What a wonderful man!

Look what Joel got me for Christmas! This wonderful shelf. The area under my sewing table was rather cramped with boxes that stored the fabric stash. It wasn't the most efficient use of space plus I couldn't see the fabric I had without digging into the boxes. So I'd measured out how much space I had and how much shelf that would let me have. Bless him, Joel spoke to a wonderful cabinet maker in the congregation and Joel even helped make this. It's absolutely perfect. It's beautifully made, smooth, light, even has wheels. It's given me more room for fabric, has tidied up the space underneath my table and given me more leg room. Joel's pictured with the robe I made him for Christmas and here are photos of it underneath the table and my sewing corner in the family room.

Winter boots give new lease on life

For a nearly blind, deaf, arthritic dog, winter 'boots' have given a whole new lease on life. Elsa's nearly 15 and with temperatures -25 celcius and lower, I pulled these booties out of the cupboard. While last year she seemed annoyed with them, this year she loves them. They were passed on to us by a neighbour whose dog didn't like them. I tried them out last year and Elsa tolerated them when she realized her feet were protected from freezing. But now she's discovered they give her extra grip to run around the linoleum in the house -- no slipping and slidding which must bother her arthritic limbs. So she comes in the house and starts running -- quicker than we've seen her go in a long time. The first night she was so excited at the momentum she had, she ran into the kitchen island and gave herself a black eye. Did she ever yelp! But now she's back to running, avoiding kitchen cupboards and even smiling again!

Snow and a lot of preparations

The problem with sewing Christmas gifts is that you can't show on the blog what's unfolding. So, instead, here's a photo of our weather as of this am. Had to cancel a service last night. We've nearly a foot of the white stuff.
I can say that I'm working on something purple and that soon I'll be working on this flannel material for the nephew's PJ pants. I can show you this because I'm sure his Mom won't tell him! He's 3 so I hope I can still get away with cute fabric. Wazoodle calls this Vintage Cowboy/girl. Joel says he remembers having an item from his Grandma out of similar material.





This Friday, it's my turn to do craft at playschool. My hidden motivation in this craft is starting kids young in the fun of fabric. I'm cutting out some Christmas characters from flannel fabric for the kids to make Christmas cards. In the midst of lots of seasonal work in my job, I'm finding it rather soothing to cut out the pieces. Last spring, I found paper doll and bear pattern online, cut out clothes from colourful fabric scraps and the kids could choose which clothes they wanted for their doll or bear and paste them on. Turned out the Moms enjoyed the craft the most!