Hello there! I hope you have had a good month and that Christmas went ok for you. I have decided to go into 2025 with good intentions and try to be up to date with things so here’s my Postcard from December on the last day of December!
It’s been a funny old month weather wise with us not so much cold and frosty weather as you might expect but plenty of grey, dull, wet and in some cases very foggy days.
In spite of the weather it’s been looking really rather pretty in our neighborhood with lots of lovely Christmas lights adorning people’s homes and gardens.
A lovely yew tree dressed for the season
The FareShare Festive Feast Wreath
I was able to pay £55 to FareShare Greater Manchester just before Christmas, thanks to the sale of patterns of the FareShare Festive Feast Wreath.
Thank you so much to everyone who has bought one! It was a thrill to see photos of wreaths which have been made so far out in the wild!
The annual Christmas Special from Making Stitches Podcast made an appearance just before Christmas. It was lovely to be able to look back at my podcast year and share a few of the highlights.
We had a nice quiet Christmas and Boxing Day, followed by a lovely walk with family in Lancashire. We visited a route by the River Yarrow near Chorley. It was rather muddy under foot but we were dressed appropriately and really enjoyed our woodland wander.
It felt good to be moving again after a couple of rather sedentary days!
Even when there are no leaves left on the trees it was still a treat to get some ‘Vitamin Tree’.
The walk saw us zig-zag back and forth across the series of small foot bridges as we followed the river.
This bright orange fungus & green moss were real pops of colour on an otherwise grey day.
I believe this spot is a perfect place to enjoy bluebells in springtime. I’d love to come back and see them myself one day…
My word, that work did us all the world of good after a little bit too much chocolate & other naughty food!
And that just about wraps up this final Postcard from 2024. Thank you for stopping by and having a read and to anyone who’s a regular visitor to Making Stitches, thank you for your continued support.
Next year is a big one for me in terms of my blogging, I look forward to speaking more about that next year as this little site celebrates it’s 10th birthday – isn’t that crazy?!
As part of my celebration I’ve decided to release a new crochet pattern each month – a very relaxed crochet-along if you will. Watch this space – more will follow very soon!!
Until then, thank you again for sticking with me to the end of another year, I hope you enjoy your evening tonight however you plan to see in the New Year!
Hello there! This should really be a Christmas post, but life’s been very busy so it’s a Postcard from October & November instead!
Better late than never eh?
I really don’t know where the weeks have gone but the juggle with work and family meant blog writing got put on the back burner for a while.
Here’s a quick whistle-stop round up of October & November in my world.
October 2024
Half term trip to London
Back in October I took my 2 youngest sons to London to visit big brother at University. As well as visiting him in his Uni accommodation to let Number 2 Son see what lies ahead for him in the not-too-distant future, we did a bit of sightseeing.
We’d prebooked to visit the Natural History Museum as myself and Youngest had never been before. Prebooking was wise because it was so incredibly busy and we skipped the entrance queue. However, once inside it was so busy it was quite unpleasant.
I have never felt panicky in a crowd before (I’ve been to a Wembley cup final & big gigs) but this was intense.
We went to see this big animatronic T-Rex then made the decision that perhaps we should leave as it wasn’t a fun experience.
We took a long route through the museum to appreciate a bit of the architecture, then, once outside we bought an ice cream and found a nice bench to sit on to take a moment.
That bench happened to be next to the Albert Memorial overlooking the Royal Albert Hall.
We sat there for ages as Eldest read us information about the history of the Albert Memorial curtesy of Google. It was an unexpectedly fun hour or so learning about the meanings of all the little statues around the memorial. We just sat there for ages chatting – much nicer than being jostled in a hot, crowded museum!
Then we decided to walk through Kensington Gardens and spied Kensington Palace in the distance as the sun started to set.
We had a lovely meal together before Eldest directed us back to Euston for the trip back up north to Manchester.
One finished jumper!
Well it’s been on the go since about October last year, and stupidly I thought it would be finished for Christmas 2023. It is finished for this Christmas though! I really enjoyed making this Tin Can Knits pattern – for those who don’t know them, you buy a ‘real’ pattern which you can print but you also access it on the Tin Can Knits app and can mark your progress on the pattern and make notes on your app – it’s brilliant! I would highly recommend it!
[The yarn I used was Knit Me Crochet Me by Stylecraft.]
The FareShare Festive Feast Wreath
In case you missed my last post back in October, this is my FareShare Festive Feast Wreath! I started working for FareShare Greater Manchester earlier this year and decided I wanted to create a crochet pattern to help raise funds for the charity. I even made a Making Stitches Podcast episode about it. The pattern’s still available for sale in my Etsy shop if you fancy making your own!
Podcast News
As well as podcasting about the wreath pattern, I revisited a guest who I met at Yarndale this year – Becky Davies-Downes. Becky worked for decades in TV & Film costume departments and now created beautiful things inspired by British wartime fashion. You can find out more about our chat here.
November 2024
And so to November… and that month saw me taking another train journey down to London for a meeting. Thankfully I also got some precious time with Eldest again as it fell on a day he had just one lecture!
It was a bitterly cold day as I left Manchester and saw some lovely snowy and frosty scenes on the way down south. This photo was taken close to the Wedgewood factory in Staffordshire. I took so many but most were blurred as we were speeding past.
I had my crochet for company – the Mischievous Magpie Mal from Heather at Keep Calm & Crochet On & yarn from Kitey at The Yarn Whisperer. One day I will finish this…
After the meeting, Eldest took me to Loop in London – I once visited many years ago while we made a family trip to London from Gibraltar. I remember it was at the end of a long day with lots of walking. Tired, argumentative boys waited outside with their Dad while I walked in and was slightly overwhelmed. I left after a hurried look around aware of the increasingly fractious situation outside and bought, wait for it, a pair of scissors!
This time, Eldest told me he was happy waiting outside and to take as long as I wanted (what a lovely boy!).
Similarly, I was a little overwhelmed by the colours & yarns on offer but this time I left with this lovely hand dyed skein. I wonder what I’ll use it for?
After our trip to Loop and a fabulous pizza for lunch, we went for a short walk along the canal from close to Angel in Islington. It was such a beautiful, bright, sunny day and it was lovely to escape the traffic noise and hubbub of the city.
It really was a lovely day, and a luxury to spend some time with Eldest on my own.
November yarny things..
I decided that I wanted to make myself a quick tank top. After the elation of finishing my jumper in October, I thought I’d see how quickly I could whip up a granny treble cluster tank top. I made one for Christmas a couple of years ago making it up as I went along and did the same with this. I used some ‘Nigel’ yarn I had bought at Yarndale in September. (I did have to order some more mid project as one ball wasn’t enough).
I’m really pleased with how it turned out and how quick it was to make – it goes really nicely over a denim shirt.
Also in November I challenged myself to a bit of knitted colourwork. I ordered the kit for the Season’s Greetings Festive Stocking kit from Black Sheep Wools designed by Debbie Abrahams.
It includes beading with the colourwork and is such a clear pattern to follow. I have amazed myself that I’ve managed to do it so far. I shall share a finished photo when I get that far!
And that just about brings this very belated Postcard from October and November to a close.
As it’s Christmas Eve, I would like to wish you a happy and peaceful Christmas.
If this is a difficult time of year for you, I hope you find some peace and time to do something that makes you happy.
It’s 25th October, so that means it’s 2 months to go to Christmas! Apologies for using the C-word so soon but there is a very good reason for it….
Earlier this year, I started a new job. It was working for FareShare Greater Manchester an organisation which rescues tonnes of good-to-eat food from going to waste and then redistributes it to over 200 charities and community groups across Greater Manchester who are feeding those who need it most. It’s a truly amazing place filled with amazing people. You may have heard about it back in the pandemic when Manchester United footballer, Marcus Rashford came along to help the operation here with his Mum.
Last year, FareShare Greater Manchester rescued almost 2,000 tonnes of perfectly edible food from going to waste with the help of more than 21,000 volunteer hours given by our amazing team of volunteer supporters. That food went to more than 300 charities and community groups across Greater Manchester, into parts of Derbyshire and Cheshire too and was the equivalent of 4.6 million meals which would have gone to landfill or some other form of waste management.
At a time when an increasing number of people are facing the difficult choice of whether to spend money on heating their homes or feeding themselves and their families, this work is needed more than ever.
I was so inspired by the things I see and hear about at work each day, that I wanted to do something special myself to help support that vital work, so I picked up my hook and yarn. I decided I had to make something food related and started thinking about Christmas food in particular. First I crocheted a sprout and perfected a design for it, then some pigs in blankets and before I knew it I had a whole crocheted Christmas dinner.
I then thought about what would be the classic Christmas decoration, and settled on a wreath. A wreath cover was made, the Christmas dinner was added and hey presto, the FareShare Festive Feast Wreath was born.
The next dilemma was how would I be able to make money for FareShare Greater Manchester with this wreath? It would take too long for me to make wreaths to sell, but I could sell the pattern and send the money raised from that to support the FareShare operation. So that is what I have done.
Supported very kindly by Jane Czaja, who has tech edited the pattern, and with the full support of FareShare Greater Manchester, I have launched the new pattern on sale in my Etsy shop today.
I would be so very grateful if you would help me spread the word about the FareShare Festive Feast Wreath on your social media channels and tell all your crocheting friends about it. I would, of course absolutely love it too if you would buy a copy of the pattern and make a wreath(s) yourself!
Thank you so much for your time and for your support in this, I look forward to seeing how much we can raise for FareShare Greater Manchester together!
