Happy New Year!

 

Happy New Year friends! 

I hope that you have all had a wonderful festive period, however you choose to celebrate. Were you all up partying last night or were you like us and in bed at 10pm? I did stay awake until midnight to say hello to the new year but I was the only one conscious so it was a very quiet "Happy New Year" moment - apart from all of the snoring around me. 

I don't make resolutions as such but I do have some wishes that I would like to try to make happen in 2025; some new adventures, places to visit and routines to start. I'm also going to try and go a bit easier on myself. I wear many hats and have many plates to juggle and I found myself getting a bit lost in it all last year, feeling a bit alone with everything that suddenly appeared on my to do lists, overwhelmed and frustrated. I think I hide it well and outwardly appear to have it all under control but it is bottled up inside, fizzing away until something gives and the thing giving way is usually me and my wants. My aim is to try and not take on as much - which I find difficult as I like to be involved in lovely things and find myself offering for roles or tasks almost by accident - or to ask more for help where I can. We shall see!

 

It's been a pretty quiet first day of 2025 for us. Usually we all meet up in a big family group and have a big lunch, almost like a repeat of Christmas but without the gift giving, but this year various family members were already promised to meet with others so my parents were just going to come to us for a roast dinner but now The Mother isn't very well so it's back to me, Reece, Baby F and the cat ringing in the new year by ourselves. 

These photos are from a couple of weeks ago when we took the smalls to one of our usual haunts, Sheffield Park. The weather was unexpectedly beautiful. Chilly but sunny with gorgeous blue sky and we took full advantage to get out as it's been so dismal and wet. As I type today it's pouring with rain, dark, and windy as we are finishing off a hurricane from somewhere. Not nice at all . 

Sheffield Park now has peacocks roaming the grounds as well which is rather exciting! They aren't as friendly as the ducks, who will eat out of your hand, but we might get some fun displays from the boys - or some pretty feathers to collect over the summer!

There was a winter trail based on The Snowman which we whizzed round as we'd gone rather late in the day. There were big snowmen cleverly painted on the themes of the 12 days of Christmas, little wooden snowmen of the one from The Snowman books and film, and then extra little fun bits for children to explore, and some of the trees had music coming from them! It is such a beautiful place and I feel really lucky to have it so close to us.

We didn't get time to come here during toadstool season to really look for the different varieties that pop up across the site - but I still managed to sniff out these beauties!

I took advantage of the period just before the Christmas days to catch up on my blog writing (a bit like I'm doing now). Cosied up inside with coffee and cake whilst Baby F was at his last nursery day. It has been very sweet to have our first few months of nursery experiences. He was Rudolph in his nativity and had a cute little costume. The children are 2-4 years old so it wasn't a performance so much as a sing-song with a quick overview of the nativity story read out. But Baby F danced in circles during each of the songs, he sat and stood when told and he smiled and did the actions. One of my best nursery experiences was giving a small token gift of homemade gingerbread stars to the lollipop lady who helps us cross the road each morning. She was over the moon and I was profusely thanked which made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. 

It's been nice to have evenings where I'm not writing Christmas cards, wrapping presents, checking lists, getting last minute presents, cooking biscuits, finishing up end of term reports and business etc to sit and stitch! The cat enjoys these evenings too I think, just me and him on the sofa. Usually he's sleeping in strange positions but occasionally his kitten-ness comes out and he gets in trouble for chasing/stealing threads or trying to squeeze himself inside my project bag. 

I've been working on my Misty Shadows Stitchscape Swap cards and I will try and photograph them when the light is better. My camera is unfortunately still broken (thanks to the cat) so hopefully my phone camera will be able to do them justice. We are still waiting for cards to come in for the swap so it may be next week that I'm able to send them out to everyone. 

The themes and prompts for this year's Stitchscape swap is up and ready for you on my website, here. All are welcome to join in - even if you don't want to actually join in with the swapping you can still make your own little cards based on the themes and participate in the challenge of them in that way. 

I was given some amazing cosmic print fabrics for Christmas so yesterday I started a new little hoop to try and play with some of the patterns and colours. This will probably be my bus project for the next couple of months so we'll have to see where it ends up! 

Potentially there are some new events and opportunities coming up in 2025 - there is already quite a list on my website. I had an online meeting with a new gallery and workshop space about a series of workshops further in the year from Easter which I am waiting to here back about, there's possibly an exhibition that I've been talking about to have in collaboration with another textile artist, and I have today started sorting out some selling events and have applied to a couple of craft events so we'll see where that goes! Thank you to everyone who made 2024 such a great year for Dotty Textiles; invited me to workshops, came to workshops and listened at talks, sent me pictures of their pieces, purchased from Etsy or my website, left a lovely review, joined in the Stitchscape swap, passed on my details to a friend or followed me online. All of it is so appreciated!

Cheers to 2024, and hello to 2025!

Angus & Flora 2024 Week Four

 

December 22nd:: We’ve been following along with the @pawprint_family Christmas advent calendar and the elves have enjoyed watching us work on the activities. Today though, they have come up with a little extra challenge for us as we have guests coming round! I wonder if we will be able to find all three little pieces?

For those curious to know, the cousins who came round for our pre-Christmas family party did indeed find all three of the little wooden pieces. Next year we will have to make it much harder!

December 23rd:: Angus and Flora have been inspired by the bedazzled festive tractor parades that have been happening around us. They’ve amassed a collection of little tractors and made their own procession, the teddies have even come out to watch!!

December 24th:: It’s Angus and Flora’s last day! They’ve observed the naughty and nice children, wrapped their presents to take back to their elf friends, dressed appropriately for travel, laid out their stockings and checked their passports haven’t expired.

Although, perhaps there’s time for one last adventure…?

Our Christmas Eve routine is the same (almost) every year. It is my uncle's birthday so we always have a party for him during the day which kind of kick starts the festivities for us so it's rather nice really. This year Baby F, the elves and I had to hop on the bus to the party destination so it was an extra little adventure for Angus and Flora. 

Last year on Christmas Eve Reece and I had taken Baby F and visited Bedgebury Pinetum to see the Christmas lights and we decided to do it again this year as it was so magical. It did not disappoint! The weather was great, which always helps, and there were lots of new displays to enchant us. It may become a new yearly tradition for us, although I am tempted by the Polar Express experiences on the steam railways as well. 

This was my absolute favourite display, all about Mycelium! It was absolutely mesmerizing with the different colours swirling around the bottom of the tree trunks and the fairy-like toadstools sticking up in clusters. 

Merry Christmas All! 

Angus & Flora 2024 Week Three

December 15th:: Snowflakes are falling in our kitchen! Angus and Flora must have been up all night cutting out snowflakes to decorate our cupboards. Luckily for us the house elves came through already and tidied up the paper mess (if only they did that more often). Looking good elves!

December 16th:: You know those spoofy video tutorials about how to wrap your sausage dog…? Flora is making her own tutorial on how to wrap a Christmas elf! Angus is the sausage dog.

December 17th:: It’s Nativity day! Baby F is playing Rudolph today in his nursery nativity and he had an extra costume so Angus and Flora are putting on their own performance. Like the two-ended stage donkey, they are both playing the part of Rudolph, coming together with the sheep and dinosaur to witness the miracle of the magical mushroom in a small hut in Bedroom.

Their version of the nativity is probably not based on fact or any other previously told story.

December 18th:: Oh. My. Goodness! Flora came across a Christmas tree craft she would like to make from Pinterest involving toilet rolls and, rather than waiting for a roll to become available like a sensible elf would, she and Angus have just unravelled a whole roll instead!! This craft better be worth it!

December 19th:: Angus and Flora are playing trains! They’ve borrowed a track and have the smollest train to chug along past the houses and fields. They did ask Fin to join them but he was busy having a morning meltdown so he’ll go back later to join in the fun.

 

December 20th:: Angus and Flora are going on a field trip! They have their naughty or nice map and are off to test some of the children they find out and about to see what the percentages of nice children are. Sometimes this kind of research is a real drag but today the elves get to ride on a bus so that’s not a bad start!!

The three little photos show what Angus and Flora got up to on their trip out! They found a pretty Christmas tree, sipped hot chocolate in Costa and got comfy in a great window seat ready to watch the nice (or naughty) children walking past for their survey.

December 21st:: What better way to start a weekend than wrapping yourself in fairy lights and singing carols! Angus and Flora have their song books out and are singing away in the corner. If only they weren’t tone deaf!

Not many days left to go now!