eve, with family and turkey on Christmas Day. Now we just do whatever we are in the mood for at the moment. Love being retired and traveling!

    I’m looking forward to TAST! I guess you have a lot of fans out here who are. =)

    Merry Christmas (which I think is actually over for you!)

    desertsky
  5. Hi Sharon from frosty & freezing fog in the east
    of Scotland, I wish you & all your family a Happy Christmas. See you for Tast on the 2nd Jan 07.

    Best wishes Jane

    ejm79
  6. Christmas Eve here in the USA. It is a cool day – but no snow here. I’ll be making our traditional lasagna later.

    It was easy to register, and I wanted to be ready for TAST. I want to get a few blocks pieced, and ready for the first Tuesday.

    Marci
  7. Merry Christmas to you and your family. Hope you are enjoying the time with your family. I haven’t had time to sign up for TAST but wanted to let you know I will be stitching along with you.

    I hope to finish a few projects as part of the inspiration I receive from the group!

    Karen

  8. Hi Sharon, it’s not quite Christmas Eve yet here in the UK but not long to go, so Happy Christmas to you and yours. I don’t expect to be on-line much in the coming week, but am looking forward to TAST in the new year.

    Best wishes, CA

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