28-12-24 and the Third Day of Christmas

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the weekend - although it does feel like a constant weekend right now with many people off work until after the New Year.

Plans have changed.  My friend, Sonja, was coming over from her home in Milton Keynes this morning for a few days but, sadly, she has an upset tum and is delaying it until tomorrow when, fingers crossed, she will feel fine again.  I am sorry but not sorry.  Just in case it is something transferrable, she's giving it time to work through and I am grateful.

I spent some time in the kitchen yesterday and now there's a lovely, thick lamb and veg (including some dried country veg mix) simmering a way in the slow cooker and three lamb and Christmas veg pasta bake portions in the freezer.    I'll add the lamb to the soup last thing so it stays in chunks and that will also provide me with easy freezer meals for January.

Then I will freeze the rest of the lamb in stock for roast dinners and that's the Christmas leftovers all done and dusted.  Yay!

What with the above and the stuff I didn't use, I am well stocked for quite a while and January is going to be another low spend month anyway.

I started the Persian tiles crochet thingy and it isn't as hard as it looks.  In fact, the hardest part is negotiating the two patterns.

Two, because there's the basic patters colourway and pattern where you make sixteen octagons all the same, nine Persian Granny Squares, twelve Large Granny Squares, and so on or . . .

There's the alternative using different colour way that the designer (Janie Crow) calls the Marrakesh blanket and that's the one I am doing.  So there's eight of Octagon one, four of Octagon two and three . .  etc.  That's not so bad as the colourways are clearly stated, you just have to read from one pattern to the other.
What makes it slightly more awkward is that the colours in the kit don't completely match the colours on the list.  It's not hard to work out and I have noted the differences on the list but . . .

So I have nearly done three octagons, all the same, in car factory way - three round ones, three round twos, etc.  AND, given that there are fourteen rounds, I am sewing in the ends as I go.  Having to do them all at the end would be a deal breaker, I think.

(Imagine music)

On the Third Day of Christmas,

I gave to myself . . .

one cross stitch kit,

one coffee pod

and a cho-co-late liqueur

(pear flavoured today)

The kit was half price from Hobbycraft and I don't know what I will do with the finished thing - make a card, probably.

Given that I have another day to myself and I now have new  crochet and knitting projects and a mini cross stitch kit, guess what I will be doing apart from the usual housework!!

What are your plans for this Twixmas Day?  xx