Happy Holidays!

I'm still playing catch up, but that doesn't mean that I think that I've left it too late to wish everyone festive greetings and all the best for the New Year (and you may notice in that some acceptance that sewing and blogging over the holiday period does slow down a bit!).

The post title also refers to my happy holidays - I've managed a little stitching (and planning more now that I've cleared some space in the craft room - I can see the cutting mat again, hurrah!) and been the recipient of some lovely quilty gifts.  Not only my star from Avril, but lovely coasters from Benta and super egg cosies from Lesley - as well as some fabulous fabric from my brother Paul (and sort of a metre of bright fabric from my family, although that was a bit of a re-wrap job as technically it came free from Clothkits when I bought kits for the girls).

Why was I buying kits for the girls?  Lovely retro, nostalgia making kits for the girls?  Because my Dad and stepmother have relinquished the Frister and Rossman that I learned to sew on - the family sewing machine - to them for Christmas.  Actually 'relinquished' makes it sound more of a wrench than I think it was.  It was more a showing a way to the wardrobe where it has been kept, unused,  for the last twenty something years with a degree of relief that someone else was going to lift it out and take it away!

It still sews well, although the needle position seems a little off to the left - probably forced into unnatural positions whilst I was a teenage sewer making clothes and accessories.  The manual isn't with it, so I really need to look on-line to try and find out what the different feet are for.  I never was much good at understanding how to use different feet, and the only thing that has changed is that now I recognise a 'hopping' foot for free motion quilting, and a walking foot...... 

The girls are VERY excited about having a real machine of their own, and even more excited about having a machine that does zig-zag.  Lots of fun on the trial pieces changing the size of the stitch, both length and width.  Soon it's going to be time to get busy with their kits, with more charm squares, and with the fab sparkly fabric and threads that their Uncle Paul bought them......