I hope your Christmas is going well, we had a lovely day yesterday when my mum joined us for lunch and today has been a quiet sewing day, so a pretty perfect break really!

I’d been eyeing up my basket of Secret Santa presents all weekend, we stagger present-opening through the day, so I knew I wouldn’t be opening it until after lunch! It’s a tradition I’ve carried on from my own childhood. Our children had stockings on their beds with little presents in, they always had a satsuma and a £1 in the bottom! They then had to get dressed before coming down to the lounge to open their presents from us together. Presents from everyone else waited until after lunch, when I was little we had to wait until after the Queen’s speech! I think staggering the presents helps to spread the excitement through the day, it also means that children don’t think everything comes from Santa, only the stocking came from Santa!

After lunch we all sat down for presents and I could finally open all those little presents from my Secret Stitching Santa! Firstly can I say a huge thankyou to Sewchet for organising Stitching Santa each year, it’s great fun and I appreciate all your hard work planning it.

I opened the card first, my Stitching Santa was Shirley from Squirrels Knitting Conquests, she had put together a wonderful array of gifts, she has obviously been having a good look around my blog as she has chosen perfect gifts for me…

…two lovely co-ordinating fat quarters, wonderful sewing themed fabrics,  I think they will be perfect for a sewing accessory, I’ve got a couple of projects in mind….

…a metal sewing gauge, I’ve wanted one of these for ages, they’re great for spacing buttons.

…a needle minder, I’ve only just discovered how useful these are and if, like me,  you have several projects on the go, you definitely need more than one. This one is like a mini chocolate doughnut covered with sprinkles!

A Christmas cross-stitch kit and hoop, I’ve really got into cross-stitch smalls over the last couple of months, so I’ll enjoy stitching this one ready for next Christmas.

A notebook, which will come in very useful next year when I try and get myself a bit more organised!

A box of Scottish shortbread. I have to confess this is already opened and sampled! A finger of shortbread goes so well with a morning cup of coffee! Shirley is from Scotland and shortbread is a Scottish treat.

Then came the extra special presents, the hand made ones…

…an appliqued and embroidered Christmas mug rug, this will be great for my sewing room, plenty of room for my cup of tea and a finger of shortbread.

…a zipper pouch. I love the design of this, it’s like a big mint humbug shape, so it will fit a surprising amount in.

But the best present of all is a bag, a tote bag. Shirley has stitched a tree on the front with dozens of individual leaves, all from different pretty fabrics, there’s a bird button sitting on a branch and she has embroidered Stitching Santa 2017 in amongst the branches too. I just love it,I really appreciate the time it must have taken to make it, all those leaves… It makes a lovely memento to Stitching Santa. I think I will use it to take my sewing things to Embroiderers Guild each month.

Thank you so much to Shirley for my wonderful presents,  I’ve not only received a lovely present, I’ve found a new blog to follow, your blog may be just what I need to inspire me to get back into crochet 🙂