Poncetastic Mark 2

[Trumpton]

Just starting the new thread in haste .

Hello! Name changed but I'm one of the posters you inspired with narcissi. I'm urging mine on but not confident they will flower by Christmas. The ones in compost are growing faster than the ones on pebbles. I've got them inside and they seem happy enough. They are about an inch or so tall so far .

Popping on so this shows up in TIO

Excuse the glitter. It's gets everywhere!

Thanks, Trumpton for starting this one.

Thank you for the new thread!

I've decided that clearly I don't have enough to do before Christmas, so have ordered bookmark cross stitch kits for the kids!

I'm now speed stitching at night! I'm a fool.

I have my poncetastic advent calendar up and ready to go for the morning. It was a kit bought at a MN meet-up at the knitting and stitching show about 10 years ago. I've bought another kit to make one for DD1's first home but the pandemic has meant that she hasn't actually started house hunting moved out yet

I have been so buoyed up for Christmas this year by these lovely threads!

Today I attempted to turn a top DD wore at her first Christmas time into a cushion cover for her room. I just loved the design so much but it’s taken 3 years to work round to it!

I’m no seamstress but I am quite pleased with my attempt at button holes. The buttons stay in the holes at least!

I've been happily colouring in my hattifant advent calendar (thanks to whoever it was who linked to that on the last thread!) and am all ready for tomorrow!

SocraticCat it was me! That looks brill; definitely want it now.

My Betsy Benn one is a fair bit bigger than I thought it would be so I haven't actually put it up yet. Think that's a job for tomorrow once the girls are at school, before I go to work.

Thanks @Trumpton for the new thread and @VivaJen for the last one.

I’m just catching up on the end of the last thread. I think crocheting around the light cable deserves a special poncetastic award! The FellatioNelson Award perhaps?

The dc have come up with a plan to create a time lapse video of us putting up the tree and decorating the living room, so now I’ll have to clear my diary on Wednesday to make it actually presentable. and start crocheting cable covers on Thursday

Oh my word .
I just fell down the Hattifant worm hole .
So many lovely printable designs on Etsy, I want them all !
How did I not know about them before ?

Trumpton she occasionally posts freebies on fb too if you follow Hattifant, & I'm sure I've signed up to emails and had them that way too. I quite often use them with my Rainbows and Guides.

Hey everyone 🎄🎄🎄

So many beautiful things on the thread.

I’ve not been poncing, because my husband was taken to hospital completely unexpectedly on Sunday evening, with severe chest pains. 😔😔 he’s had to stay in and is in the cardiology ward. So Sunday night/yesterday were a bit of a write off in terms of doing anything much at all...but today I might do some pre-christmas spring cleaning and distract myself that way, and then I might try to do some sewing to calm my mind a little.

(Sorry to bring the thread down)

I’ve put most of the decorations up now, the tree is up, but I need to go back and do some more of the stars and also make some Danish woven paper hearts. I might take an evening for each and just get them all done.

I also wanted to fix some little hearts that I made a few years back - they need a new hanging ribbon sewn on, so I might see if I can get round to that.

@lucysmam not sure if you are all done with your class Christmas dinner decorations, but I was throwing away one of the cravendale milk bottles (the smaller one) the other day and it struck me that it was a good shape for making a snowman - with just a few simple additions (paper eyes/buttons/cone for the carrot/maybe a crocheted scarf!) so I thought I’d mention it just in case you were still looking for ideas.

Meant to say I’m not sure if there are other milk bottles with a similar shape as well.

So sorry to hear your husband has been ill, HollyandIvy. I am sure we all hope he will recover very speedily.

Thank you. I’m just so glad I called 111 as he was being a typical man about it but I put my foot down. He’s alright, they’re taking very good care of him and they’re being very thorough with testing and finding out exactly what the issue is. He’s only early 40s and in quite good health so he doesn’t fit the typical profile for heart problems.

Again, sorry for talking about it here!

I bought a little Royal Copenhagen angel figurine on eBay last night, to stand with little one I bought last year. I like picking up little pieces like that to create a vintage feel.

I’m happy with the tree as well - I don’t usually use coloured lights but this year I have added some vintage-style lights. I saw you on the vintage lights thread TrickyD but I can’t remember if you’ve bought any?

Here’s the tree, I was going to get a real one this year as we’re finally in a house again, but I wanted to put one up now and I’m not sure I can be bothered to take it all down and do another one. So i think I’m just going to get a little real one for the dining room. I’ve fixed the lights since taking the photo, to sort out the empty area in the upper half of the tree.

I need to cover up the flexes & plugs!

No need to apologise for mentioning your husband’s illness here. This thread is a friendly haven miles from the snarky bitchy comments which appear elsewhere on MN. I am sure we all want to support you.

Yes, I was interested in vintage lights. But the closest I got to buying any was getting a string of wire lights from Amazon, made by the company with a German name which I now forget. The weird thing was I just bought a short string to see what they were like, £5.60, went back to buy more and they were £26.60!

Wow that’s quite a difference...you obviously got a bargain! Maybe you can use them elsewhere instead of on the tree.

I put this together last night with pot pourri, as a vehicle for our Christmas essential oil - frankincense and myrrh.😊😊 later in the season I will add greenery/foliage to make more of a feature of it.

HollyandIvy I hope your dh recovers well. That must be so stressful! Hopefully poncing will be a welcome distraction for you.

Me and dd2 are isolating again. I covered breakfast club with a staff member who has tested positive & took dd with me.

I'm hoping I can find most of what was on my list for town, online. I'm most fussed about the little trees and some lights that I was going to Poundland for - dd2's quite disappointed that we're missing most of the festive run up at school :( I'll have a look for more things to do with her tonight. We're going to bake...something this afternoon & hope that school will send some work!

Hello, could I join please? I’ve joined in this thread in previous years under other names but have nc as I expect this thread will be completely outing for me . Am late to it this year but still very committed to poncing.

I’m a knitter usually, occasionally a crocheter, but this year I’ve been at the sewing machine making a lot of masks. And then I made appliqued Halloween bags for the kids. This inspired me to finally get to grips with making a quilted advent calendar for the Dc. Also, DS (8) has ASD and doesn’t really play with toys, and has limited language, so has never asked for anything for Christmas before . However, this year he actually asked for an advent calendar so I was determined to deliver!

I found a design I liked and bought a jelly roll of fabric around 6 years ago when DS was 2, and was then too scared to dive in because it was going to be sooooo fiddly and beyond my prowess with a sewing machine! I have since had another DC so the challenge was to make 2. I’ve spent a LOT of time on these, choosing fabrics, finding all the bits I need, and cutting out and appliqueing teeny little numbers and bows for the ‘present’ pockets. Never done free-motion machine sewing before, never quilted, but after a fair bit of work through the month and a VERY late couple of nights over the weekend I finally finished 2 identical pocket calendars at 10.45pm last night! I can’t begin to add up the hours that have gone in (and all the unpicking....😬) but I love them. The pockets hold a chocolate and a small wooden decoration to hang on the ‘tree’ in the middle. DC seem happy.

Other than advent calendars, I’ve made my Christmas pudding, and cake, and mince meat. The mincemeat is mocking me from the cupboard as my oven stopped working on Friday . It took 6 weeks to get a spare part last time so I’m really nervous about getting it running again for Christmas. Seriously, it’s been nothing but trouble, I will never buy a Smeg appliance again! I can’t even replace it yet as I’m getting a new kitchen next year and don’t want a range cooker then. Sigh. It may have to be a Christmas casserole, quite seriously. I am gutted.

I’ll be back later to read back and talk knitting

Holly, sorry to hear about your DH. Was it completely out of the blue? Good job you made him take it seriously, I hope he gets home and well soon.

I started wrapping for parcels to go away today . 2 family parcels done ( I generally see them all about this time of year but missed last year due to chemo and this year ...... well we all know why ! ) however I have had great fun including copying Mr Christmas on Netflix and hot glueing sweets into a garland so when they pick one up the others follow !

This present is for my friend , I know she will appreciate the ponciness of it !

I think the original price was a mistake, Holly, but they honoured it. I have used them for the swag/garland on the sitting room fireplace. They are ideal for that. £5.60 was quite enough to pay for 50 lights, let alone £26.6O.

Lucysmam, what bad luck about the isolation. I am hoping our DGCs don't need it, so far their schools seem OK.

HalfWoman that is a fabulous calendar, such patience! A true heirloom to be.

Looking on the brighr side of your oven disaster, at least you can plan your Christmas dinner taking a non-repair into account. Much worse if it happened late on Christmas Eve.