All holidays come to an end

My holiday ended in a  weekend working in the dairy. I cannot complain- I have worked two months ago. The holiday was very enjoyable. We moved into a new house (for us) in Melkbosstrand. Only a street is between us and the beach. We can see the sea and beach from our bed on the second floor. My husband push the sliding door wide open at night so it feel like a beach slumber party!

After we bought the house a lot of work still needed to be done and the painting was only completed on 23 December. My parents and two sisters and their families (20 people) shared Christmast day in our new house. A good plan- every one brought a few dishes so no one worked to hard.

Look at the beauty in the middle-she had some matching sandals and earrings.(My daughter on the left.)

My children help me to create the miracle of getting the rooms cleaned the furniture moved into the rooms and the last painting touches on an old cupboard and bed. I made fitted sheets till late on Christmast eve but at 9 o clock we ate some braaivleis and admired the fact that order was created and we were ready to recieved the family.

I have created a sewing room and a sewing area in the lounge in this house. I mainly concentrated on handwork to spent time in the company of my family. My delectable Mountain quilt was worked in rows and except for the last row the top is completed. I worked an another block for my tweets- sitting at a desk in the big lounge where I could look at the sea.

This year I will follow the advice of Zenhabits and not make new year resolutions or plans. Instead I will try to form new habits that will help me to get my house and sewing room organized and kept in order. I have also decided to really try and threw all old clothes, linens and shoes out. I will try to remove clutter and keep it at bay on a daily basis.

I do have a few thinks for my quilting life planned though. I am taking part in  TAST 2012 of Sharon B and if I do not do the fly stitch tonight- I am a week behind! In February I will do an online class on studio journals also with Sharon. I have the wonderful Art journal book of Cathy Johnson and will also try and create an Artist Journal this year.

I plan to study and "do" my textile Art, collage and Mixed media books one by one. I started with Jane Davilla and Elin Waterton's Art Quilt Workbook.

I will blog about my progress on this undertakings. I will also participate in the Free motion Quilt Challenge hosted by Sew Calgal just for fun and the sew a long. I am sure that I will do a lot of free motion quilting on my "Art quilts" this year. To develop free hand embroidery abilities one first need to know and learn the formal stitches. This I will learn in TAST 2012 and apply in the Crazy Quilt challenge.

Please follow my undertakings and remind me if you see that I slack down! If you thought you arrived at the wrong blog- I am sorry. I thought a new year should have a change for the better. While reading blogs I found it is easiest for my eyes to read a blog written on a white background. I search and found this template in Blogger- hope it help you to read more easily.