Happy New Year

Another wonderful year with its share of happies and sads is coming to an end.

It has been a difficult end to the year but there has also been plenty that has been terrific.

Thanks for joining me on the journey.

And as children love to say on New Year's Eve - I'll see you next year, giggle, giggle.

I just love Big Red Angel's photostream.

I may have shared this with you before but if so, here it is again.

Retrospective - dolls from December 2010

Retrospective - dolls from November 2010

Retrospective - dolls from October 2010

Retrospective - dolls from September 2010

Retrospective - dolls from August 2010

Retrospective - dolls from June and July 2010

Retrospective - dolls from April and May 2010

Retrospective - dolls from February and March 2010

Retrospective - dolls from January 2010

So I am finding time to dip into the little bits and pieces that have been waiting for me.

A little knitting

A little reading - Selected Diaries of Virginia Woolf

A little snoozing

A little picture taking and garden admiring

An unhurried walk to buy milk

Early morning coffee taken sitting on the front step in the sunshine.

Some doll dreaming

Some vintage dreaming - what would my life have been like if I had been born 50 years earlier ???

Some time to let my mind wander and slowly come back again.

It's a special time isn't it, this time between the old and new year.

Dad is still settling into the Nursing Home.

Mum is still settling into Dad being in a Nursing Home

Me, old Mrs Meat-in-the-sandwich?

Today I am just childishly wishing the whole horrible situation would go away.

Now where is that cup of tea.

Ah, Boxing Day.

Relax, eat, visit Dad, relax, eat, watch cricket, no don't watch cricket.

Read, relax, eat , relax, read.

Ah, Boxing Day.

Some of the Christmas Dolls

 

 

My hands have been sewing and knitting and knitting and sewing in Santa's southern workshop.

They have been styling hair and taking photos and wrapping and posting.

I have been surrounded by family, there has been pelting rain and bright sunshine 

and I have worked and worked.

And now my hands are resting a little before the next round of wrapping but this time for my own family.

There are a few presents under the tree already.

Christmas is almost organised and I am so looking forward to having everyone here for lunch and then walking up to visit Dad for afternoon tea.

I'll share some pictures of the Christmas dolls later

though  not all had their photos taken before they were packed. 

There are some cuties amongst them.

This is Luisa's doll for her little girl Bonnie

Bonnie is full of the lightness and joy of spring.

Christmas Tree

Strange but beautiful thing to have in your lounge room, a Christmas tree.

Self portrait in a Christmas bauble

We have an artificial tree that we bought  18 years ago after using Mum's old silver tinsel tree and a number of different types of conifers in pots.

If we didn't have our artificial tree that the kids are rather attached to we would buy a tree from  Lee

When we moved to Tassie the live trees available were generally just a half dead straggly branch of  a mature pine tree, probably a radiata pine.

Now Tassie has its own Christmas tree farm.

For the moment though we will stick to our artificial tree, 

you can't mess around with Christmas traditions, 

your children , even grown up ones, don't like it.

Sarah's doll

This is Sarah's doll for her little girl for Christmas.

The light was dreadful here this afternoon so it was difficult to take good pictures though I think the colour in the first one is  true.

Started work this morning in my old cherry pyjamas.

I feel like I'm on holidays.

Now that Dad is settled ( fingers crossed) and Mum is happy and relaxed about her decision

I can move on a little.

Kate is on Holidays now, all three children are on holidays and Stephen starts on Friday.

I need to finish off these custom dolls 

which would have been finished ages ago if life had co operated.

Then I will really be on holidays too.

But it's not too bad is it, starting work in the early hours, in your PJs, browsing at lovely books while you knit tiny little things for dollies to wear.

Happy, happy.

We have a nursing home place for Dad that Mum is happy with.

He moves in tomorrow.

Not a minute too soon.

I can relax a little now.

Breathe.

I suddenly feel as though I have had a headache for weeks.

Woman and Home December 1946

I have shared some of these pictures with you before but this time I have taken a picture of each part of the magazine that is particularly Christmas-y.

I don't have a scanner so these are photos. If you click on the picture and then click again you should get a copy large enough to read easily.

Woman and Home is a British magazine and in 1946 the UK still had wartime rationing of many foods.

The entire knitting pattern for the lovely bed jacket is there but over two separate pictures.

Enjoy.