Are You Hanging Up A Stocking On Your Wall?

 

Are you hanging up a stocking on your wall
Are you hoping that the snow will start to fall
Do you ride on down the hillside
On a buggy you have made
When you land upon your head
And you've been 'Slade'

Merry Xmas Everybody - Slade

Suddenly it's 1973, I'm 10 and loving this great new Christmas song by the band Slade (click here if you'd like to hear it!).

 I'm still loving it 40 years later and I'm going to be bold and suggest that some of the best Christmas songs ever came out of the UK back in the 70s and 80s, far too many to list here but an appropriate opening to a post about my very first Christmas Stocking.

At work here in Manhattan, we Manhattan LQS Staffers are having a Christmas Stocking competition.  I haven't made a stocking before but knew immediately it had to be something incredibly appropriate to me, the one British member of the team.

I adapted an Elf Stocking pattern available here on Sew4Home, adding batting and a few other changes and used a Timeless Treasures panel of the Union flag (needs must as, unfortunately, this panel is designed incorrectly with all the white sections the same width - this is a pet hate of mine when I see quilted/crafty variations of my country's flag across the internet and also when I see the white sections created to different widths but upside down!!!).

Do you think any of the customers will guess it's mine?

My favourite Christmas song is actually Fairytale of New York (1987) by The Pogues and featuring Kirsty MacColl, if you haven't heard it you've missed a treat so here's a video link and also a link to the lyrics which might come in handy for those struggling to understand the Irish accent!


Have you hung your stocking yet and what's your all-time favourite Christmas song?

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Diamond Jubilee Weekend

The Union Flag
(a quick British lesson - although the flag is commonly known as the Union Jack,
'jack' is a shipping term and it refers to the Union Flag when it's flying on ship)

I've spent the weekend watching lots of British tv and getting myself even more loved up about the monarchy.  I'm so disappointed not to be home at this very special time so I'm making sure I don't miss out on any special programmes about it.

So far I've most enjoyed a programme with Prince Charles sharing with us the Royal Family's home-made family cine-footage and I was quite surprised just how much I enjoyed watching 'On Her Majesty's Service' with Gary Barlow (of Take That fame) working with Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber to write a Jubilee song and travelling around the countries of the commonwealth to record parts for the track.

Hope this link works for you whatever country you're in so you can all have a listen:

 Sing - for The Diamond Jubilee

While I've been doing all this I have, of course, been busy prepping more stuff ready for my free motion quilting course next week at CQ, Manhattan.  I had to make up a quilt sandwich so that when we get to class we can just get cracking with the really fun stuff.