More advent swaps

The Advent Swap is coming to a close now, only two days and it will be Christmas Day and four days after that Keith and I will be on our way to Austria for New Year. Not sure what 2010 will bring but we both look forward to a fresh start, 2009 has been a difficult year for our family.
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In the meantime I want to catch up with the Advent Swaps: Day19 brought emery boards with a picture of a ballet dancer on the front. It was difficult to make out what the picture was at first, we thought it was mountains!! on turning them sideways though the true picture emerged. I'm always short of emery boards so they'll come in handy.

Day 20 is a magnetic fridge notebook and pen, my old one is getting a bit bare so this also is a timely gift.

Day 21 brought this lovely coaster and mug warmer. I need to adjust the mug warmer a bit as our mugs are slightly shallower than the warmer.

Day 22 and a new diary for 2010, this one is useful as it also has an address book and spare note pad.

Today's gift is a small metal handbag picture frame with a photo of Iris Joy. It's lovely to put a face to the lady I've been swapping with.

I had a hour to pass this afternoon between finishing the ironing and rewashing the kitchen floor (Buster has feet that hold the mud!!). I decided to do a bit of clearing out of some of my stuff and came across these quilted blocks I did years ago. They are machine embroidery blocks done when I first bought my Brother Galaxie several years ago. I had completely forgot them but decided to sew some together to make a cushion. Unfortunately only four were the same size so I'll need to put my thinking cap on to finish the cushion.

These are two more blocks but they are sewn in a different colour and slightly heavier thread than those above so wouldn't look right together.

I suppose I could always turn them into coasters.

We're going out to dinner tomorrow night with friends and family. My brother and his wife were due to go to New York for Christmas but their flight from Newcastle airport was cancelled at the last minute. Their tour company did try very hard to get them to Heathrow in time for their flight but without avail. They are very disappointed but at least they will get the total amount of their tour back so that at least is something. Just hope we don't have similar problems next week.