We had a good Christmas – celebrated with my family for lunch and Mal’s for tea -both at Sewjourn.  The studio was ideal for fitting everyone in – quite a few trips back to the cottage for ‘forgotten’ items but that was OK.  My brother-in-law did try to set the place on fire while cooking the potatoes and pumpkin in the Weber but everything escaped unharmed and the spuds had a nice ‘smoked’ flavour!

Since the big day we have just been taking it easy……..have done lots of weeding and parts of the garden are looking lovely – still lots of plans and ideas (and work needed) for the rest though!

Mal’s cleaned out the workshop/storage area…….

And been for a couple of bike rides.

I’ve spent quite a few hours here reading this………….

(great book by the way – highly recommended!)

And the girls have been to the Lancefield Pool every day – sometimes there is hardly anyone else there so it’s almost like having your own pool. (Almost!)

But without a doubt LOTS of hours have been spent playing this………….

Most of all though it’s just nice to be here all together and enjoy this beautiful place without pressure of having to renovate, paint and be in a hurry to get things done!  (There will always be more things to do though…………………)

Cute Japanese fabric from Quilters Barn from our last road trip.

Wishing everyone a lots of joy and blessings at Christmas time.  Thankyou so much for all your support this year whilst we’ve been on the journey of creating Sewjourn.  We look forward to lots of exciting times in the New Year…………meanwhile enjoy the break with your families and friends.

Two of the girls’ best friends are moving to Sydney……..lots of tears over the last couple of days but promises of Skype and begging for MSN (not keen on that one!)  They both helped make cushions for them to take.  Trying to remember it’s not ‘Goodbye’ but just ‘See you later’.

On the flip side though good friends have just arrived back from NZ and will once again be ‘just around the corner’ – yeah!!

Christmas preparations continue at our house………….

Italian Panforte – a bit tricky but worth it!  It’s become a bit of a tradition to give to friends and neighbours.  It’s from Australian Good Taste 2003 – leave me a comment if you want the recipe and I’ll send it on.

And some last minute wrapping paper.  Still lots to do before we head off to Lancefield tomorrow but looking forward to it.  (Daughter No. 3 just a bit concerned that Santa will know to find us there!)

………..on a Monday morning like this lady – better late than never.  We had our neighbours around for Christmas drinks last night so I was too tired to do Sunday stash by the time they left!

These are my stash of Christmas fabrics gathered over the years – and still waiting to be made up into something festive – there’s always next year!

Our end of year celebration this year was brunch.  We had more people come to that than any UFO night during the year (LOL!)  But it was fun.

Dale set us a challenge for this year, the rules being:

1. Everyone was given a fat quarter.

2. You need to incorporate this into a completed project by this time next year.

3. You cannot add this into an existing project.

4. You can choose to show this project as you go along or keep it a secret until the ‘unveiling’.

5. The project can be big or small, anything you want, but needs to be completed by our Christmas breakup next year.

This is my fabric…………

Lots of ideas, now just need to put one of them into practice!

It’s become a tradition now – for the last 8 years a lovely friend and I have made our Christmas Puddings together.  Usually we do it sometime in November but this year today is the day!  We make them using an easy, basic recipe from the Weekly Times 1964.  And it’s a tradition that has stood the test of many things – babies, living overseas and chemo but so far we haven’t missed a year! So here’s to many more puddings.

The recipe is below – we think it’s really yummy (even if half of my family won’t eat it!)

CHRISTMAS PUDDING (Weekly Times 1964)

• 250g butter
• 250g light brown sugar
• 5 eggs
• 185g plain flour
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda
• 1 teaspoon mixed spice
• 375g raisins
• 250g sultanas
• 185g currants
• 60g dates (chopped)
• 60g almonds
• 185g soft bread crumbs
• 3 tablespoons brandy

Cream butter and sugar with a wooden spoon (note: we use an electric hand mixer but I’m guessing they didn’t have those in 1964)  Add eggs one at a time.  Add 1/2 sifted flour/spice/bicarb soda, then 1/2 fruit mix, then 1/2 flour/soda/spice and then 1/2 fruit mix.  Add brandy and bread crumbs.  Boil cloth for 20 minutes.  Use tongs to squeeze out excess water.  Thinly flour cloth before adding pudding mix. Tie up leaving loop to hang later and enough room to expand.  Add slowly to boiling water.  Top up with water as needed (careful not to add directly onto pudding).  Steadily boil for 5 hours.  Hang to cool and then place in fridge. (We attach ours to a wooden spoon that sits across the saucepan so that pudding hangs in water and dosen’t touch the bottom of pan).

Boil for 1 hour to serve hot.  Serve with brandy butter, cream and custard.

Hard to believe that it’s Sunday again already!  There’s not many posts happening in between Sunday Stash ones at the moment – but there’s lots happening in ‘real’ life!  Four nights of gymnastic displays, Grandparents Day at school along with school swimming each day means some tired girls as well!  We did go around looking at Christmas Lights on Friday night until 10.30pm which did not help at all!  It was fun though.  One amazing place worth a look is 13 Narracan Street, Vermont South, if you are in the area.  And Saturday morning I had a very yummy High Tea with a gorgeous group of mums at this place – definately recommended!  Unfortunately I forgot my camera but if I get hold of any of the photos taken I will post them just to show how lovely it is!

Now to the stash………..

A cute Kokka fabric with matryoshka dolls – from one of the road trips.

PS.  Did I mention that I was given an Amitie voucher as ‘thanks’ for coaching Ella’s netball team???  So sometime soon I will be able to add more to the stash………..