Christmas Bush

When my mother was alive, (she died when I was 16), money was tight and at Christmas time we would go out into the bush and pick gum tips.These were pink and light green in colour and filled the house with the scent of eucalyptus.  The other bush flowers that we would pick was Christmas Bush.  Christmas bush is not easy to find in Queensland.  I tried to grow it, with out success, but today I found 2 bunches in the supermarket.

 

Buying the Christmas bush reminded me of the carol by W. James and J. Wheeler.  We all learnt these carols at school and I sang them in choirs and at church.  I can not find a modern recording of them anywhere.  What a shame. 

 

CHRISTMAS BUSH FOR HIS ADORNING

All the bells are gaily ringing,
Birds in every tree are singing;
Let us in the golden weather,
Gather Christmas Bush together.
Christ is born! The angels thunder,
Thru’ the Heavens their tale of wonder,
While we pluck for His adorning
Christmas Bush this hallowed morning.

Christ has conquered Evil’s power
Hear the bells rock every tower
Birds and beasts lift up their voices,
Freed at last the world rejoices.
Onward with triumphant chorus,
Following the road before us,
Singing thru’ the golden weather,
Gath’ring Christmas Bush together.

 

Unpacking the rest of the treasures

Now for the rest of the house.  Firstly the advent calender.  I made this in 1979.  I had first seen Scandinavian embroidery when my husband worked for a Swiss Company.  We lived in an isolated community in Arnhem Land Called Nhulunbuy.

Set on the edge of the Arafura Sea and in the traditional homeland of the Yolngu people, my time here was among the happiest in my life.  The company employed many Swiss and Australians.  It was here that I was introduced to European needlework.

The calender was a cross stitch kit from Eva Rosenstandt and when the children were young it was weighed down with small gifts counting down each day until Christmas.

When we traveled to Europe I saw how homes were decorated for Christmas and so began my collection.  These were among the first.



These my latest.



And this is a runner started by my friend Angela which I finished.  It's place is the hall table.



What has disappeared is the Nativity Scene.  A full search is underway.

Time to deck the halls

I'm still running behind but it is time to decorate for Christmas.  My decorations are a collections of ornaments and objects that I have made and collected since my teens.  They have traveled all around the country, been transported by sea, air, rail and road from one home to another.  Some have been sadly laid to rest, others repaired, some have fallen to little fingers or been attacked by puppies or cats.

Our tree is over 20 years old now.  We switched from a live tree because the boy scouts stopped delivering them and they only came the week before Christmas.  This year we had our first broken branch.  And, you will notice the bottom branches have been left bare,  Miss Charlie was taking too much interest.

 

 

 

My children come home, as if by some kind of

homing  device when it is time for the tree to go

up. As each decoration is unpacked along with each 

one comes the memories and stories of times past. 

There are only a few of these little wool Santas

that I bought in Denmark over 30 years ago.    

When I was single I had a good income and bought expensive decorations like these apples.  Their core is made of styrofoam which was a new invention back in the 1970,s. 

                        


 

Then there was the year when we were broke and I crocheted stars that I dipped in starch to make them ridged.  Only 2 remains.

I marvel at the set of straw decorations that came from China 15 years ago.  Some one actually sat and made these by hand.
 


There are decorations made by students who gave them to me as Xmas gifts and as I hang them I think about each of those kids and say a little prayer for them and their families at this time of year.  So the tree is done.  Tomorrow it will be the rest of the house.

A graduation in the family

So, all my children have now graduated from University.  Yesterday my daughter Laura joined her brothers, Guy (left) and Will (right) as graduates.  This is a significant day in my life as a mother as well.  Although they had all become independent adults during their teens this marks the end of my responsibilities to rear and educate my children.  It also marks the end of our financial responsibilities.  No more up front HEC's payments.  You beaut!!!

Those chooks

Well, I have started the chooks, but, when I had a good look at some of those designs I was shocked.  Chooks smoking and drinking!!

Not exactly the kind of thing you would expect to see on a tea towel today!
Just what were people thinking of back then? Such a bad example for the kids!
These two designs are a bit tame in comparison.

My little friend has stayed close all day, because she loves me.  It has nothing to do with the air- conditioning.

A set of tea towels

I bought a set of tea towels from Ikea, white with a red stripe.  I thought that I would do some red work embroidery on them and give them as gifts at Xmas.

I have tons of drawings for embroideries, but somehow you never have quite the right thing for what you want to do.  So onto the net to find something vintage.  One of my favourite sites is Pattern Bee , there are lots of good patterns but not just what I wanted.  Next step was to have a look on Flikr  and here I stumbled on a group of people who had posted embroidery transfers.   Problem was, you had to join the group.  Then I saw the same name turn up on Sharon b's new blog so I decided to join.  Oh boy!!  There are over 1,700 transfers here for personal use.   In all there are 57 pages of vintage embroidery transfers.

I think that I will use these chooks.  But then again.......

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

My little Xmas tree

Well my little embroidery kit that I bought in Houston because I having sewing withdrawal pains is finally finished.  It looks so simple but was sooo complex.  But, it does make a good Xmas decoration.

I also went a bought an expensive chain for the Madonna medal that my friend Pam gave me.  It had to be special because this was a special gift.

One down

One of my sewing projects for this week is finished.  I had to have it done for Thursday night's Xmas party.  Everyone in our quilting group was given fabric and the challenge to make something from it as a gift for a member of the group.

The fabric was Japanese in design.

There wasn't enough to make anything substantial from it so I choose two other cotton fabric to compliment this one. 

I was going to make a cushion but then I saw a piece of vinyl coated cotton and changed my mind.

I have never sewn with this material before so a little experimentation was called for.  I found that a Jeans needle (or a No 16) worked the best.  I lengthened the stitch length to lessen the number of holes the needle made in the fabric.  As I was lining it with cotton I didn't have to sew on the shinny side of the fabric and I just adjusted the stitch to suit the thickness of the fabrics passing under the needle.  I did experiment with sewing directly onto the shinny side of the fabric and found that the stitch became small because the feed dogs couldn't grab the fabric.  You could over come this by placing tissue paper under the fabric as this will tear away.

As I have so many projects to finish this week I will put up the pattern and instructions for this bag next week.  Since finishing it I have thought of how I could improve it by putting a zipper closing in the top.  I do this all the time.  Think of improvements when I have finished a project.  Oh well! Next one.