I have had a busy couple of weeks.
 Fun but busy.

I finally finished and posted my Modern Christmas table runner swap. I have seen the pictures on Flickr and it has arrived safe and sound in it's new home in the Czech Republic. I'm now sitting and eagerly awaiting my table runner.




On Saturday I went to the Festival of the Nativity at my friends church. It was amazing. There were 101 nativities from all over the world. There was even one from Bethlehem. Unfortunatly I didn't get a photo of that one.
Here are some of my favourite Nativities.
  This is one I would really like to have a go at making.
 
This knitted one was on lone from St Coleman's Kirk.

 These amazing sewn pieces were made by my friend Vikki and a lovely American lady whose name escapes me.

This is another one of Vikki's.

 How cute is this one.

I love this. It is so adorable.

 

 Here is the warm welcome we were greeted with, and the lovely thing was , the bairns got to take home a balloon at the end.

We decorated biscuits.I think the grown-ups had as much fun as the bairns.

 This is my Mary biscuit.

   Icing and coconut.

It tasted much better than it looked. Vikki got the silver balls espeshally for me

 

      Vikki with some of my girls.

 Daisy's Nativity. Age 9

In the afternoon I went to an ATC class with Jennie Atkinson. It was amazing. I will be hosting an ATC swap here in Shetland in the new year. I would also like to join in with an on line ATC swap but I haven't found one yet, If you know of a good active on line swap could you let me know ?

Here's looking forward to another good week.

I seem to have got my sewing mojo back. Phew.

I have just got some lovely fabric from Makower and decided to make a Linus quilt. This is how I have got on so far.

• I cut out a 3.5" square and a 2.5" strip. 

• Sewed the strip to the egde of the square using a 1/4" seam.
•  Pressed and trimmed.
•  Sewed another 2.5" strip along the bottom of the square.
•  Maked four more squares exactly like this.
• I took 2 of the squares and rotating one of them ,and sewed them together.
•  I repeat this with the remaining squares.
• I rotated one unit of squares and sewed them all together.

• I am going to have a play around with the blocks until I'm happy with their placement.

 I then found this fabric and had a wee play. I think this is going to become a Minding Quilt for people with Alzheimers.

 By this time I really had a wiggle on and sewed the bindings on 2 Linus quilts.

 And on my Christmas runner swap thing.

 All in all this has been a lovely week. My girl friend Glennice came round for tea on Tuesday, although I have to say that is the craziest day of the whole week for her to come , and we were joined by Frances. We laughed sooo much my ribs hurt. I'm really gonna miss her mow she's gone home.

Life is getting to normal......

 I'm upright again and more importantly I have started to sew again. I am quilting my elf boot table runner at every opportunity now as I can feel the dead line fast approaching. I'm quite proud of my table runner now.The quilting is really making it come to life.

                This is the scene which first greeted me when I found my feet again and took a trip in to the garden.

            

Well thank goodness life is getting back to normal and I'm no longer a mood hoover.

On Thursday I made it back to work. I am so blessed I have such lovely caring customers. The number of folk who popped in to the shop just to say " How ye doing ?" was quite moving.

On Friday a girl friend all the way from America came in to see me . We went out for a meal with a friend from Dumfries and some local ladies. Yum Yum Chinese. Where we had good food and good banter. We chatted and laughed until way passed 11.30. I could have sat there all night and blethered.

Over the weekend we went to the Shetland craft fair and food festival. It was amazing. I spent way too much but would have probably spent more if my husband hadn't been there. On Sunday evening my American girl friend came for tea. I had such a lovely evening (hence this being written on Monday morning)

 I can't wait to get started in to the new week now.

Never underestimate the effectiveness of holding hands.

There is so much power and emotion involved in such a simple act weather it is between friends, lovers, a parent and a child, or in this case, a nurse holding a patients hand. I didn't know the nurse and I can't remember her name, but the love and reassurance I felt from that simple act of kindness are beyond my ineffective powers of description. It reminded me of holding my Dad's hand, as a little girl, on one of our rare trips to the London Underground. I was too small to see where we were going but I knew if I just kept holding my Dad's hand, no matter what, then everything would be al-right. That same reassurance came flooding back from the nurse. I had a lumber puncture on Tuesday, and unfortunately I'm still more or less flat on my back for most of the time. I'm sure these symptoms will pass soon, I'm just feeling a bit sorry for myself. Rosie my cat has been keeping me company.

Rosie my cat.

Many of my friends have been posting the view from their window so I thought I would join in. This is the view from the Kitchen window.

                              This is the view I have had for the past week from my bed.

                                 But this is my favourite view from the girls bed room. 

I'm afraid I don't have any sewing to show this week. Hopefully next week will be more productive.

This has been a much better week and I have all the lovely people around me to thank for their love and support. My friends from The Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter-day Saints all made an evening meal for us. By not means an easy task as there are seven of us. We go in for industrial style catering these days. The meal was delicious with my all time favourite pudding - Apple pie. At work my girl friend and workmate  has been a brick  keeping me busy and generally just being there.

My scan has come back clear and so have all the blood tests. Next week  I'll be having a lumber puncture. Not looking forward to that but I'm sure it's nothing serious now.

I got my sewing out again this week. I made a picture of a puffin using Stained Glass Window techniques.  This was made for a class I was teaching on Saturday. They was a lovely group of ladies and I hope they enjoyed the class as much as I did.

I have also been working on my elf boot table runner.  I have appliquéd on the boots and I am now embroidering on the red strings. Time is fast running out so I'd bet get a wriggle on.

So that's this week. The sun is shinning after the storm ... both literally and figuratively ... and life is good again. To day I am going back to the Methodist church after a few months absence it will be good to see every one again.

This picture was created by one of my daughters.

This week seems to have been going on for ever. My forgetfulness is getting worse and the pins and needles in my hands has stopped being a tingle and is now darn right painful. On a morning when I get out of bed it's like walking on hedgehogs. Yesterday was a bit of a first as I had pins and needles in my face. I have a scan on Monday. Hopefully that will show up what the problem is.

All this means my sewing has eased up a bit. The Christmas runner is coming a long just much slower than the others in the group. Gee whizz the other ladies in the group are talented.

Yesterday our Daisy had her 9th birthday. She has grown up so fast I can hardly believe it. She was allowed anything she wanted for her tea, so we celebrated with Fish and chips, home made birthday cake and the Despicable Me dvd.

Today we took the girls shopping to spend their birthday money. They were let loose in M and Co. They were so sweet choosing their own clothes and trying them on then paying with their own money. Daisy felt very grown up. Mind she chose some lovely dresses.

Oh just remembered the rugby is on tomorrow so I shall away to me bed.

This week has seen a few ups and downs.

I started the week with a trip to the hospital. Umpteen blood tests and awaiting a scan. The upshot is I'm not allowed to drive until they have some results.

On Saturday we had a class in the shop learning to make ruched roses from ribbons. The ladies produced some lovely roses using different weights of ribbons.  

On Saturday evening I hosted a social evening at Islesburgh Community Centre. Two ladies from the Shetland to Romania Project gave an illuminating talk about their trip and highlighted some of the problems the orphans face and what a change their trip had made to the lives of these amazing children. It was quite moving.

 This is Tony our Quiz  Master

   There also a quiz, which I lost in spectacular style, and a raffle. 
  

 Ladies from the winning team.   

I was really dissapointed we ran out of time for the show and tell as the ladies had brought some truly wonderful projects for us to see.

I thourghly enjoyed the evening and I hope the ladies who came did too.

This is me relaxing with a cuppa at home afterwards.