Christmas Madness and a Blanket.

Hello all you lovely people I hope that you have all had a great Christmas and you enjoyed the company of family and friends, ate loads of yummy food and got lots of nice presents.  I know I'm probably in the minority but I'm always glad when it's all over, lets face it for us Mums it's a lot of hard work, I always collapse into the chair at the end of Christmas day absolutely exhausted, it was 10 30pm before I was able to do that this year. 

I had planned a buffet for 4pm, everything was set, the table looked lovely, son 3 had prepared some amazing roast potatoes

to go with the pulled beef I had cooked in the slow cooker along with mini quiches and pizza's, sausage rolls, I catered for the vegetarians too in fact I'd made enough for the whole street I think. Christmas day is my eldest sons birthday so of course I have to think of that too and prepare his favourites.  Anyway they all arrived over an hour late! the crisp roast potatoes had gone cold as had everything else. You know you could cry when you put so much effort into everything and want it to be perfect but my lovely son 3 said 'stop stressing, it's their loss Mother lets have ours and if theirs is cold it serves them right'  so that's just what we did all washed down with a satisfying glass of wine and everything tasted amazing for us at least.

On Boxing day I decided I was going to take it easy and treat the family out for a meal, I'd booked the table weeks ago and had phoned to confirm and give the menu choices.  I even managed to get all the family there on time for 2 30pm which is no mean feat I have to tell you (see above) They seated us at a table and then promptly forgot all about us, son 2 had to tell them twice that we were waiting but it was well over an hour before we were actually served with our first course.  The manager eventually appeared full of apologies and said that there was a party with a similar name and they had gotten us mixed up. We were moved to a beautifully set table which is where we should have been seated in the first place and everything went smoothly from then on, although my daughter and son in law had to leave early so didn't even have their meal!  They did knock something off the bill which was only right under the circumstances I think.  

When I want everything to go smoothly it never seems to but that's just normal for anything I try to plan haha, we still enjoyed the meal once it was all sorted but like I said before thank goodness it's all over for another year.

And just before the year is over I want to squeeze this in right at the end...

Finished just in the nick of time for 2016

Those 15 balls of random yarn turned into this single bed sized blanket

This has got to be one of the easiest most satisfying blankets you would ever make, it grows quickly and you get to see all those lovely coloured stripes appearing like magic before your eyes.

The edging is lovely too, it is of course the very aptly named cosy stripe blanket designed by the lovely Lucy from Attic 24 you can find the pattern here.

It has to be said that the blanket didn't take all 15 balls of yarn it actually took 828 grams which is a very satisfying stash bust I think, it measured in at 46 inches x 78. 

I will be totting up the Stashbusting totals to see everyone's total stash bust for 2016, I hope that all you stashaholics will join me to bust even more stash in 2017.