I know you're out there

I can hear you hyperventilating.

So deep breath everyone, because today we're rolling into The Big Room.

In anyone else's house, it would be the lounge/ dining room, but ... y'know ... my house ... my rules.
So the dining room bit actually has the couches [ sofas ], buffet and display unit, while the space normally designated lounge room [ living room ] is my studio / sewing room / call it what you will.

Going on past years, it'll take us about three days to get through this ... and then on to the kitchen, and finally the rumpus room.

So ... in here the bookcases [ normally ] house quilt books and needlework tools, both the ones I actually use and the vintage stuff. One shelf has been cleared [ and don't y'all faint but I actually DUSTED ] and temporarily reassigned to the Nativity sets.

This Italian set is not very old - maybe 10 years - and has no particular story attached

- unless you count the time I discovered that David had added two plastic toy goats to the more traditional sheep, ox and ass. This year the additions are a knitted sheep [ or goat, I'm not sure ] and an alpaca who is hiding just out of the photo.

The stable for this group is one that Marc made from his mum's old fence when it was replaced.

He made three stables, so I bought three sets of the figurines. We gave one lot to his mum [ who didn't much appreciate the gesture at the time but now treasures it ] and Nadie and I have the others. I know that the figures are inexpensive, but I like their simplicity, and of course, anything my late husband spent the time creating is doubly special.

This next little paper one was bought by my parents on their first married Christmas. It has 1950 written in pencil on the back in my mother's distictive handwriting, as well as the price: 1/3 [ 12c ]


I guess if my folks had been more affluent that it might have been replaced decades before I snaffled it, but instead it's still here, and still loved. Still appreciated both for it's lovely soft graphics and for the link to other times.

This last group was a 'Post-Christmas Sales' gift to myself a couple of years ago.



Do I really need to explain?
It's blue
and 'quilted'
'nuff said really!

Catsmum Christmas House Tour Day 5

Call me paranoid if you must


but I have a sneaking suspicion that a certain feline has been CATscanning the quilt-which-still-has-no-name in Nadie's room [ which I suppose I had better start thinking of as Nadie and Chris' room ]
The QWSHNN - which will probably grace my own bed next Christmas - was finished earlier this year and contains decades of leftovers from seasonal projects, charm square swaps and also donated strips leftover from other people's Christmas sewing.

Like I didn't already have enough Christmas fabric to last me until well after I become a resident in the Old Quilters' Home.

Anyway
this room is usually decked out in my DD's preferred palette of blue, purple and turquoise but for 6 or 7 weeks each year it goes red.


and here we get to another 'decorating-for-Christmas' strategy:
THINGS ... DON'T ... NECESSARILY ... HAVE ... TO ... HAVE ... REINDEER ... OR ... A ... FAT ... MAN ... IN ... A ... SUIT... ON ... THEM ... TO ... BE ... USEFUL ... AT ... THIS ... TIME ... OF ... YEAR.

If it's the right colours [ whatever your 'right' colours happen to be ] USE IT !!!

anyway
moving on
I decided on no tree in there this year
but plenty of Christmas teddies, including a 2010 version that I bought to mark Nadie and The Boy's first Christmas as a married couple.


Maybe I should qualify that last bit, and amend it to no real tree, because there plainly is a fabric one one on the Log Cabin quilt behind the teds.

I've recycled an old 'stained glass' ex-class sample into a mini-quilt which is doing double duty as a bedside table mat [ accompanied by a fabric origami Happy Coat and one of the Christmas canine themed coasters I bought when I couldn't find reasonably priced cat ones ]


and, by the way, I think we may have confirmed my suspicions regarding the source of all that fur:


Now I want you all to get a good night's sleep, because from tomorrow, you'll be needing all your strength and stamina.
Up 'til now I've been going easy on you
From tomorrow we get serious about this Christmas House Tour
Tomorrow we move into the Big Room.

Day 4 and more of the hall

I went on a bit of a Christmas stitchery bender a few years ago and the garland down the hallway bears the fruits of those labours [ and a mini quilt or two ]




I always intended to stitch another Nick, and one of these years - when I run out of things on the to-do list - it may even happen

Spent today gardening, reading, and hemming a pre-printed snowman panel for a friend who claims not to be able to sew.

Day 3 and the Tour ambles on

... down the hallway, past the 20 year old Wild Goose Chase quilt

and the [ sadly undecorated ] laundry, into the main bearroom

... ahem ... that should be bathroom.


resin bears by the bucketload


embroidered handtowels from the fair hand / machine of OzJane

a fake greenery garland sporting a few crochet stars and snowflakes


I also change the usual blue towels for hunter green and/or red in both the bathrooms but, given that the towel rails are behind the door, not too many people see them. so why do I do it ?
Ya gotta have fresh towels, right ? so why not green ?

I will admit that, for all of about five seconds, I did contemplate filling the bath with a bunch of Christmas bears [ genus stuffus toyus ] but decided that would just be making more work for myself when the real Bear needed a B-A-T-H.

Christmas decorating hint #1 - if it sits there for more than 30 seconds, tie a festive bow on it!
This applies equally to light fittings, furniture, domestic pets and any male visitor over 180cm or 6 feet.

I think we have a problem

there seems to be some question as to ownership

Christmas House Tour Day 2

In keeping with yesterday's stated aim of easing you into the Catsmum Christmas experience, today's offering is David's bedroom.

This is the only room in the house that gets the tinsel treatment.


not that I have anything against tinsel personally, it's more that - as you'll soon see - round here, it would be overkill.


[ that thud you just heard was Sheepie fainting dead away from shock over there in Maine ]

If you thought that my festive zeal knew no limits, you may consider yourselves told otherwise

... and while we're on the subject of personal seasonal decorating limits, as I believe we just were:
I don't do much in the way of lights outside either.

A couple of reasons really:
I'm in the middle of the bush - who'd see 'em ?
and
balancing precariously atop a rickety ladder is not one of my favourite things to do

and then there's the size of the January power bill ...

[ and am I the only one who senses the inherent irony of power companies who exhort us to use energy wisely all year, and then sponsor competitions to find Australia's 'best' - which is to say most extreme - Christmas lights ? ]

so it's basically just nets of solar powered white fairy lights flung over some of the shrubs down the driveway.

Anyway this was David's choice from among the proffered Christmas quilts


The Christmas Geese [ which D insists are ducks ] were hand pieced in the late 80s, from a photo shown to me by an American visitor. She kindly sent me a copy of the Debbie Mumm pattern on her return home, but by then I'd already drafted it up, and finished the quilt.
My draft has much fewer pieces because it was for hand work, where the original took advantage of a lot of the then-current speed piecing methods ]
The one on his bed isn't really Christmassy in any way other than the inclusion of red
which reminds me ... I really need to dig out the red and the green pillowcases to match his red sheets.


Once again Bear felt that the photo taking process would be enhanced by his presence.

... and so it begins

"T'is the first day of Summer here in Oz, but you'd never know it by most of the country.

The unseasonal weather continues.

Significant percentages of the dirt road that I need to traverse to get from MY dirt road to the Highway. were last seen floating down the creek formerly known as the Castlemaine Golf Course,
In addition, my shed was [ mildly ] inundated, and the 9 hay bales parked - I thought - sufficiently high and dry in the carport ... weren't.
But enough of that.

It's time for you all to grab a glass of something festive, perhaps some shortbread, maybe a mince pie or a bite of gingerbread, because it's time to set off on Day 1 of the Official Catsmum 2010 Christmas House Tour.
If you're new to 'The Tour' you may need to pace yourself ...

We'll start you off slowly - think of it as getting acclimatised at Base Camp before the ascent on Everest - at the far end of the house from where I intend to end up in a couple of weeks

This is my semi-Victorian / Edwardian bedroom.


His Royal Beariness declined to move so just consider him a furry decoration, okay ?

So
seasonally appropriate bedlinen [ but as the room is green and cream that wasn't too much of a stretch ]

'crystal' garlands on my great grannie's cedar tallboy,




and the 1920s tea-trolley that the tellie sits on ...

which, as you can plainly see, also houses
a collection of mainly cream Saint Nicks and angels:


the tall skinny Saint Nicks were presents from Maz and Chris, the little white wooden one behind the WillowTree angel is one that Nadie bought for me back in July [ along with red and green versions which you'll see another day ]
and I made most of the others.
The tree in here is a small one and , because it's my tree, and I can put whatever I like on it [ well, obviously, I get to do that to all the trees, but you probably get my drift ]

it has:
vintage and not-so-vintage scissors, vintage sewing tools and knitting gauges, a thimble case, as well as an assortment of stars, baubles and angels [ and one very elegant cat which is actually a brooch ]

and tomorrow we'll move on to ... whatever room I decide to photograph next.

I's helpings Mum decorates

With - or despite -the input of various four-legged 'assistants' [ and I am using the word in its loosest form ], the festive decorating has been completed in time for the arrival of various crafty friends and relations later this morning.

Even in the face of inundation of near Biblical proportions,

they are braving the water, and the potholes, and I expect these hardy souls to arrive armed variously with their quilting, crochet, knitting, spinning and embroidery ... oh and food ... lots of food.

David was busy after tea last night, creating his own culinary contribution : mini plum puddings


and in a tenuous water-related segue:
This rare sight is the overflow pipe from my dam doing what it is designed for

... overflowing.

With summer only 3 days away, and after the wettest Spring in a dam[n] long time

the dam is full

and thousands of litres of precious water are disappearing down the road
but
and I can't emphasize this enough
[just in case you missed it ]
the dam is full
for the first time -or so I am reliably informed by the previous owner - since 1996

did I mention that the dam is full ?

it's been a long week

I want to thank you all for the kind words and your understanding of how difficult last week was.

I'm slowly getting used to life with one less furrbaby around, and Bear seems to have stopped fretting.
Isn't it odd that the one dawg in the house seems to have noticed Oakley's absence far more than either Sophie or MissC ?
Well, no [ answering my own largely rhetorical question here ] because that is the nature of cats and dogs.

and before I move on ... did you spot the common thread in most of the photos of my ginger boy ?
Sophie's chosen path as the resident feline yarn tensioning device has been well documented. What was perhaps less well known was Oakley's long career as quilt cat.

I'm sure that you'll agree

... someone-who-shall-remain-nameless has finally gone too far

edited to add another photo so that you can see more clearly exactly what she's inflicted on me

Oakley 1995 - 2010

I'm sorry that most of you never got to meet Oakley.
He was the sweetest natured cat that ever walked this earth
and I have watched him fade away little by little over the past year.
There haven't been a lot of photos of him lately. he was just too frail but these are two from this year:

Nadie would say her final goodbyes each time she left to go back down to Melbourne but I think we both knew last weekend that this time it really was for the very last time.
Each time I watched her do it, it just about broke my heart
When I've woken up in the morning recently, or come in the door getting back from town, I've half expected him to have 'gone'
and bad as that would've been, and as awful as it has been in the past, sitting up through the night with an animal that I knew I was losing, it was somehow worse to have to make the call to the vet. I did that earlier in the week, knowing that I needed time to say good-bye and to make peace with my emotions ... and that I needed to let my girl know too.
Part of me hoped that Oakley would somehow take that decision out of my hands in these last few days
but he didn't
so today he made his trip over the rainbow bridge.