A Comfy & Cosy Christmas! – Dec. 2022
Thursday 1st December 2022
Season’s Greetings everyone,
I hope you’re all looking forward to Christmas. Quick question though…and be honest…have you put up your trees and decorations a bit earlier this year? If you’re nodding your head right now, then I don’t blame you. We started decorating super early on the 19th of November. With everything that’s happened over the last few months with my Mum, we wanted something to cheer us all up, and Christmas time always helps to brighten the mood e.g. festive films, jolly jingles and tunes, homemade baked goods, and local markets, and more!
So, what have I been making for Christmas this year? Well, over the last few months I’ve been making some more felt decorations for my “Handmade Decks Christmas Tree” which now has up to 3 years’ worth of handmade decorations on it – it’s really starting to look good – but the project which I’m most proud of this year has to be the Nutcracker Quilt.
I first fell in love with the story of the nutcracker when I was a little girl, watching the animated film featuring Barbie – it also introduced me to Tchaikovsky – and during my teen years, my Mum and Dad took me to see the ballet. It was beautiful. So, nearly two Christmases ago, my parents got me a kit from Mandy Shaw (a.k.a. Dandelion Designs) to create a 54 x 54 inch quilt depicting The Nutcracker Suite.
As this was quite a big project, I decided to do it a panel at a time; cutting out all the fabric pieces, creating each of the pictures and machine sewing / quilting them in place, then stitching any extra details by hand. In all, it took me roughly 3 days to complete each of the panels (that’s 3 days per panel, not 3 days to do all 12 panels), and a few weeks to do the quilting and binding, but 7 months later, it’s finished…and just in time for Christmas!
A few weeks ago on social media, I announced that I was going to be having a stall at Haydock Park Golf Club’s Christmas Fayre on the 29th of November. This was my first fair since I first launched Sew-Drops (just over 3 years ago), so I was both excited and nervous. I had a wonderful time at the golf club; I got to meet some lovely people (I even reunited with some friends I made when I took part in the ladies golfing lessons over the summer holidays), and the room was decked head to toe in sparkling lights and Christmas trees…it was really nice. I’m glad that it went well for me, and I’m hoping to do more local craft fairs going forward.
Important Christmas Postal Dates (PLEASE READ) –
(UPDATE 02/12/2022) Our final delivery / dispatch date for all Christmas UK orders was originally Monday 19th December 2022, however, due to Royal Mail’s recent announcement, our final dispatch date for all Christmas UK orders has now changed to Friday 16th December 2022.
Unfortunately, there will be more Royal Mail strikes taking place during this month on the following dates:
Friday 9th December, Sunday 11th December, Wednesday 14th December, Thursday 15th December, Friday 23rd December, and Saturday 24th December (Christmas Eve)
My best advice is to order as soon as possible, preferably before the above dates, to allow more time for your order(s) to be delivered to you, and as always, I will do my very best to get items out to you as soon as possible, and will keep you up to date on your orders’ progress / dispatch.
Any order(s) placed after the 16th December will be dispatched (if requested) from Monday 19th December, and anything after that will be dispatched from Tuesday 27th December 2022.
Finally, the Winter 2022 newsletter has now been emailed out to all newsletter subscribers, so be sure to check your inboxes. If you would like to sign up to our seasonal newsletter, please go to our ‘Homepage’ and scroll down until you see the ‘Newsletter’ section.
Well that’s all for my final blog of 2022, thank you all so much for reading. I will be back in January with my first blog of 2023, but until then, I’d just like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Best wishes,
Rebecca x
