Tomorrow a trolley load of vintage Christmas decorations heads out. A friend who has a very large collection of Christmas decorations could have had them before christmas if members of her family hadn't had health problems. The collection is held in 2 shoe boxes (sneaker boxes not wimpy little fashion shoe boxes!) with extra stuff that probably could have fitted in 2 or 3 more boxes if I had them! They had been sitting on my camping chair (I haven't camped for at least 10 years) but I kept the chair when I sold my gear & kept stuff on it. Don't need to keep stuff on it anymore, so I'll ask around - we're heading to a festival late next week, & someone might like it! It's a very comfortable chair.

Several shoe boxes of small & miniature decorations went to a charity shop a few years ago, & now all I have left is a small box of cross stitch decorations I made yearly from early 90s to a few years back, plus two 6" trees & a new 2 or 3" tree given to me at christmas. Well done me! The trees live permanently on my bookcase. The small box is a piece of nostalgia - the seniors among us might just remember PUNCH CARDS! When I started in the Federal public service in 1973 we had punch card operators & they sent their cards off to "The Computer" in Head Office in these boxes. Of course I long ago covered the box in Christmas paper, & I no longer display them, but it's not easy giving craft stuff away.

I recently went thru a very large box that holds my collection of vintage fancywork & pulled out about a dozen or so pieces I want to keep, the others will slowly go back to the charity shops I bought them from!

For a couple of years I've been working on vintage embroideries, all the "useless" domestic embroideries our mothers & grandmothers decorated their lives with. No surface was undecorated - one of my favourite items are sandwich tray mats - can't put sandwiches on bare china! & I've embroidered lots of doilies & other items like pretty little pockets to put match boxes in, or dainty little handtowels, & I'll be using them to make a summer bed cover, not a quilt. I can only find pics of quilts blocks made from damaged pieces, I want to use my complete embroideries.

sandra