Hello everyone,

It’s almost the weekend again. I was just having a little tidy up around the sewing room and I rediscovered my lovely Christmas crafting goodies so I simply had to share some photos of them with you. My family and friends know I love crafting gifts and they were so generous again this year.

In no particular order, first up is a pack of Bali Pops. This time they are in the Lorikeet colourway. I have no idea what I’ll be doing with them yet so they are sitting on my cutting table awaiting inspiration. You may remember that I made a large quilt top and a bag with the Brown Sugar Bali Pops my sister bought for my birthday last year and I still have some left. They really do go a long way! This pack is in lovely tropical colours.

 My dear friend Lin gave me these chocolates. What a fab sewing themed prezzie! The scissors are huge and white chocolate is my favourite 🙂 I’d actually given her a present including some craft embellishments in the form of buttons, cotton reels and scissors. So I couldn’t believe it when I opened my present from her.

Also a knitting themed note pad. I love this cartoon.

Lin has been raiding her stash again. She found these and decided she would never get around to using them. I definitely will! I’d never heard of waste fabric before (the one on the left) so I investigated and found out that it is for adding cross stitch designs to ordinary fabrics. You pin or tack it to the fabric, complete your cross stitch and then remove the waste fabric which is soluble. What a clever idea!

The following fabrics were sent to me by blogging friend Claire from France. Aren’t those owls cute? These are Japanese fabrics and they are so fine. I can’t wait to use them and I’m looking for inspiration. Any ideas? Also, what is the name of the flowers in the centre fabric? I’d love to know.

Claire also sent a fabulous handmade Christmas decoration for my tree which I’ve now put away with the other decorations so you’ll have to wait until next Christmas to see that, sorry!

Next, my daughter has been travelling again and she is always keen to add to my fabric stash from wherever she goes which I very much appreciate 🙂

She brought me these batiks in Bath, England. The one on the right has a sort of marbled design that you sometimes find on the inside covers of old books.

There’s also some Christmas themed fabrics, all with sparkly metallic highlights…

and a special surprise from Austria. Chickens!!!

I have no idea why she thought of me when she saw the chicken fabric 😉

The chicken fabric is from Stoff Salon in Vienna, Austria. I’ve included the business card in the photo and if you go to the shop web site you will see that the lady in the shop really does look like this. I’ll certainly visit there myself if I ever go to Vienna.

Some of you may recognise the two log cabin chickens in the photo. The red one flew all the way to the North East of England from Stowe, Vermont, USA and it was the original inspiration for the Chicken Run. The green one came from Australia. It was made and sent to me by Carla over at Granny Maud’s Girl. Carla was the very first winner of the Chicken Run 🙂 She has an amazing blog with the most gorgeous patchwork you could ever imagine.

The latest leg of the Chicken Run, over at the amazing blog Knettycraft was won by Laura in Oregon from May Rose Sewing. She has now held her own giveaway and will be sending this little beauty to Theresa, the winner in Chicago 🙂

If you want to see all of the chickens so far, you’ll find the gallery here.

So, that was my crafty Christmas eye candy. I also received a selection of sewing machine feet and a large pack of spools. You can never have enough spools in my opinion.

My next plan of action is to delve into the box of Indian fabrics. I have finally decided what to make with some of them 😉

Have a wonderful crafty weekend!

Avis x