The home straight

Back in Christmas '14 I finally finished  a woodland wreath as a Christmas present, using a pattern from Ravelry by Frankie Brown. At the time I bought two of the polystyrene wreaths, because I knew I wanted to knit one for myself. And ever since, I've been buying odd balls of green and brown wools any time I saw them.

Well, come the end of October this year and we suddenly had an unexpected house guest for nearly a month. I knew she could knit, so I suggested some knitting as something to do that would be therapeutic and relaxing, found her a couple of patterns and some wool and pulled this out to start for myself.

I just have some flowers to add - I've finished some pink and yellow ones, and am in the process of deciding whether I want to add the bluebells or not. Just because they're in the pattern doesn't mean I have to! I'm also planning to knit a blackbird from the book Lorraine gave me and see how he looks on it. C thinks the scale would be wrong, I don't think it will matter and I'd like to see what he looks like.

So I'll be back in a few days with the finished project - when I've added the last details and found somewhere to hang it.

In the meantime, here are a few work-in-progress shots.

Basic wreath with a garland of leaves, ivy and oak

Add the holly and some colour starts to give more life to it

And the mistletoe looks good too

Here I've added the toadstools and little pinecones.

Now the fauna - hedgehogs and owls.

December favourites

Most of my December stamping was for Christmas, as I still needed a last few cards - but there was also one special birthday in there and I finally turned a very late "new house" card  (I originally stamped and coloured the main panel back in October) into a combined New Home and Christmas one - and received a WhatsApp video of the boys excitedly discovering the light-up element.

The old pier stamp did indeed work well for a foggy scene (though I messed up the masking and had to change it from being a one layer card) - looking forward to making a more summery scene with it soon. Thank you, Lorraine.